A growing chorus of financial eminences is calling on world leaders to gain control of a spreading financial crisis one day ahead of a Franco-German meeting that could test whether the political will exists to do so.
Speaking in Sydney, Australia on Sunday at a conference on Asia, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said: "I think that confidence in economic leadership has been slipping. And it will be important that the primary economic actors take steps, both short and long term, to restore that."
Making similar points, the finance ministers of Canada, South Africa, the U.K., Singapore and Australia, writing in Monday's Financial Times, linked the world's current economic malaise to a "lack of confidence in efforts by governments to address the structural problems that underpin weak growth, high unemployment and unsustainable fiscal balance sheets."
The comments followed an op-ed by Pimco CEO Mohamed El-Erian (left) in Friday's Financial Times warning that "any further mis-steps from American and European policymakers risk converting raging crises within the global economy to a more devastating crisis of the global system."
