Originally posted @ 6:54 pm, Sat 18th Oct 2008
What's in a word? or a phrase?
On Friday morning, David Cameron said - "In a single phrase, we need to change from irresponsible capitalism and irresponsible Government, to responsible free enterprise and responsible Government."
In his single phrase, Cameron sticks with the concept of Government, but feels he has to drop capitalism in favour of free enterprise.
Overall critics have been left confused by a Tory leader who talked about the need for a political truce in the current financial crisis, but dropped it pretty quick.
The Labour Gov't has focussed on keeping the financial systems working, knowing that in the medium to long term, the system should recover.
There's a value in avoiding chaos, such as happened in Iceland, where the banks are in receivership or administration, probably because of their lack of liquidity rather than their assets not backing up the value of their guarantees.
We get chaos when government action could have tidied the system over the problems, as so far, the British Government's action has demonstrated.
Cameron's Tories would have left us in chaos if in charge. They would have let Northern Rock crash. They would have let Bradford & Bingley go.
They would not have come up with Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling's proposals for buying shares in banks, with the expectation that in the medium to long term, we will get the money back. An investment against assets that we never hope or expect to have to sell.
Proposals and actions which even George W Bush has decided to copy.
Real leadership and real partnership at the highest level. Needed cos only global co-operation and oversight can deliver success in a global age.
Postscript: comments from Harold Meyerson, Washington Post -
"Amid all the mind-boggling developments of the past two weeks, however, perhaps the greatest is this: government is going global. ...
"... it took the collapse of finance to force governments to confront the limits of national power. Last weekend, the nations of Europe realized that they all had to embrace the identical recapitalization and deposit-insurance plan (devised by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown) to restore confidence in the financial sector. By so doing, they set a safety standard that the U.S., despite the ideological reluctance of the Bush Administration, was compelled to adopt as well.
" ... Brown, French President Nicholas Sarkozy and other European leaders are calling for the convening of a global conference to create some global rules of the road -- a Bretton Woods 2.0. ...
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