News Flash From South Korea

 This Just in From South Korea:
 
SEOUL, South Korea – A strong sense of pessimism shrouded the start of an economic summit of rich and emerging economies Thursday, with President Barack Obama and fellow world leaders arriving in Seoul sharply divided over currency and trade policies.

The Group of 20 summit, held for the first time in Asia, has become the centerpiece of international efforts to revive the global economy and prevent future financial meltdowns.

Failure in Seoul could have severe consequences. The risk is that countries would try to keep their currencies artificially low to give their exporters a competitive edge in global markets. That could lead to a destructive trade war. Countries might throw up barriers to imports — a repeat of policies that worsened the Great Depression.
  
Gee, What a Surprise!

Each nation in the G20, quite naturally,  has its own outlook and its own agenda.  There are deep differences of opinion. This is exactly what you would expect from twenty sovereign nations.   

Whenever there are deep differences of opinion among individuals within a democracy, They can be settled by an agreed-upon  process - majority rule, expressed by voting. 

Differences of opinion among nations cannot be settled in that way, because there is no "higher authority" anyone can appeal to.  There are no laws, no established, legally-binding  procedures to which the countries can resort. 

Therefore, there will not be any meaningful, binding agreement.  That's the way it will always be, until the nations agree to surrender a portion of their sovereignty and establish international institutions with real authority. 

 

Of course, nations are not likely to give up any of their sovereignty, for the same reasons they cannot agree on currency and trade policies.  Such agreement will only happen when the nations literally have no other option.  As citizens of the world, we are the victims of this situation. It is our job to force our governments to be accountable to us. 

If we cannot accomplish that, we will, sooner or later, face a major global catastrophe.  It could be a world economic meltdown or a catastrophe caused by global climate change. Then, possibly, we might all come to our senses.