Bankers' Notes

The Finance Leaders of the world's largest economies took the weekend to consider the question of 'what do we do now?' The G-20 is, among other things, weighing the possibility of putting a cap in the bonuses of bankers. The proponents are the French and the Germans. The opponents are, as always, the US and the UK. The US did offer up a bank capital boost proposal slated for the Sept. 24 and 25 summit in Pittsburgh. The Europeans didn't care much for that. The third issue was stimulus spending, which everyone seemed to agree needed to remain on the table lest the current fragile, egg-shell world economy collapse once again. Unfortunately, wise guidance is in short supply. Divided and clueless, the Ivory Tower theorists are at both a remove and a loss over how to fix the current mess we're in. That has left Warren Buffett to put out a warning that the economy may still because of the aftershocks of the Great Recession. Creating a roadmap to fix the broken economy should be the number one priority of the upcoming summit. But with so many divides over how to do that, no one should expect miracles.