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WORLD> America
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Bush defends capitalism on eve of economic summit
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-14 09:24 NEW YORK -- US President George W. Bush fervently defended US-style free enterprise Thursday as the cure for the world's financial chaos, not the cause. He warned foreign leaders ahead of a weekend summit not to crush global growth with restrictive new rules.
"We must recognize that government intervention is not a cure-all," Bush said from Wall Street, setting his own tone for the two-day meeting that begins Friday in Washington seeking solutions to the economic crisis that has spread around the world. "Our aim should not be more government. It should be smarter government." The US president acknowledged that governments share the blame for the severe economic troubles that have hit banks, homes and whole countries. He spelled out his prescription, which includes tougher accounting rules and more modern international financial institutions. But he stopped short of the tighter oversight and regulation that European leaders want. All his ideas came with a warning: Don't disturb capitalism. "In the wake of the financial crisis, voices from the left and right are equating the free enterprise system with greed, exploitation and failure," Bush said. "It is true that this crisis included failures, by leaders and borrowers, by financial firms, by governments and independent regulators," Bush said. "But the crisis was not a failure of the free market system. And the answer is not to try to reinvent that system." That warning about the dangers of too much government intervention came not long after he championed the biggest bailout in US history: a $700 billion taxpayer-funded plan to rescue the country's financial industry. His government has also signed off on costly rescues for housing, insurance and other financial institutions. The US wields enormous clout in any global response to the economic crisis, and Bush is host for the weekend gathering, bringing together heads of state from the world's biggest economies as well as emerging nations. It is intended to be the first in a series. But Bush's personal influence is waning. In about two months, Democrat Barack Obama will take over as the US president. Though the president-elect does not plan to attend this summit, he has authorized former Iowa Rep. Jim Leach and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to represent him. Obama's transition team says they will primarily be listeners on the periphery of the meetings. |
