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Keep spending or cut back? The big G20 debate
Business Digest: Britain not alone in austerity drive - but Obama fears 1930s recession
The upcoming G20 summit in Toronto is likely to see a sharp difference of opinion between the United States and its economic partners over fiscal policy. President Obama is worried the fragile world economy will slip back into recession - as it did in the 1930s - if spending is tightened too severely.
But he's taking this line just as politicians around the world - including, of course, Britain - are embracing a new desire for austerity, chastened by the example of Greece, where a nearly $1 trillion rescue fund was necessary to prop up the economy. In China, officials worry that continued stimulus could create unsustainable asset bubbles. Canada, hosting the summit, is pressing for deficit reduction.
"The No. 1 topic of conversation [at the G20] will be how quickly should fiscal stimulus be withdrawn," says Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. "The US is at one extreme [pushing growth] while the rest of the world is much more anxious."
Read a full report at the Wall Street Journal. ·
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Now, in 2010, almost two years after Barack Obama's election, all is not cheerful among grass roots America with the trad-trillion budget indebtedness we thought would be lessoned, not increased, nor the hows and whys the tax increases to us and generations to come over here are setting up programs that ultimately weaken, not strengthen us.
No, all is not quiet on this western front called America.
In my opinion, Barack Obama's smooth and silky speech-making that made such happy liberal-go-luckies over here shove him into office, is resulting with increasing disenchantment by idealistic conservatives and pragmatic liberals. It is pouring the proverbial wake-up caffeine down our throats.
It is NOT working. And it is my take that our November elections will support us and, thus, you. I urge the participants of the upcoming G20 meetings in Toronto to be aware that the disastrous results of President Barack Obama's "fiscal stimulus" over here in the last 18 months or so is awakening a Sleeping Giant.
Us.