The world is facing both a financial crisis, an economic, a social and values crisis.

Nobody is able to foresee the end of the crisis. What is quite sure is that years 2009 and 2010 will be worse and that it will take years for a full recovery.

Aware of the dramatic consequences the governments decided to take the lead.

Simultaneously the financial and banking community, until now enthusiastic supporter of economical liberalism and market law, need urgently the help of the states. The aim of this community is to keep profits, share losses with taxpayers and responsibility with political leaders.

 The question is: Do the States have the will and the means to change the system?

Let us examine briefly the reasons and mechanism of the financial crisis.

The first reason is that the production of goods is too important for a population who cannot afford it because companies, forced by shareholders, limit the wages of manpower in order to increase profits.

The only way for the financial and banking community to maintain profit is that multinational companies sell more goods. The solution is to offer more and more risky loans to people out of cash. The double-digit profit required by the shareholders and the hedge funds cannot be sustained by a 5% world economic growth. There is no more an appropriate link between the virtual financial world and the true economy then the confidence disappears and the system collapse.

The second reason is the difficulty to analyze the banking risks for technical reasons (complexity and sophistication of products and financial vehicles.). Even the bankers are unable to provide an exhaustive and sincere balance sheet including the impact of the financial crisis.

The third reason is that 50% of world cross border assets use offshore financial centers (OFC) that have few or any regulations. 4000 banks, two third of the hedge funds, 2,5 million of financial companies, 11000 billion dollars of assets escape legacy.

According to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report there are 72 OFC all around the world, half of them being located in Europe. But the definition of OFC is complex. For example, in some aspects, New York, London, Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong are OFC even if these financial places have stronger regulations and better transparency than the British Virgin islands, the Caiman's or Liechtenstein principality.

All the governments agree to react but their approach of a worldwide crisis is in priority national minded, in the better case globally regional minded. Each State has specific problems, different debt level, different external reserves, different unemployment level, different economical and social approaches and to define common actions is very difficult.

If we analyze the results of the G20 summit in Washington that gathered 85% of the world wealth and two third of the population no global decision has been acted. Barack Obama the new President of the United States is not yet in charge.

But we note global trends:

The Europeans want to strengthen the financial supervision (transparency of OFC, change of accounting standards, bond supervision.)

The emerging countries ask for more representatives in world regulation bodies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Financial Stability Forum (FSF), and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

The Americans disagree to define global economic governance.

The governments want that the IMF becomes the masterpiece of the system, the central bankers disagree.

The G20 leaders tasked their finance ministers with drawing a series of recommendations by the end of March to be brought before a new summit in April (the team of President Obama will be fully in charge.)

Six areas will be specifically targeted: regulating those parts of the financial market that have exacerbated the crisis, boosting transparency and reforming compensation practices.

The ministers from the industrialized and emerging world must also evaluate global accounting norms and the financial needs of international financial institutions whose collapse would imperil the global financing system.

The ministers have to make recommendations to modernize and reform the International Monetary fund and the World Bank.

But the final communiqué is also significant in what it did not include:

There was no mention of the creation of a global financial market enforcer as demanded by some European and emerging countries but opposed by the United States.

There was no reference to coordinate stimulus packages from governments.

Regulation is most and foremost the responsibility of national regulators who constitute the first line of defense against market instability the G20 stated.