Barackface: Needed: A New Global Financial Architecture

https://twitter.com/SerendipityJane/status/1276057412
http://twitter.com/paramendra/statuses/1221659273
http://twitter.com/paramendra/statuses/1271618301
http://twitter.com/paramendra/statuses/1205593499

This is like the 1930s, but then it is not like the 1930s. We have to take globalization into account. We have to take the internet into account. We have to take the other mega challenges into account: global warming, global terrorism.

I have been a huge supporter of Obama's stimulus package from day one. That coupled with the bank bailouts have been like sending in the firefighters and the medics and other emergency personnel. But even after the fire has been put out - and it has not been put out yet - you still have to build the Freedom Tower. Something new has to shape up. And I don't want to overuse the 9/11 metaphor, except that the three mega challenges are so interrelated: global finance, global warming, global terrorism. The Al Qaeda hit in Mumbai, but then the Al Qaeda also hit in Lahore. The two states of India and Pakistan blaming each other is to not recognize the fundamental stateless character of the Al Qaeda, the virus behind global terror.

http://twitter.com/paramendra/statuses/1276364278

Of course I don't have the technical expertise to offer any detailed answer to what that new order will look like, but I can engage at the broad vision level. The stimulus package has been a good step, but if that is the only step then that only reenforces the America-can-do-it-alone attitude. It can't. The bank bailouts are good, if executed right, but standing alone that is like saying the problem with American banking has been too little money. The reverse has been true. There was too much money in the system. That brought forth a real estate bubble. The financial markets did not make the best use of that extra money. Better use would have been to invest in the jobs and industries of tomorrow. Better use would have been to invest in the big infrastructure projects in the Global South. Better would have been to expand microfinance in the Global South substantially. Instead the bankers created a ponzy scheme with the new flush cash.

What would be some of the components of that new global financial architecture?

There would be near total transparency, near total layered transparency.
That would bring forth much new accountability, but not on its own.
New rules will have to be put into place. You can't play great soccer if there are no ground rules.
Global leaders in politics and business will have to get together and bang heads. The good ideas are already out and about. What has so far lacked is political will.
America is going to have to learn humility. It can't do it alone, not on finance, not on terror, not on climate.
Fundamental reform for the World Bank and the IMF. Make the power structures more globally democratic.