G20: Illegitimate, Incompetent and Out of Control

By Raj Patel
You can’t formulate a sensible international economic policy without the basics: helicopters, snipers, riot police, attack dogs, tanks and miles of chain link fence. Wherever ministers of finance gather, the essential accessories for crowd control and popular repression are always to be found. But even by the historical levels of unaccountability, profligacy and cowardice set at meetings of the world’s richest economies, this weekend’s Canadian G8/G20 meetings raise the bar. By the time the teeth of the last protester are hosed from the soles of the last Mountie, the security bill will have topped one billion dollars. The six kilometer fence in the middle of Toronto cost $5 million alone but most of the rest of the bill is secret – ‘national security’ provides an alibi for backhanders and white elephants.


So what will Canadians (and the rest of the word) get for their money? Very little. The meeting will produce a tepid ‘big tent’ declaration with language elastic enough to stretch over the bickering interests of thrifty Europeans, improvident Americans, tightrope-walking Chinese, and restive Saudis. All done.
What’ll be worse, though, is what the G20 meeting will fail to do. It will prevent open debate about alternatives, it will let those responsible for the financial crisis maintain their veneer of legitimacy, and it’ll chip away at the institutions that, still, offer an alternative to the G20’s traveling circus. Here, just for the record, are three reasons why the G20 is already a failure.

Protesters demand G8/G20 leaders address rights of women and girls around the world

Standing in the courtyard outside Pitman Hall at Ryerson University, Jessica Yee clutched the megaphone and eyed the crowd of over 200 demonstrators.

As she began to speak, the television cameras, reporters and photographers inched closer.

“We’re here today because if we don’t have rights over our own bodies, what do we have?” asked Yee, a self-described Indigenous feminist reproductive justice freedom fighter.

Her commanding voice thundered through the crowd, some of whom were holding signs that read “Maternal Health Includes Abortion”, “Sex Work Is Real Work” and “Hey G8, Support For Women Everywhere.”
“We’re here today because women aren’t shutting the fuck up and because sex workers make a valuable contribution to society.”

LOOKING OUT FOR WALL STREET:

"To appease these Republicans, the conference committee yesterday agreed to eliminate the bank tax and "bring an early end to the Troubled Asset Relief Program," which would free up about $11 billion to pay for the bill. Every single Republican on the committee voted against this measure, instead opting to add to the deficit and put taxpayers on the hook for the legislation" 

On Friday, the conference committee reconciling the House and Senate versions of financial regulatory reform legislation approved final language (along a party-line vote) after a marathon 20-hour negotiating session. Lawmakers made a flurry of changes, including the addition of an exemption to the Volcker rule -- a ban on banks trading for their own benefit with federally insured dollars -- added at the behest of Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), and a weakening of Sen. Blanche Lincoln's (D-AR) provision requiring banks to spin-off their derivatives trading desks. However, the final bill retained Lincoln's language requiring exchanges and clearinghouses for derivatives, as well as a provision that compels banks to hold more capital against losses. Unfortunately, Republicans decided they were not yet done making changes. Yesterday, negotiators had to briefly reopen conference proceedings "after Senate Republicans who had supported an earlier version of the measure threatened to block final approval unless Democrats removed a proposed tax on big banks and hedge funds." Maine GOP Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe had announced that they would be joining Brown -- whose campaign received heavy support from Wall Street -- in voting against the reform bill because it imposes a $19 billion fee on the biggest financial firms to cover the cost of the law's implementation. But as Mother Jones' Kevin Drum noted, the bank fee is "not there to punish banks or to create a slush fund for new spending. It's there solely to make the bill deficit neutral." Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) challenged the Republican hold-outs to find some other way to pay for the bill. "Do they want to add to the deficit?" he asked, calling these peacocks out on their deficit hypocrisy. "Is there another way? What's their other way?" To appease these Republicans, the conference committee yesterday agreed to eliminate the bank tax and "bring an early end to the Troubled Asset Relief Program," which would free up about $11 billion to pay for the bill. Every single Republican on the committee voted against this measure, instead opting to add to the deficit and put taxpayers on the hook for the legislation.

BLOCKING UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

: Senate Democrats tried and failed on three separate occasions this month to pass a tax extenders bill that included an extension of expired unemployment benefits. Republicans, along with Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), killed it by threatening a filibuster, potentially forcing states to cut 200,000 jobs, putting in jeopardy health and education programs, and denying benefits to 1.2 million out-of-work Americans. As a result, as Garofalo notes, Senate Democrats whittled the bill down to appease the GOP and "subjected more and more of the bill to spending offsets, ultimately leaving just the jobless benefits extension unpaid for." While Republicans still refused to budge, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) -- who joined the filibuster threat all three times -- is now advocating for a benefits-only bill, even if it adds to the deficit. "Of course, passing a stand-alone bill neglects all the other important provisions that were in the extenders bill, including COBRA subsidies to help laid-off workers purchase health insurance and aid to states to help them with their Medicaid bills," adds Garofalo. "Failing to pass such measures is only going to add to the economic misery that Snowe at least seems aware is occurring." There are currently 15 million Americans unemployed, and almost half of them have been out of work for at least six months -- a post-World War II record. The House plans to vote on extending unemployment benefits again today, after an attempt to do so was blocked by 139 Republicans and 16 Democrats yesterday.

Palestinian Children in Israeli-Run West Bank Areas Suffer Worst Conditions Than Gazans

In Israel and the Occupied Territories, a new report says Palestinian children in some areas of the West Bank are enduring a worse humanitarian crisis than children in Gaza. According to Save the Children, the plight of children living in the 60% of the West Bank that remains under full Israeli administration has reached a "crisis point." The Israeli and U.S. governments have long touted improved living conditions in the West Bank to counter criticism of the occupation.

BP Accused of Using Dispersant to Mask Spill Size

BP is facing accusations of using a toxic dispersant to deliberately hide the size of the oil spill in the Gulf. In an interview with CNN, Dallas investment banker Fred McCallister said the dispersant has been used to sink the oil in order to mask to minimize BP’s financial liability.

Fred McCallister: "The issue that BP is facing right now is whether to use practices that are normal around the world, which is to try to cause the oil to come to the surface, and then deploy the right amount of equipment and the right type of equipment to gather that oil up and get it out of the Gulf. Using the dispersants allows the oil to stay under the surface, and this accomplishes several purposes. It allows the—it makes it a lot more difficult to quantify the amount of oil that’s coming out, which has a direct impact on damages and royalties that have to be paid. It keeps it out of sight and out of mind. And it allows BP to amortize the cost of the cleanup over several years, 10 to 15 years, because some of this oil is going to biodegrade, but a lot of that oil is going to roll up on the beaches for 10 or 15 years."

McCallister says BP has rebuffed his attempts to organize a fleet of foreign skimmers to assist with the cleanup effort, saying the company is fearful the skimmers could help tally the size of the spill.

News?

1. House Approves Financial Regulation Overhaul
2. GOP Continues Senate Filibuster of Unemployment Benefits
3. Senate Panel Votes to Remove Spill Liability Cap
4. BP Fined $5.2M for False Reporting on Colorado Leases
5. House Panel Votes to Undo Cuba Trade, Travel Restrictions
6. Puerto Rican Police Quash Protest at State Capitol
7. Israeli Peace Group Calls for New Flotilla Probe
8. Study: Media Stopped Calling Waterboarding "Torture" Following Its Disclosure as Routine U.S. Practice
9. ACLU Sues U.S. over No-Fly List