Blair on reform of world finance.

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Sep 22 08:30:39 PDT 1998


David Walker wrote in The Guardian:


>There, the other day, you had a successful European social democratic prime
>minister not in office for very long focusing his mind on the world
>financial crisis. No, it wasn't Tony Blair. This was the French leader
>Lionel Jospin - and he wasn't invited to Hillary Clinton's confab.

Nor was Carlos Menem of Argentina, who wanted to come but wasn't allowed.

Clinton reportedly asked his fellow CEOs what the greatest domestic problem facing their countries is, and how the Third Way could help them out. Prodi & the Bulgarian both said they had so many problems they couldn't list #1, and were unable to offer any explanation of how the Third Way could help. Blair said "education," of course, which required spending more money. I thought spending more money was a distinctly old-fashioned approach, but maybe the novelty in the Third Way is declaring you need to spend more money and not spending it, hoping that rhetorical inflation takes care of things.

Under the new police state, "antiterrorist" regime, NYU was completely cordoned off to protect Clinton, Blair, Prodi, & the Bulgarian whose name escapes me. Washington Square Park was surrounded by concrete blocks, fences, and cop cars. (City Hall has recently gotten similar treatment; I don't know if this is permanent, or just while the alleged embassy bombers are kept in a nearby jail, but about half of City Hall Park is now off-limits.)

Doug



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list