World leaders meet to jump-start slumping economy

ByABC News
November 15, 2008, 1:48 PM

WASHINGTON -- Amid the gravest financial crisis since the Great Depression, international leaders gathered here Saturday to debate new rules for global markets and ways to jump-start the stagnant world economy.

"We're discussing a way forward to make sure that such a crisis is unlikely to occur again," Bush said. He spoke briefly as colleagues from 19 countries and the European Union began the emergency summit at the National Building Museum.

Dramatic action is not expected at the summit, among the most important financial meetings of world leaders since World War II.

Economic stimulus plans are part of the agenda. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other leaders are asking each country to develop new pump-priming spending plans or, perhaps, another coordinated interest rate cut by national banks. The Bush administration has not agreed to a U.S. stimulus plan proposed by Democratic congressional leaders.

Brown also has proposed a new "college of supervisors" to oversee the world's 30 largest banks. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and others are pushing new international regulations that would require banks and other financial institutions to be more transparent about the values of their assets and the risks of complex transactions.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters that the leaders are seeking agreement on "almost 50 actions that have to be implemented by the end of March." She added that "all actors on the market — all products and all markets — shall be really regulated and surveyed."

She is among the world leaders advocating a new "early warning system" that can detect imminent problems in markets, such as the U.S. mortgage meltdown that helped trigger the current crisis. The symptoms include frozen credit markets, rising unemployment, falling stock markets and business failures across the world.

This is the largest gathering of world leaders in the U.S. capital since a 1999 summit on the 50th anniversary of NATO, though that was largely a ceremonial occasion.