For a Progressive Response to the Global Financial Crisis: SI Commission on Global Financial Issues

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The SI Commission on Global Financial Issues met in New York on 31 March in advance of the G-20 summit to be held in London to address the global financial crisis.

The Chair of the Commission Professor Joseph Stiglitz introduced the discussion, which covered the global social democratic response to the crisis. Considering the new phase of the crisis affecting emerging and developing countries and the urgency of the situation of many people around the world today, the Commission issued a message to the leaders of the G-20 calling for decisive international action.

Criticising the inadequacies and fallacies in the economic system which have led to unbridled financial practices, damage to the environment and inequality around the globe, the Commission called for a new set of rules for the world economy, a set in which citizens are not subservient to the market. It stated that it was necessary to guarantee that markets serve people’s needs, instead of letting them bear the worst of the crisis.

Demanding that global leaders act now to restructure, re-regulate, and reform the global financial system, the Commission called for new standards governing financial activities by function, the establishment of mandatory new standards for transparency and timeliness, as well as the chartering of a new World Finance Organisation to set global standards and globalise enforcement. The Commission also called for the closure of tax havens.
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FULL ARTICLE
http://www.socialistinternational.org/viewArticle.cfm?ArticleID=1993


Message to the London G-20 Summit from the Socialist International Commission on Global Financial Issues, New York, 31 March 2009
http://www.socialistinternational.org/viewArticle.cfm?ArticlePageID=1360