CÚPULA DA AMÉRICA LATINA E DO CARIBE SOBRE ... - Funag

INTERVENÇÕES (VERSÃO ORIGINAL)
So, I want to say that there are many things and we should do. Take for
example the global financial crisis. I think that we need to understand that
whether we pursued good policies or bad policies in the past, whether we are
socialists or capitalists, within this region we are all affected by global instability.
So what is the lesson of this? The lesson is that global financial stability is a
global public good, and regardless of where you stand on the ideological
spectrum, you must address it because it is a global public good and the only
way to be addressed is through concrete global action. Second, the crisis
points out a failure of ideology, the ideology of the neo-liberalism. It represents
a unique opportunity for us at this point in time to fill that vacuum. But what
are we going to fill this vacuum with? Will it be command type economy, or is
it going to be a more pragmatic approach that takes account the interests of
all the countries and contributes to designing a philosophy, ideology, or
economic policy that allows countries to go their own course. And more
importantly, no one can question the need to regulate capitalism, and that is
one of the big problems of the past, that we had a large group of people in the
world who saw regulation of the markets as a big, bad problem. Today, if
these institutions are too big to fail they pose systemic risks. So, we had
better make sure that we don’t fail and the only way to ensure that we don’t
fail because you would have to use that spare money to regulation. So, there
is a case for greater regulation of markets arising out of this crisis.
The third area and this is a fear that I have, that in the crazy spending, the
anti-cyclical and the so called anti-cyclical spending that is taking place today,
that seven trillion dollars would be spent, either directly to guarantee debts by
financial institutions or injections of equity or in some other form. But I fear
that this spending, because the loans and guarantees are made to institutions
that really shouldn’t be borrowing now and their governments are urging people
to borrow, that is, consumers who shouldn’t be borrowing at this point in
time because they are already overburdened with that and losing their jobs. I
fear we are setting up the bases for a deeper crisis in the long run, and that
whilst we may have a shorter recession, this spending must have some impact
on public works and unemployment, otherwise we may be setting or planting
the kernel for a greater financial crisis, five, ten years down the line. The
whole issue of moral hazard has not disappeared from the book. It is just that
we choose to ignore it. So, these are some of the things that we have to pay
attention to in designing the new financial architecture.
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