Wednesday, Apr. 1 2009 @ 4:20PM
Are
all the answers in Germany? Has the world changed that much in only 60 years? Yeah, maybe.
After all, America has a black president, and the whole world is in financial collapse.
Earlier today, I noted that the New York Times pointed to Adolf Hitler's success in using stimulus plans to spend Germany's way out of the Great Depression.
But now we're talking about 21st century Germany, where the German magazine Der Spiegel offers the best coverage so far of the G-20 summit in London.
And the best part may be "Leading Economists Speak out on G-20: 'I Doubt the US Is Serious'", wherein various experts — real ones, like Joseph Stiglitz, Harold James, and IMF economist Kenneth Rogoff — get more play than they usually get in the U.S. mainstream media. These are quick reads: paragraphs of quotes, with no exposition.
(It's not strictly correct to say that those experts get no play in the U.S., of course. The economic historian James has an excellent web-only piece, "Is China the New America?," in Foreign Policy. But then, Foreign Policy might as well be a foreign language for as much play its stories get in the mainstream media here.)
In Der Spiegel's massive but well-organized package, start with "Obama Goes on Charm Offensive in London," Carsten Volkery's shrewd piece that itself starts:
Diplomatic skill was the order of the day when Barack Obama made his first major appearance on the world stage. The US president arrived in London ahead of the G-20 summit to defuse conflicts, break down mistrust and revive contacts. And he still managed to look relaxed.
And as soothing as Dick Cheney and George W. Bush were blustery when it came to hooking up with European leaders other than Tony Blair. Volkery describes it:
Obama was careful to be diplomatic when presenting his own position, eager to avoid any hint of reproach. The US, he said, cannot reverse the economic collapse on its own. In the past, he continued, the world economy has depended too much on the insatiable appetite of US consumers. In the future, that will have to change.
But the key is how much of an advantage it is for the European press that they get to look at Obama from a remove: They tend to see what else is going on besides his charm. Volkery notes that for Obama, there's "more at stake than just the global economy." How could there be? Volkery explains:
The G-20 summit provided him a welcome opportunity to continue the process of reassembling the shards of trans-Atlantic diplomacy left behind by his predecessor. Mini-summits held on the G-20 sidelines were equally important in this regard. On Wednesday, he met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao for the first time. Relations with the two countries had suffered during George W. Bush's presidency. Obama, for his part, has for weeks been talking of a new beginning.
Now if you want to get to particulars of the global financial crisis itself, turn to Der Spiegel's Q&A with Stiglitz, "Government Stimulus Plans are 'Not Enough.'" Stiglitz's gloomy outlook — "It's going to be bad, very bad" — is at least spiced with lots of common sense, and the Q's are almost as interesting as the A's.
Meanwhile, the German mag's Andreas Lorenz stays in Beijing, from where he files "Held Hostage by a Weak Dollar: China Looks For Financial Freedom at G-20," a piece about China's "ideas for a radical shake-up of the international financial system." Good stuff from Lorenz:
The Chinese see the G-20 as a golden opportunity — politically, to finally establish themselves as an important player on the international stage, and economically, to demand a bigger role for itself and other developing nations. Just as in Mao's day, contemporary China sees itself as the voice for third-world victims of the West's "hegemonial powers."
Where at previous conferences they were happy to stay in the background, this time China's officials will try to set the tone. The chairman of Beijing's central bank Zhou Xiachuan has already demanded a new international reserve currency under the supervision of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
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