Yahoo!7 Answers Australia

This week, while we citizens continue to lose our jobs, our savings, and our patience; the Group of Twenty Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (aka the G-20) will convene in London to try to figure out some solutions to our global economic crisis.

The G-20 is a group of the top economic leaders from 20 countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the U.K., the U.S.A., and The E.U.  If you add them all together, the G-20 economies comprise 85% of global gross national product, 80% of world trade, and two-thirds of the world population. The G-20 likes to meet every year or so to discuss global markets, economic policies, trade, and the like. Obviously, this year they have a lot to talk about.

So, I guess we can all relax now that we know that our best economic and government leaders are on the case, right? We can just wait around while they think up a solution, right? I hope so. But, one could argue, after all, that it was banking and lending institutions that got us into this mess in the first place.

Just before last year’s G-20 summit in Washington, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said, “We must rethink the financial system from scratch, as at Bretton Woods.” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said we must agree to a “new, international financial architecture for the years ahead.” And perhaps they’re right. Maybe we should stop relying on misguided bankers and financial pundits to solve our problems. Maybe instead, our heads of state should look to Yahoo!7 Answers.

Should we let the banks and investment funds fail? Should we continue to prop them up with tax dollars? Should we buy more? Consume less? Should we be more green and less profitable, or should we say to heck with the environment and start dumping all of our toxic waste into the ocean? Maybe we should just ditch the whole system and return to the woods where we could learn to hunt and survive on nuts and berries! Maybe not.

So, we’ve asked a question on Answers for you, the Answers community:

How can our governments work together to overcome the global economic crisis?

Since this is truly an international problem, we’re asking this question on all of our international Answers Blogs, sites, too. The Best Answers will be featured in a coming blog post. So, let’s give our economic leaders something to think about! We look forward to all of your opinions and ideas.

Wow the US Election Day is finally here. It seems we’ve been forever reading about the merits and foibles of John McCain and Barack Obama. And with so much current debate about Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton‘s involvement in the campaign seems like a distant memory.

Why has this US election gone on for so long? According to Alex G, there were many additional factors that weren’t in play in other elections. Things such as:

For one, no incumbent is running (the VP doesn’t want to), so both parties are holding their primaries.
2nd, the primary season has been moved up to early January and February, before it used to run late January until June.
3rd, the President is so incredibly unpopular that the campaigns wanted to start the “bashing” early to build interest and momentum. More

Even if this election is considered to be more important and did gain more publicity, the process of electing an American President is a long and complicated one. If you haven’t quite grasped it, there are some great explanations on Yahoo!7 Answers, including this one from yeahimhawt.

Although we Aussies don’t get to vote in the election, the outcome still has a considerable impact on us. According to Australian zucchinisyoucantkeepagoodonedown, the election is important because:

The world’s economic system, and therefore ours, is all bound up with US government policies.
It’s also important because the US (as some on here arrogantly boast) wields great military power and has far more nuclear bombs than anyone else. This affects Australia and every other country on Earth. More

So us Aussies will have to sit tight and hope that the best man for the job wins.

Caitlin
Community Manager