and you can. still be. lonely and welcome to cross talk on peter lavelle when it comes to finding solutions to the world's economic and financial woes is bigger and more better members of the group of twenty meeting in seoul may think so critics of such gatherings claim otherwise the g twenty is only a bloated version of ga to. continue. to discuss the meaningfulness of the g twenty today i'm joined by pepe escobar in san paulo he is a journalist and author of obama goes global stand in washington we have john ruth roth he is a director of member add you of the see at interaction and in syracuse we go to horace campbell he's a professor at syracuse university and another member of our cross talk team you

and the hunger all right pepe i'd like to go to you first i used to always think the g.a.a. was a waste of time is the g. twenty a bigger waste of time as it meets in seoul no no the g eight is that the g twenty is the new kid on the block is the rio saying but in fact what matters the g two it's an official but this is where the action really is the u.s. and china what is the u.s. doing at the moment. can you sue it's not the queen elizabeth cohen is it that the easing that is exporting their dad all over the world cause an inflation inside the u.s. it's that it's going to be another bubble it's not going to so the u.s. problems and you have a value of what you want in china so these two hold the financial system all over the world by the balls and it's them they have to decide something in fact the rest of the world there are just mere spectators up they'll say ok john let's go to follow up on what pepe has to say so the g. twenty is going to mean soln are going to watch the americans and the chinese throw

mud at each other and that would be the very least of the problems. yes the currency issue which he's talking about is certainly a major one but the fact that they've expanded from the g. eight to the g. twenty the g. twenty represents about two thirds of the world's population about ninety percent of the g.d.p. and about twenty percent of the trade so it is expanded it's certainly not representative of the whole world but it is far more inclusive than the g eight is ok horace if i can go to you it stay with the g twenty fame here i would agree that it least it's slightly more democratic than the g eight but it's still playing by the west's rules through its institutions of the i.m.f. the world bank etc etc so it's just kind of funneling everybody into institutions that major western powers still control so is is that make it any more democratic that way just because you can sit at the at the west table now you're not at the children's table anymore you can sit it with the adults now but the old players are

still calling the shots how institutions work and who's advantaged what do you think about that. i don't agree that the waters are calling the shots i think the mere idea that there's a g. twenty. is a signal that the ear of western europe and north america is on the wane what is problematic with the g twenty is that twenty cannot have both the e.u. and germany italy france the united kingdom in other words if there is going to be the e.u. then countries such as the united kingdom france italy must be brought back to be a real standing in the world to be the fact is that the g twenty is more democratic but for it to be even more democratic it must involve countries with large economies and countries in africa and latin america to democratize the g twenty as the forerunner for democrat ties asian of the united nations so i would not agree that this is simply

a continuation of the more over the quantum changes that we're going to see in the world economy because of the diminishing of the dollar as the currency of world trade will have a major shock to the world economy and that will lead to the end of the international monetary fund the question is what are we putting in police of the i.m.f. i think we should be proposing an international bank for reparations in reconstruction a bank that can put funds into repairing the world economy into reparations for those countries affected by this slave trade colonialism and your opinion peerless him unless we move quickly to diminish the role of the i.m.f. and the dollar we are going to go back to the ninth you thirty's with the kind of competitive devaluation that we see now in what is called quantitative easing in the united states ok if i go back you have to i mean everyone i want to say with

the currency wars and i'm perfectly happy to do that but again if we look to true that the g. twenty is nothing. there is binding whatsoever. china is not finally i call two thousand and ten the year china stood up because it's not going to bend to the united states it's tired of having to have to serve the international financial community controlled primarily by the west but expression of the united states the united states has trashed its own country and trashed the international system the chinese are not going to be kowtow to the united states anymore i mean they they're the ones that screwed up and they're not going to listen to them anymore under any conditions. you're absolutely right i was in beijing early this year doing research and that's exactly what i heard like devaluation of the yuan for instance we are going to devalue our a currency progressively there is a body at that of the central bank of china that is in charge exclusion of all of this transition towards more devalue one it's going to be busy they say until two

