Home > G20 > And Now the Sub-Text… What the G20 Said, and What they Really Mean

And Now the Sub-Text… What the G20 Said, and What they Really Mean

April 9th, 2009
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Communiqués such as the one issued following last week’s G20 Summit in London are meticulously drafted in a diplomatic language all their own. It is designed, not to be understood, but to provide a warm glow of confidence that something will be done, and that this something will make everything alright for everybody – even if we can’t quite figure out what exactly it is.

Here we offer an interpretation of what the first part of the G20 communiqué really means and what it might have said before it was translated into diplomatese – what the G20 Leaders really wanted to tell the rest of us, but didn’t quite like to say in as many words…

Para What the Communiqué says: What the G20 Leaders really meant:
1 We, the Leaders of the Group of Twenty, met in London on 2 April 2009. We had a really important meeting to decide the future of the world, but we didn’t invite you because we don’t think you matter.
2 We face the greatest challenge to the world economy in modern times; We’ve got you into a real mess,
a crisis which has deepened since we last met, and we’ve just gone on making it worse and worse –
which affects the lives of women, men, and children in every country, in fact, we’re thoroughly screwing up everybody’s lives.
and which all countries must join together to resolve. So we’ll tell you what to do, and you just get on and do as you’re told,
A global crisis requires a global solution. or we’ll blame you when we make things even worse.
3 We start from the belief that prosperity is indivisible; We won’t let you get any less poor unless we can get a whole lot richer;
that growth, to be sustained,has to be shared; but we’ll have to let you get a little bit less poor, if that’s what it takes.
and that our global plan for recovery We’ll decide how to run the world economy,
must have at its heart the needs and jobs of hard-working families, and you’d better work damned hard for us if you want to get anything out of it.
not just in developed countries but in emerging markets and the poorest countries of the world too; And don’t think you can get away with it just because we haven’t let you have any say in any of this.
and must reflect the interests, not just of today’s population, but of future generations too. (I suppose we ought to put in something to keep the greens happy – after all, some of them have votes in G20 countries….)
We believe that the only sure foundation for sustainable globalisation We want our companies to be able to go on screwing the rest of you for as long as possible,
and rising prosperity for all which means people having more money to buy more products they don’t really need.
is an open world economy So we’ll go on tearing down any obstacles in their way,
based on market principles, letting big companies do what they like,
effective regulation, subject only to regulations which (might) stop them actually destroying themselves and each other in the process;
and strong global institutions. and we’ll go on fixing the rules through the “global” institutions which we run for them – but we’ll give them even more power over you.
4 We have today therefore pledged to do whatever is necessary to: We’ve screwed up the world economy, so we feel we ought to pretend we’re going to do something about it.
· restore confidence, We want to con you all into believing what we say we’ll do is magically going to make everything all right,
growth, so we can start getting richer again,
and jobs; and get you all working for us again to make us richer still.
· repair the financial system We’ll paper over the cracks of the financial system we have so comprehensively wrecked,
to restore lending; so you can borrow money from us, get even further into debt, and pay us even more interest.
· strengthen financial regulation We’ll put in place a few token rules for the companies we haven’t bothered to regulate until now -
to rebuild trust; but just enough to make you think it’ll all be different this time.
· fund and reform our international financial institutions And we’ll make sure you can only get the money you need to dig your way out of the crisis we’ve created from the IMF and World Bank (which we run), so that you’ll have to go on following the policies we want you to. We’ll just make a few superficial changes to shift the balance of power among G20 members a bit.
to overcome this crisis That way, we can make sure you all do what we tell you to dig us out of this mess,
and prevent future ones; and stop you screwing us like we’ve just screwed you.
· promote global trade and investment We’ll make sure our transnational companies can go on ripping you off,
and reject protectionism, and stop you putting in place any of the trade restrictions we used to get rich in the first place,
to underpin prosperity; and to make sure we just go on getting richer and richer.
· build an inclusive, green, and sustainable recovery. (Oops! Nearly forgot those damned greens again….)
By acting together to fulfil these pledges You’ll just have to do what we tell you,
we will bring the world economy out of recession and drag us out of the mess we’ve got ourselves into (however little you might think we deserve it).
and prevent a crisis like this from recurring in the future. It’ll only create another crisis – but the next one will be completely different….
5. The agreements we have reached today, Anyway, this is what we decided behind your backs.
to treble resources available to the IMF to $750 billion, We’ll channel lots more money (including some of your money) through the IMF, so that you’ll have to follow the policies we tell you.
to support a new SDR allocation of $250 billion, We’ll get the IMF to print still more money, and give two-thirds of it to us – even though we’ve stopped it doing this every time you’ve asked it to.
to support at least $100 billion of additional lending by the MDBs, We’ll let the regional development banks lend a bit more – but only a bit, because we don’t have such a tight grip on their throats.
to ensure $250 billion of support for trade finance, And we’ll support our exporters by giving them loans they couldn’t otherwise get, just to make sure you don’t get a chance to let your domestic industries develop while we’re still floundering about.
and to use the additional resources from agreed IMF gold sales for concessional finance for the poorest countries, We’ll let the IMF sell some of the mountains of gold it holds but doesn’t need – even though we’ve spent decades stopping it from doing this to provide debt cancellation for countries that need it. But we’ll make sure as it lends the money to countries who can’t afford to borrow because we’ve screwed up their economies so much, so they can have another debt crisis in a few years’ time.
constitute an additional $1.1 trillion programme of support to restore credit, growth and jobs in the world economy. Isn’t that nice of us! Aren’t we generous!
Together with the measures we have each taken nationally, this constitutes a global plan for recovery on an unprecedented scale. This is far more than has ever been done before in response to a crisis – because all the crises we’ve created before only affected you, not us, so we didn’t have to bother.

  1. Sabine K McNeill
    April 11th, 2009 at 00:00 | #1
    Reply | Quote

    Well done, David!!!

    I just would like to suggest that you ‘follow the money’ behind the G20 players.

    Hence I continue to focus on the Treasury Committee and wonder whether you could give it some thought? See http://tinyurl.com/666rwd, our online petition to “Stop the Cash Crumble to Equalize the Credit Crunch”.

    With best wishes for more and more power to your elbows,
    Sabine
    Organiser, Forum for Stable Currencies