BANK STATEMENT

"What is needed from the G20 is a radical shake up of the global economy; what we got was world leaders desperately rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking Titanic." - Julian Oram, World Development Movement.

Quietly ignoring all the noisy protesters outside, leaders of the G20 nations spent the last couple of days attempting to save the world by posturing and cajoling each other into knocking together a statement that Gordon Brown could triumphantly read out.

At the centre of the G20's rescue plan is $1.1 trillion. This money, designed to jack a bit of life into the imploding economy, will mostly be given to our old friends at the IMF (See SchNEWS issues from J18 to 9/11) to hand out in loans (and them with their exemplary record of success). Just when we thought the IMF was all washed up, along comes the credit crunch and bails them out. Not that they're actually gonna be given a suitcase with a trillion quid in it - it's all on tick. More debt will be created and plans also involve the IMF devaluing it's own 'currency' by just printing more IMF 'money' - special drawing credits (SDR's) which countries can cash in for a no questions asked loan from a rich country.

But we all know IMF help doesn't come for free and the G20 has done little to guarantee that other IMF administered cash won't be accompanied by the usual failed economic policies and stern words about 'good governance'. Not to mention that much of that loan cash will find its way back into the hands of western corporations looking to 'invest' in developing countries to bleed 'em dry in the familiar privatise and profiteer pattern.

With Free Trade still at the centre of the solutions, the top nations seem still determined to maintain rigged trade rules and to continue pushing smaller countries into unfair trade deals. As 17 of the countries that pledged to avoid protectionist policies have already taken action to protect domestic markets it seems the old hypocrisies seem set to go on.

$50 billion of the money has been earmarked for the worlds poorest countries but given the record of the richest nations delivering on previous aid pledges it's unlikely those poorest countries will be holding their collective breathes waiting for the cheque to arrive.

Much has been made of French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his German counterpart Angela Merkel's supposedly unmoveable position of tax reform and banking regulation. While some concessions were made they completely failed to get their desired cross border 'global regulator' and then promptly declared success. "We would never have hoped to get so much," Sarkozy said.

The G20 statement also declared that "the era of banking secrecy is over" with there to be a clampdown on tax evasion. However, it's hard to take that claim too seriously, especially when Britain is already trying to stall on the immediate naming and shaming of tax havens.

Meanwhile, climate change barely got a look in and the chance to reform the economic system to tie in with environmental sustainability issues was predictably nowhere on the agenda.

Gordon Brown, with his knack for modesty and understatement declared that "a new world order is emerging with the foundation of a new progressive era of international cooperation." Right on, Comrade!