UN calls for new 'Bretton Woods' financial rules
Diplomats and economists urged world powers to update global financial rules that helped nations cope with problems that followed World War II.
By Agencies |
UNITED NATIONS: Diplomats and economists on Thursday urged world powers to update global financial rules that helped nations cope with problems that followed World War II.
``This is a global crisis and it requires a global response,'' Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E Stiglitz of Columbia University told the U N General Assembly.
Stiglitz and others called for updating the system created at New Hampshire's Bretton Woods, which established the international monetary protocols governing trade, banking and other financial relations among nations.
``We are now at another Bretton Woods moment,'' Stiglitz said. UN General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann convened a debate on the global financial meltdown to position the world organization squarely at the center of a possible fix.
Because the current system ``shifts the burden to poor countries and households ... global solutions are needed,'' said development economist and former UN official Sakiko Fukuda-Parr of the New School.
At the 1944 Bretton Woods conference of major powers, the US-led negotiations spawned the two major sister UN institutions, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Stiglitz argued that only the UN now has the inclusiveness and legitimacy needed to draft new global financial rules.
``Those in the north cannot take actions to help themselves at the expense of those in the developing nations,'' he cautioned. ``Any response cannot be based on trickle-down economics.''
D'Escoto, a Nicaraguan priest who once was foreign minister of Nicaragua for the leftist Sandanistas, sounded a note of skepticism about expanding the major powers' capitalist approaches.
He won applause from diplomats at the 192-nation assembly hall when he said the solution must involve more than prescriptions handed down by the Group of Eight industrialized nations.
``The stakes are too high are half-measures or quick fixes put together behind closed doors,'' d'Escoto said. ``Solutions must involve all countries in a democratic process.''
As he sounded a major theme of his presidency _ that the major powers monopolize the U.N.'s powerhouse Security Council _ a huge blue and white-lettered banner behind the speakers read: ``For the Democratization of the United Nations. Every country counts.''
D'Escoto called the financial crisis a ``game-changing'' event which reveals that ``irrational exuberance'' masked a system based on ``unbridled greed and pervasive corruption enabled by governments who lost sight of their responsibility to protect citizens.''
He added: ``It would be folly to put it back together again as it once was.''
Instead, he said, ``All nations must be subject to financial discipline. ... Let us be guided for a passion for justice and fairness and inclusiveness.''
``This is a global crisis and it requires a global response,'' Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E Stiglitz of Columbia University told the U N General Assembly.
Stiglitz and others called for updating the system created at New Hampshire's Bretton Woods, which established the international monetary protocols governing trade, banking and other financial relations among nations.
``We are now at another Bretton Woods moment,'' Stiglitz said. UN General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann convened a debate on the global financial meltdown to position the world organization squarely at the center of a possible fix.
Because the current system ``shifts the burden to poor countries and households ... global solutions are needed,'' said development economist and former UN official Sakiko Fukuda-Parr of the New School.
At the 1944 Bretton Woods conference of major powers, the US-led negotiations spawned the two major sister UN institutions, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Stiglitz argued that only the UN now has the inclusiveness and legitimacy needed to draft new global financial rules.
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``Those in the north cannot take actions to help themselves at the expense of those in the developing nations,'' he cautioned. ``Any response cannot be based on trickle-down economics.''
D'Escoto, a Nicaraguan priest who once was foreign minister of Nicaragua for the leftist Sandanistas, sounded a note of skepticism about expanding the major powers' capitalist approaches.
He won applause from diplomats at the 192-nation assembly hall when he said the solution must involve more than prescriptions handed down by the Group of Eight industrialized nations.
``The stakes are too high are half-measures or quick fixes put together behind closed doors,'' d'Escoto said. ``Solutions must involve all countries in a democratic process.''
ADVERTISEMENT
As he sounded a major theme of his presidency _ that the major powers monopolize the U.N.'s powerhouse Security Council _ a huge blue and white-lettered banner behind the speakers read: ``For the Democratization of the United Nations. Every country counts.''
D'Escoto called the financial crisis a ``game-changing'' event which reveals that ``irrational exuberance'' masked a system based on ``unbridled greed and pervasive corruption enabled by governments who lost sight of their responsibility to protect citizens.''
ADVERTISEMENT
He added: ``It would be folly to put it back together again as it once was.''
Instead, he said, ``All nations must be subject to financial discipline. ... Let us be guided for a passion for justice and fairness and inclusiveness.''
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