Elections Today
- Pennsylvania
Recent Projections
| State | Candidate | Delegates |
|---|---|---|
 Donald Trump | ||
Pennsylvania |  Joe Biden |
G-20 to give $1 trillion to IMF, World Bank
LONDON -- The world's leading economic powers joined forces Thursday to inject more than $1 trillion into the world economy and strictly regulate financial markets in a concerted effort to end the global recession.
The consensus reached over two days by nations that came here with different remedies was hailed as a major achievement, even as leaders struggled to explain how regulating hedge funds or trying to limit corporate pay would create jobs back home.
"This is the day the world came together," said an ebullient British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who hosted the summit meeting. "The issues that people thought divided us did not divide us at all."
The infusion of cash will come in the form of loans to developing nations and financing for stalled trade deals. The economic crisis has crippled world trade and had its most devastating impact on the poorest countries, from Africa to Eastern Europe.
There were no new pledges of direct government spending on top of nearly $2 trillion already committed, including about $800 billion in the United States. Brown said that, including International Monetary Fund loans and other aid, $5 trillion would be injected by the end of 2010.
The G-20 also agreed on landmark new regulations for shadow banking and hedge funds, resulting in publication by the IMF of a list of tax havens that do not comply.
President Obama played a last-minute role in negotiations over that list, publicly playing the middleman between France, which wanted the G-20 to demand such a list, and China, which did not.
The president lauded the result at a 53-minute news conference before a packed crowd of 800 journalists from around the world. It was his first event of that magnitude on the world stage since winning election in November.
Obama said the summit was "a turning point in our pursuit of global economic recovery."
"Today, we've learned the lessons of history," he said and called the quick action of nations coming together to address the issue a "historic" event.