thousand and twenty but we're going to see some kind of the valuation up to revaluation sorry until two thousand and fifteen not more than fifteen percent and look to two thousand and five you were in was six point eight eight point two reserve you the dollar now is six point eight so we had a value of evaluation of the one over this past five years as well so they do sings of their own base and they're not going to go for their nuclear option selling you know those dollars in their absolute more than two trillion reserves as well they have a five year plans in china and they're planning until two thousand and thirty so they were expecting some kind of currency war from the u.s. sooner earlier in fact q e one in q e two they already expecting they're probably two years ago in two thousand and eight when they lost their own stimulus package so the problem the problem is not the chinese space of six we know it's slow we

know it's longer range you know it's based on five thousand years of diplomacy the problem is what bernanke in what wall street what what do they want the want of through all these dollars all over the world flood the world with dollars they don't care what's going to happen to currencies in the developing world like the brazil are bought and american corporations for them is going to be much easier to invest all over the world they're a weak dollar john a john of thing about you in washington i mean these are the real issues here because as the united states and its i want to stay with the g. twenty as the united states tries to. we stimulate it's. economy it's good to basically hurt other commie economies in the world we know that the former or the still sitting president of brazil he's going to seoul and he said we're going to battle it out here i mean why should after all the hard work the brazilians have gone through and other developing countries have to bail out the united states again ok i mean can the g.

twenty handle this i mean because i'm very dismissive of these organizations because i look at them as talk shops but we're at a at a critical vortex right now in the world economy can the g twenty come through can it can it can it show its worth the g twenty was acted with a fair amount of unity back and the early summits when it became a summit. after the economic crisis in two thousand and eight broke they were able to do some changes but both the g twenty and the g eight are operating in a consensus there's no enforcement the g eight has over the years pledged many many programs that have never come through the g twenty has to be able to deliver on what they agreed to and that's a major problem they are becoming a bit more representative because this time they do have the african union invited and not just to the summit but to the the ship of the staff lead from each country meetings prior to it as well as the association of southeast asian nations so

there's a little bit more diversity there but the countries if they don't follow through on their pledges then they don't have any impact ok horse of anger back to you and one of the major criticisms of the g. twenty as in the g eight it's not very transparent is made up by the g eight will meet before the g. twenty behind closed doors ok and then they will come out with some kind of position maybe unified maybe not ok but even the g. twenty itself i mean how transparent is it in and really who sets the agenda and i i have my suspicions who sets the agenda of the united states. wants to a race to the bottom to bail itself out at the expense of the rest of the world they're not thinking about you know the the global international system only to with their interest involved and that's why the g. eight in my opinion is a real short has a real short coming because the united states is not going to take any pain it won't because it doesn't have to what do you think about that. it's not it's not up

to the united states. since nine hundred forty five we have what is called a global financial architecture based on the britain woods institution those institutions back to the u.s. dollar the u.s. dollar was supposed to be backed up by convertible currency and know that it was dead in the one nine hundred seventy is that gave rise to the g. eight the death of the brits would compromise and the nixon devaluation no the two thousand and eight crisis is leading to the g twenty we should not be looking at the g twenty let's look at what will happen to the u.s. dollar is the u.s. banking system sort of been can the u.s. restructure and reenergizes economy and if we look at china let's look at what chinese doing in relationship to what is called currency swaps currencies flops with russia with turkey with african countries with brazil we're looking to the

diminishing of the dollar so when the g eight whether it's consensus are not the i.m.f. and the dollar is yesterday's news there could be a compromise of one thousand nine hundred forty five as being overtaken by a new international situation what we need is a new financial architecture none of the persons we're speaking today will speak to this what will that architecture look like will it prop what banks bankers and those or involved in speculation or will it prop up real human beings who produce wealth who planned for who build homes who go to schools that's a question about the new international financial architecture whether they support profits for corporations or for real human beings who want health decent environment and education for their children all sounds pretty pragmatic to me we go to a short break after a short break we'll continue our discussion of the g. twenty stay with r.t. . you.

steve. colony current wouldn't dare to swim so deep. tourists would be scared of such cold water. and would never die. within the mainstream. they are not to lists they are researchers. and feel worse online than in the deep water.

if you. want to. welcome back to cross talk i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're talking about the group of twenty. two.

