Words of Wisdom From Across the Waters

President Obama is meeting in Europe this week with heads of state of what has become known as the G-20. Jay Leno’s line that President Bush thought that “G-20” meant that he bingoed was right on the mark. This is a new day and a new President.

Well, it is a new day for the United States and our dealings with Europe under a new President and a new Secretary of State. Let us hope that the Europeans come to understand that the majority of Americans are no more happy than they are at the world wide recession and the meltdown of our capital markets, as they relate to structured debt obligations and credit default swaps and the deregulation of our markets that lead to this period of economic decline.

Hopefully, the European leaders will talk with President Obama about their feelings about deregulation of the capital markets. The current world wide economic recession and capital markets meltdown was made and broken in the United States, and we should take responsibility for our actions. The greed principle is alive and well in America. Perhaps it takes a group of foreign leaders to point out to our President that not only is the United States the economic engine in good times, but it can also be the engine of economic disaster such as in the present.

We need regulation, oversight and transparency for international capital markets to work. Without it we will be back in the same boat in the not too distant future.

The culture of Wall Street will not change on its own, serious regulation must take place before a real and sustainable economic recovery can take place. Hopefully, our Congress, that had a hand in this economic disaster, will hear the words of the European Leaders from across the waters too.

Stay tuned.