Friday, April 3, 2009

Developing nations leading development?

This article suggests that, with this most recent G20 summit, we have just entered a world in which the United States is no longer the necessary partner in any major economic dealings.

"The presence of the world's top “developing” countries – notably China, India and Brazil – was not tokenism or ornament, as it has largely been at past summits. Those countries are now contributors, rather than recipients, of finance; without China's $50-billion commitment yesterday, the trade-finance package would not have worked.
But something important changed yesterday. It is no longer a case of Washington bailing out the world, with the help of a small group of wealthy European nations and sometimes Canada.
Yesterday, to an important degree, the world bailed out the United States. Mr. Brown compared it to the Marshall Plan, in which the U.S. government injected hundreds of millions into the European and Japanese economies after the war in exchange for Washington holding decisive power in most international bodies.
Yesterday, 65 years after Bretton Woods, the favour was returned."

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