but first let's see what russians think about this organization and the upcoming g. twenty seoul summit could become a crucial point in the battle against protectionism international currency disputes are set to top the agenda despite the g. twenty nations committing to a self-imposed standstill protectionism remains an issue for countries recovering from recession the public opinion foundation asked russians if a forum like g twenty could effectively result the origins of crisis forty three percent of the respondents billy g. twenty summit can deliver real economic change how about nineteen percent don't see change coming it seems the g twenty has much to do to realize its potential peter ok pepe i'd like to go back to you you don't want to really talk about g.

twenty you want to talk about the the two major powers and i can understand that but ok then let me kind of fused to both together do you think that the g. twenty can be the midwife of this trend that we heard horace talking about going from the post-war environment up to the sixty's i'm sorry seven days and then the crisis here and then we have the g. twenty and it may be permanent it may be temporary it may be ephemeral and then but we still we're still going down the path that you're suggesting and i tend to agree with you is this the g. twenty kind of a buffer to get to the world that you're talking about. yes that's a very interesting question because it can see it's a mix of all of your options that you align it's going to be it so it already is the center of the situation but it's a fragmented g. twenty so we have the inside the g twenty you have the g. two this is where the decisions really happen u.s. and china we have the bric countries brazil russia india and china which are more

in more increasingly more important inside the g twenty called peer to the european union which as anybody who's been to brussels they cannot even agree on to the core of a napkin in brussels going to imagine but a common economic and foreign policy so and that we have the. i would hate to dismiss it because of being to all of these countries and i love them but let's say a second tier countries inside the g twenty we're talking about argentina about mexico turkey and indonesia and they're not exactly second tier because some of them like indonesia and turkey so maybe they're going to be part of the brics so we're going to have brig i think to ice indonesia and the indonesia and bricked with turkey as part of it as well so yes do it these are the new players the upcoming players and the players that matter in the developing world the perils of the new architecture as harry said there i agree with most of what he said by the

way we're not going to see that because. this is the stark fact to the american power elite commuters between washington and new york they simply won't allow it it's going to be over their dead bodies if they have to drag the rest of the world to the mob like you said a few minutes ago they will because it's a matter of the survival of the center of the empire military and economic economical we know it's not going to survive military yes because they still have the military that can you know incinerate the world there are sixty five and over but we're talking about the comic survival most of the middle class in the us is gone and it will be gone like that it's the actual unemployment issue as this twenty two percent so on is going to be thirty percent and the rest of the world they have to ok how we're going to deal with it how we're going to escape the dollar system are we going to back to gold how we're going to force going back to

go to the american power elite so any terms of the nuke to round it all up in terms of the nuclear option the day when most countries in the world including produces obviously not saudi arabia because they are untouchable on this matter they start dealing they're all oil and they're a care sea near us you once in the end then that's the end of the dollar system and that's the definite and of the american center and by john if i'm going to if you're going to ask the same question to you is the g. twenty in your mind a. a certain process from the world that was g. twenty in the world that is today and where we're going because pepe brings up a very good point is that we do see a relative decline of american economic power expansion because of this great recession and we see a lot of other countries rebound in a much much better though will take umbrage with the united states if they continue this. dive to the bottom like the brazilians in other countries saying look you're destroying us in the process of saving yourself i don't see there's

a lot of unity in the in the g twenty for that or is this a temporary thing the g twenty ephemeral thing or as you think it'll be much more institutionalized as time goes by. if the g twenty can pull together and make decisions that they can stick to. it will have some force if they keep going their separate ways on issues when they agree to make decisions and don't carry them out they won't one of the interesting things is we talk about setting the agenda and although there's a lot of genocide in behind the scenes the summit in seoul is the first time that a non g eight country has led and therefore been the head of setting the agenda for the g twenty next year will be in france and then in two thousand and twelve mexico which is the host and they will have the dominant role in setting the agenda so a lot of it does happen with the u.s. and china and the u.s. is in deep financial problems although clearly the election didn't seem to show

that as a as a major issue where the the issue of the economic decline in the economic crisis was shown but not how to solve it. so that the g twenty can be a force if they can come together and decide on policies that they can then carry out ok if i go back to you horace i mean if if the united states doesn't like what comes out of the g. twenty which i kind of doubt because i still think they probably dominate the agenda it will just go on its own way irrespective of all the nice recommendations and patting on the back of the photo op and all of that it's not going to really change how the united states approaches the the international order expression economic order and as i stressed early in the program i mean whatever smiles one of people want to put on the chinese are going to keep on doing what they're doing i mean really we see a huge divergence here at a photo op or everyone smiling. well let me let me see that we are having a misplaced discussion because the united states is not homogeneous as we saw from

