At Bretton Woods (New Hampshire, 1944), the foundations of modern capitalism were laid, following a turbulent Second World War that placed the US at the forefront of the global economy. It was there that the World Bank and the IMF. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), was set up on an ad hoc basis to tackle poverty and the devastation caused by the Second World War in Europe. The 1944 meeting lasted 22 days, and let us hope that the one scheduled for next month in New York will not be rushed. The participants currently include the G8 plus other selected countries such as Australia, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and the so-called BRIC nations: Brazil, India and China.
Heads should roll there in the most solemn, thorough and far-reaching sense of the word. From highly restrictive regulations to bans on financial practices and products that have been proven – or are merely suspected – to be harmful. And the individuals responsible: those at the IMF and the leaders of those countries that are failing to properly implement the emergency measures adopted to date and those to be adopted in the run-up to the summit itself. I hope, for the sake of us all, that justice will also be done to the credit rating agencies, and that at the very least the «»chemical castration' of the rating agencies that, with a sledgehammer approach, packaged NINJA (No Income, No Job or Assets) mortgages under flashy labels with lots of A’s.
Personally, I think the case of these rating agencies is the most blatant. But the most scandalous thing is that they continue to issue ratings shamelessly. Without going any further, just the day after the giant UBS Although it received a bailout from the Swiss government, its credit rating and outlook were downgraded. However, its instability had already been plain for all to see ever since the serious damaging effects of the collapse of Lehman Brothers on its balance sheets were acknowledged. As I said: Chemical castration and a short spell in Guantánamo It would not be a particularly disproportionate punishment, given that most of the prisoners held there have never caused so much harm to the US or to the global financial system like these con artists in suits.
Let’s see how these seemingly robust regulatory measures and the public and private reprimands play out. Let’s hope that Bush’s in-person attendance alone – accompanied, as he will be, by the new president’s team (expected to be a Democrat) – does not stand in the way of far-reaching reforms that are currently facing strong Republican opposition.
There is already talk of the toxicity of hedge funds and tax havens, although the only aspect of the latter that can be criticised is the lack of transparency surrounding the domiciliation of companies issuing securitisations. In other words, it is not the low or non-existent taxation in these havens that is being criticised, but rather their lack of regulation, which allows debt securitisations to be issued under the apparent – and only apparent – umbrella of solvent entities. Consequently, many large companies have issued debt through pseudo-subsidiaries based in tax havens, which, when push came to shove, they have been forced to abandon because these issuing companies had minimal or no legal ties to the multinational that had originally lent them its name and brand. For years, it was not necessary to publicly declare the absence of a firm legal link between the issuing company and the multinational that lent its name and image, as a credit event was unthinkable; but in recent months – and I fear this will remain the case for some time yet – the last one is the fool.
In view of this practice by the duty court, they should condemn the so-called ‘mother organisation’ and, of course, the de facto matrix, rather than tax havens. There is no doubt that improving the legal transparency of these countries will make it more difficult to repeat such underhand tactics. But tax havens, as their very name suggests, will always be beneficial in an environment that is often subject to excessive regulation. Provided that they cooperate in the fight against money laundering and fraudulent securitisation practices, although, as we have already said, that responsibility must be addressed within the multinational Who actually benefits from that issue, which is registered in a tax haven? Will it go ahead? 
I’ll have to see it to believe it, but we need to trust the politicians who are going to try to save us.
Sarkozy, Brown y Obama have the chance to go down in the history books with a stature worthy of the Great Names such as De Gaulle, Churchill o Lincoln. For those of us from the Bretton Woods era, we always had Paris to fall back on… Let’s hope that from now on we’ll always have New York to fall back on, and that Guantánamo will finally take on a global significance.
Character is the virtue of difficult times.The price of greatness is responsibility.Almost all of us can cope with adversity, but if you want to test a man’s mettle, give him power.
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)