Free for all

The Brown-Blair-Geldof troika is not going to have it all its own way at the G8. Others will pile in.

Chancellor Schröder is making his bid for immortality (apart from being the least popular Chancellor of modern times). He is going to want to discuss international hedge funds.

According to Deutsche Welle:

“German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, facing a likely battle for re-election this fall, has seized on fears of globalization by calling for pressure on international hedge funds, in face of reservations by Washington.

On a visit to the US capital last month, Schröder renewed his pledge to take up the issue of establishing a unified set of minimum international standards for speculative hedge funds with his fellow leaders at the meeting July 6-8 in Gleneagles, Scotland.”

It seems a little unlikely, given Germany’s economic situation, that anyone is going to take seriously Schröder’s demands on anything whatsoever. However, as my colleague has pointed out repeatedly, these various demands and statements are not made in order to achieve anything but to posture to the domestic audience.

Explaining his position

“The aim is to "better improve the market transparency of hedge funds" in what is now a largely unregulated market. We need stable financial markets," Schröder told his audience at the US Chamber of Commerce, echoing a call to his party,the Social Democrats. "To achieve that, we need effective supervision worldwide."”

The German financial markets are, indeed, very stable, almost comatose, in fact, but this may not be a desideratum. One imagines that the members of the US Chamber of Commerce were too polite to snigger until they left the room.

Nevertheless, here is another reason why the United States should watch the EU with some attention. Not satisfied with wrecking its own economy through over-regulation, the Union wants to spread the misery world-wide.