By Les Dunaway

I’ve read the Wall Street Journal most every weekday for 20+ years. Being a money junky, I also read Forbes, Financial Times, … Over the past few weeks, when we’ve had some of the worst market swings in memory, the discussion has recognized that the world, not just the US, is hanging on the edge of a really nasty depression. That’s to be expected and isn’t news to anyone who’s been paying attention for the past two years.

What’s been glaringly absent from the announcements, discussions and punditry is an mention of efforts to solve the problem that got us into the mess.

Even when discussing Greece, the poster-child of the current mess, the closest anyone came to even naming the cause was in the G20 statement.

Describing the statement, Reuters said:

“In unusually direct language, finance ministers and central bankers of the Group of 20 major economies said they expected an October 23 European Union summit to “decisively address the current challenges through a comprehensive plan”.

Indeed, for bankers, they got down-right ugly:

“Europe needs to get its act together because unless the crisis is put to an end, it will start to affect emerging economies which have enjoyed strong growth,” Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi said.

Unsuprisingly, little Timmy Geithner still doesn’t get it (or maybe he does and doesn’t want to raise an issue which will add to Obama’s embarrassment):

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told reporters he was encouraged that the latest EU moves toward an overall strategy to tackle the two-year-old crisis contained the right elements, notably a recapitalization of European banks.

“They clearly have more work to do on the strategy and the details, but when France and Germany agree on a plan together and decide to act, big things are possible,” Geithner said.

“I am encouraged by the speed and direction in which they are moving.”

I guess that’s about all we can expect from a guy who can’t even file his own taxes on time.

You have to slog through it to the next to last paragraph to learn that anyone was even aware of the underlying causes:

” Ministers agreed that advanced economies would cut deficits while emerging economies would continue their move toward greater exchange rate flexibility and boost domestic consumption.”

Even at a gathering generating unusually direct language these people couldn’t bring themselves to say nanny state or socialism or progressive policies or …

A lot of digging yields a few nuggets of honesty:

In Forbes “Global leaders worry economy at critical point” 20110922:

“There’s some justified frustration with respect to the lack of political decisiveness in Europe. We have been talking about Greece as finance ministers since January 2010. The markets are reacting. There’s a need for an exercise of political will, of political decision-making in Europe.” – Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty

“It appears to us that they’re taking actions because they don’t believe the political system can do what needs to be done. Frankly, I think that’s enabling the political process rather than forcing the political process to do what it should do. And that’s to deal with our deficit and our debt, which is imperiling jobs and imperiling the future for our kids and grandkids.” – House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio

Even in the Republican Debate on Bloomberg, which was to be all-economics, the word entitlements came out only one time when some cross-talk momentarily knocked Romney off-message. At least, several of the candidates were willing to say “cut spending”, but without being specific.

The saddest part of this farce is that the world economic situation could be fixed in 24 hours with an announcement, from someone with some credibility, of an over-haul of the tax system and a plan for entitlement reform. There are several such plans on the table. The question is “Is there a candidate who’d be believed when he/she announced it?”