British PM Brown, host of summit: 'Markets need morals'
LONDON -- As the bad economic news piles up, the host of this week's G-20 summit was casting the mission in moral tones.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown went to St. Paul's Cathedral Tuesday to speak to religious and civic leaders about the need for the world's financial systems to behave like average families.
"Markets need morals," Brown said. "The first financial crisis of the global age has confirmed the enduring importance of the most timeless of truths — that our financial system must be founded on the very same values that are at the heart of our family lives, neighborhoods and communities."
Brown faces the prospect of diminished returns at Thursday's summit of the G-20, which together represent 85% of the world's economy.
Where once he called for a global "new deal," he is confronted with disagreements among participants on issues ranging from further economic stimulus to increased financial regulation.
President Obama left for Europe Tuesday with his own agenda to tackle the global financial meltdown.
It's Obama's first trip overseas since taking office. The meeting of the world's economic powers marks 60 years since the alliance was founded to blunt Soviet aggression in Europe.
New studies out Tuesday confirmed the depth of the global crisis.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a global organization based in Paris, reported that economic output will drop by 4% to 7% in the United States, Japan and Europe, sending unemployment above 10% by the end of 2010. And the World Bank reduced this year's estimated growth rate for developing nations from 4.5% to 2.1%.
"I believe that the unsupervised globalization of our financial markets did not only cross national boundaries, it cross moral boundaries too," Brown said Tuesday. "And so our task today is to bring our financial markets into closer alignment with the values held by families and business people across our country."
The meeting is drawing protesters from around the region.
