The Economic Advisor

UK August Apathy Moves Into September Summitry

August is apathetic in the financial industry because the EU is in recess, so is Parliament in London; holidays dominate as the schools empty their childish cargo back into the arms of mum and dad, who usually schlepp into the City every day but have retreated to beaches and ski slopes.

August is now over and we move from the sublime to the ridiculous piety of September replete with summits at every turn.

It kicks off this Friday with the G20 Pre-Summit Meeting of Finance Ministers in London - their bosses (Prime Ministers and Presidents) meet in Pittsburgh on the 24-25th September.

The G20 is reinvigorated after the near-catastrophe of a global banking collapse, but don’t expect any declarations of the recession being over this week - if the global financial leaders of the G20 believe the economic downturn is over they will leave the credit for solving it to their masters in Pittsburgh (unless they are making a run at the Prime Minister or President’s job - keep an eye on Alistair Darling given Brown is for the chop if he doesn’t win the imminent UK election). �

The pre-match warm-up will only lay groundwork for the Main Event later this month, so expect nothing more than sound bite statements and wringing of hands over how “We have to do something to ensure this kind of crisis never happens again” and words to that effect. �”Bankers” and “Bonuses” will also be said a lot and loudly, juxtaposed with words like “Control”, “Regulation”, “Taxed” or even worse, “Super-Taxed”. �”Regulation” will probably be said an awful lot no matter what, probably along the lines of, “If it moves regulate it, if it doesn’t move, regulate it until it does!”..

The main G20 Summit is going to be interesting to watch as it’s on President Obama’s home turf, deliberately moved from New York to Pittsburgh in a move which is both a pat on the back and a snub - Obama is showcasing Pittsburgh as an example of how an American city turned itself around after 50 years of economic decimation. Nobody wants anything to be given to the Wall Street Fat Cats in The Big Apple (unless it’s a darn’ good thrashing, six of the best and trousers down). �

More than this, the G20 Summit is a showcase for an American President who is cementing his hold on his claim to be the US Vox Populi - all those foreign holidays the Obamas took this year were not so his kids could get exposed to more than McDonalds and Disney World; this is an excellent opportunity to bring the world’s leaders to his home turf and show Americans he’s a global statesman as well as a man of the people. �

He’ll succeed spectacularly, I have no doubt, but what substance will come out of the G20 is not something I care to second-guess.

But wait. �There’s more!

The IMF and World Bank are also opening their annual meetings in Istanbul, Turkey at the end of the month after the close of the G20 (the meetings don’t actually start until very early October but the carnival will begin well before the big shots hit town). �

Add to these minor meetings and you have the homegrown variety, purely for domestic consumption, with the TUC (Trades Union Congress) in Liverpool, but even more importantly, three major political party conferences. It’s Party Conference time for The Labour Party, Conservatives and the other ones (I know they’re called the Liberal Democrats, or Social Democrats or something, but it’s time they got off the pot or translated their sizeable share of the vote into electoral gains at Westminster). �

September will be manic as we move from the sublime sound bite to rabble-rousing, muck-raking, finger-pointing, bare-knuckle rhetoric of party politicals … I can’t wait!

In any event, expect Prime Minister Brown to look severely jet-lagged this month … or maybe he just looks that way all the time.

This article was commissioned by ComplianceAsia, the leading APACS region provider of outsourced compliance support for leading banking and financial institutions operating in the region.

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(c) Karl Hindle - All Worldwide Rights Reserved