The London G20

I'm with Sarko' and Merklel on this one.France and Germany have long held out against the excesses of un-fettered free-market anglo-saxon economic model.I hope they stick to their guns and hold out for some real fundamental change to how the global financial market operates.Rhetoric aside it really does look like Brown and Obama just want to reflate the bubble and get back to business as usual in the financial world.That option may work short term,but whether it's 6 months or 6 years,without real radical reform to the way global capitalism operates we will end up eventually back where we are now,only worse!

There appears little doubt that it's "Anglo-saxon" neo-liberal capitalism that's created this sorry mess.Germany,France and the other west european countries are affected, in part, from the recklessness of their own financial institutions involvement in "casino-capitalism". But also ,and more significantly,they are exposed to the east european countries economic melt-down.The irony is "Old Europe" bank rolled "New Europe's" anglo-saxon neo-liberal economic adventure leaving them uniquely cluster-rogered by the collapse of the anglo-saxon model.I can see why they're well pissed off!

Of course the French and the rest of mainland europe are also always closer to popular revolt than the US and UK.It's in their historical DNA and we can see this illustrated in the more virulent protests across the continent,as opposed to the more passive populations of the anglo-world.The threat of the crisis leading to political instability must seem so much more tangible to Sarkozy and Merkel and I can fully understand why they want to shift away from "casino capitalism" to a more equitable,regulated model.

But will the US and UK buy into this solution? One requiring effectively the establishment of some sort of supranational body to impose the ultimate "top-down" solution to regulate and reign in the global markets that have run amok? I very much doubt they will! The global markets as they currently exist essentially hold a gun to our collective head,limiting the actions that can be taken by governments........and that's the main problem we have! Any radical moves to reign in and regulate would likely be met with a swift negative reaction in the markets leading to potentially more problems.

Maybe things just haven't gotten bad enough yet? Maybe the populations of the anglo world need to "grow a pair" and let the politicians that control them know that they can't take their passivity for granted? I'm sure we will eventually arrive at the establishment of a new economic global order closer to the vision of Germany and France,I just don't think it's going to happen at this G20 meeting.

Hopefully it's a position the we'll arrive at sooner rather than later,before we get to complete economic melt-down,civic disorder and bloodshed!