CHICAGO, Oct. 13 (UPI) -- It may be a false dawn, but the initial indications are that the worst of the Crash of '08 may be over. The Asian and European markets are rising, the world's central banks have agreed to make as many dollars available as are needed, and the U.S. Treasury laid out its plans to spend its $800 billion bailout fund.
But if the financial markets get through this week without what the head of the International Monetary Fund called "the systemic financial meltdown," then the man to thank will be British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
After his decision last week to guarantee the entire British banking system and its debts, Brown flew to Paris over the weekend to brief French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. They then agreed on a joint pledge with the 13 other leaders of the eurozone to recapitalize banks and guarantee lending between them.
"For Europe, the stakes could not be higher and this is the moment of truth," Brown told them.
Britain has not adopted the euro and is thus not part of the eurozone, but it was Brown's plan that they adopted to save the European currency. It is the plan that the G7 as a whole should have adopted over the weekend but for what seems to be the prickly personal pride of U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. And if this week does not become the turning point in the Crash and the capital markets refuse to unclog themselves, a lot of fingers are likely to start pointing at Paulson.
Paulson, whose decision to let Lehman Brothers collapse into bankruptcy is now looking like the disastrous mistake that turned the banking crisis into catastrophe, is in fact preparing to issue a blanket bank guarantee very like what the British and Europeans have now done. But pleading that the United States is very different with fewer nationwide banks and more large regional banks, and with congressional approval required for further funding commitments, Paulson insisted the U.S. response be different -- or at least presented differently.
The Lehman bankruptcy has left considerable bad blood between Paulson and the Europeans. The French openly blame his decision for the depth of the crisis. The British say that it was Paulson's refusal to provide any backing for Lehman's trading positions when the markets opened Monday morning that aborted the proposed buyout by Barclays. The Americans counter that it was the British government's fault for insisting Barclays get support from its shareholders in a crisis when there was no time to do so. In Congress last week there were suggestions that having let Lehman die, Paulson intervened to save AIG because his old firm, Goldman Sachs, would face heavy losses if the insurance giant floundered.
But one of the achievements of this last weekend was that everybody agreed to put the Lehman incident behind them and focus on the future, with a pledge that it would not be allowed to happen again, with a broad G7 agreement to "use all available tools to support systematically important financial institutions and prevent their failure."
There are various explanations of the weekend events from different participants in the IMF and World Bank meetings in Washington and the meeting of the G7 finance ministers. The one fact on which all are agreed is that the communique of the G7 meeting, in which they agreed to do whatever it takes to save the global financial system, had been drafted and agreed on before they actually met.
Part of the problem is that grand intentions are so much hot air without the detailed commitments to back them up, and a lot of that detail is still being negotiated. The Germans, for example, indicated to their European partners in Paris at the weekend that they were prepared to put something like $400 billion into their own stabilization fund but that the plan had to be coordinated with the provincial governments that own the big provincial savings banks. The French were still arguing whether the national governments or the European Central Bank should be the body to guarantee inter-bank loans.
The answer seems to be both, and all EU members, even those not in the eurozone, will be involved in the unprecedented rescue. The EU as a whole is now committed to:
-- guarantee medium-term loans between banks for up to five years and take steps to recapitalize and if necessary restructure failed banks.
-- ensure appropriate liquidity conditions for financial institutions.
-- facilitate the funding of banks.
-- provide financial institutions with additional capital resources.
-- allow for an efficient recapitalization of distressed banks.
-- ensure sufficient flexibility in the implementation of accounting rules.
-- enhance cooperation among European countries.
"Governments remain committed to avoid any failure of systematically relevant institutions, through appropriate means including recapitalization. In doing so, we will be watchful regarding the interest of taxpayers and ensure that existing shareholders and management bear the due consequences of the intervention," the European leaders pledged.
Around the world, other countries fell into line with the G7 and European commitments, with Australia and the Emirates issuing bank deposit guarantees, Taiwan limiting its stock market, and Saudi Arabia announcing its own bank bailout fund. Moreover, the International Working Group of Sovereign Wealth Funds, representing the 26 most important countries with such funds, agreed Saturday on a set of international standards on transparency, accountability and good governance with a commitment to financially (not politically) motivated investments and "to helping maintain a stable global financial system."
Between them, the SWFs involved manage assets worth $3.6 trillion, a sum they expect to grow to more than $4.5 trillion by 2010 and up to $10 trillion by 2015. Over the last 12 months SWFs have invested a total of $92 billion in the global financial industry, and they are likely to be a key component of the eventual recovery, so long as recipient countries impose no political restrictions on their investments. This is what the new system of standards is designed to avoid.
