On the Economy

Kenneth Rogoff, Professor at Harvard, had some interesting commentary to make today on The World regarding the inadequacy of the G-20 summit.

Some highlights include that he places today's global economic recession--let's not call it a "downturn" anymore, shall we--on the shoulders of the U.S. The last twenty years, yes, that implicates the vaunted Clinton years, of a U.S. economic policy that made certain all the other Western European countries knew that the U.S. thought its own policies were superior. Eminently superior. And that, moreover, our version of irresponsible deregulation, one that begin with Clinton but was embraced far more stridently by Bush and his cronies in the Administration, as well as its supposed superior free market, has actually failed. What was lacking, according to Rogoff, was the unwillingness of the U.S. representatives to the G-20 summit should have at the very least acknowledged the U.S.'s looming role in creating this global recession.