Ignore anything you may read or hear about new policies, breakthroughs or agreements emanating from the Group of 20 nations in Canada.
Nothing happened, except disagreement.
The weekend meeting lacked depth with nothing of any positive significance flowing.
Despite the words in the final agreement about deficits, bank capital, spending and other worthy issues, the summit produced agreement on zilch.
China last week nicely gazumped the Americans on the value of the Yuan, and the 19 or so other countries (well 18, Wayne Swan was there to watch and couldn’t really participate being a finance minister) spent all there time papering over cracks over austerity and bank capital.
So the G20 agreed on everything, but left every major issue unresolved.
So countries are supposed to be spending and cutting, at the same time.
The communiqué on Sunday committed all countries to follow “growth-friendly fiscal consolidation plans”, halving their deficits by 2013 and stabilising the ratio of debt to gross domestic product by 2016.
But at the same time the meeting said the cuts would have to take into account each country’s differing circumstances, so that will excuse the US (and Japan for that matter) from making any serious dent in their deficits and debt levels.
Australia will actually be back in surplus by then (The resources rent super tax don’t impact the current budget policy).
An exception was made for Japan, which can finance its large, persistent borrowing from domestic sources (at the moment); but that country faces an Upper House election on July 11 that could derail its policy if there’s a swing against the government (especially as there is now a push to double the national sales tax to 10%).
Ignore all the comments on banks needing more capital: there was an agreement that they do to withstand another 2008-style liquidity crunch, but the new rules won’t apply, quite yet.
And yet the UK and US, followed fitfully by Europe are haring off with their own new rules on bank capital, tax and regulation.
The US looks ready to pass its new financial regulation law, probably by the end of the week, but agreement on the Basel III rules on bank capital, which are more important, is vanishing.
The G20 communiqué stated: “The amount of capital will be significantly higher and the quality of capital will be significantly improved when the reforms are fully implemented.”
But there is still a lot of disagreement over what will count as a capital buffer.
In an attempt to provide clarity, the G-20 has watered down the previous target of achieving the new capital standards by the end of 2012. That date is now downgraded to an “aim”. And banks will naturally aim for something a bit further out, even in Australia where they are strong and in need of minimal recapitalisation.
To keep individual countries with weak banks (The US, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy) happy, the new global rules start slowing and be introduced over years and “will reflect different starting points and circumstances with initial variance around the new standards narrowing over time as countries converge."
Look at that as a big win for the banks who can go on punting their capital (but not in the US, it seems) with gay abandon.
So the same old international hotchpotch awaits, not the unanimity that the G-20 tried to assure us was there.
President Obama said the goal set by the G-20 of cutting deficits in half by 2013 reflects US targets and takes into account the fiscal and economic needs of each nation.
Obama said the agreement on deficits doesn’t conflict with his prior warning that the US and other nations shouldn’t pull back too quickly on stimulus measures to ensure that the still- fragile global recovery is sustained.
But America has no plan or no structure to cut its deficit at all, before around 2020 and at the end there won’t be any significant change in policy, since G20 countries are already on course to hit those targets.
The public message from all countries was that they should move towards fiscal consolidation while keeping domestic demand going in the short run, but at a pace determined by each country’s circumstances.
“There is a risk that synchronised fiscal adjustment across several major economies could adversely impact the recovery,” the communiqué said. “There is also a risk that failure to implement consolidation where necessary would undermine confidence and hamper growth.”
Europe is therefore has its drive for austerity blessed by the G-20, Germany and the UK can feel virtuous for bringing in cuts that will probably see the European economies slowing over the next 18 months.
The next disaster awaits the world. Cue the G-20 for another forthright statement of unity of purpose, after the sh&t next hits the fan.
And China has fixed the Yuan exchange rate at its highest in years following the weekend meting of the G-20.
The People’s Bank of China said it set the central parity rate – the centre point of the currency’s allowed trading band – at 6.7890 to the dollar, a touch higher than Friday’s 6.7896 (which was up 0.30% from Thursday).
Since the first move last Monday under the new flexible system, the Yuan is up 0.53% against the US dollar.
It was the strongest level policymakers have set since China unpegged the currency in July 2005 and move