the elections on tuesday we have a progressive leadership in the united states with barack obama as the president. and we have the conservative new fascist forces that wants to bomb the world even going back to bombing iran fighting wars in china so we're talking about a changed world economy and the united states itself all of the forces in the g twenty will have to make a decision with the their support is for the bankers in wall street those who want to make money at all costs or for the american people who want a change so that's the first point the second point is about the decline of the united states of america there's no question that this military decline will have disastrous effect for the word if the united states insists on fighting wars such as going to fight a war against iran or fighting

a war against china we must strengthen the united nations democrat ties the united nations and ensure that the united states dollar is not backed up by the united states military so we must be talking about institutions of peace within the context of the g twenty the third point is that we are talking as if there are no major technological changes that will affect the nature and structure of the us economy the nature and structure of the delivery of energy and energy forces we are talking pipit spoke about china and a five year plan what will be the major technological breakthroughs in the next five years that will affect the dominance of the united states petroleum companies and the united states oil companies the challenge for us is whether we have a debate that informed human beings about the changes since one thousand forty five or we move to a world that is more democratic and can resist friendly to human being i want i

want to be good about this i want one more but i want to know i want to go to pay usually like you said a lot of learning when i'm going to have a i want to have because i think you brought up a very interesting point and i want to extrapolate from pepe you know. we have here in the media all the time you know china's gentle rise you know dealing with china's rise in the because remember germany in the eight hundred seventy s. eighty's ninety's and the turn of the century you know it rose that no one was ready for it we had the first world war so you know we're we're all watching china's rise and you know people worried if it's dangerous to the international system is the decline of the united states just as dangerous as one can great power is going up another one's going down in your mind as united states is going because i think we all agree on this program whatever our politics is the military is there the economy is in the outhouse but the military still there well it depends on to six out first of all point about china gentle rise they have been on top of the world for eighteen of the past twenty centuries so people visit they have no memory

of number two it depends on how the u.s. will decline if there militaristic. core of the pentagon the guys who are fallen to full spectrum dominance doctoring if they decide that ok the only solution a far relative decline is more wars then it's going to be like you feeding iran or a war against iran which they cannot conduct because even the best minds of that but i don't know this is absolutely impossible and this war it's not what the us wants this war is what the. try hard core hawkish zionist faction in israel wants which is not in the best american interest suppose and this would happen this would accelerate the end of the empire even on a military level if the pentagon decides ok we're going to have to going to keep the empire of bases we're going to have one hundred in eight to eight hundred fifty bases all over the world some minimalistic some with ten thousand or twenty

thousand and we're going to monitor out the rise of our strategic competitors basically russia and china but not getting involved in a third or a force war it depends also as well on the diversification of sources of energy suppose i'll give you a suppose issue brazil is going to be soon one of the top five oil producers maybe by two thousand and twenty two thousand and twenty two and the united states starts buying more oil from brazil and even they strike up a relationship with an israel again so like the chinese do so they're going to be importing one million barrels the u.s. could be pointing to be about i mean i have seen around the way she did in the middle i really wish we could continue we've run other kind of wars in the middle east we're going to hear you got the last word thank you very much many thanks to my guests today and i send paolo why she did in syracuse in thanks to our viewers for watching us here darkie see you next time and remember prostate. anything. still.

in some pieces but. to tell you a grand hotel emerald marco polo club school. photo in the big gold. corinthian escaped this. twenty two. punch in. a looming currency war threatens to overshadow some of the world's powerful countries leaders gather in seoul. the first major protest of budget strike even though more cash is found to pay for euro bureaucracy. but it's cool to have it.

take to the streets of great. public during. the u.n. comes down hard on america's human rights record with racial profiling in prisoner abuse among its key complete shit. hello this is our team from moscow it's midnight here now i'm kevin zero in with our top story for you and it's the global currency conflict that's brewing which is likely to get leaders of major economic powers fired up at the g. twenty summit in south korea the u.s. and china have been locking horns accusing each other of using their currencies as defensive weapons to protect themselves. reports no the disputes hitting nerves at the soul assembly there'll be plenty of soul searching at this g. twenty for the south korean capital eight hundred.