‘The best solution for the crisis not to spread is that rich countries resolve their problems,’ suggested Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil, at the G20 meeting in Washington DC on 15 November 2008. ‘For the first time,’ he went on, ‘the problems are not in the poor countries, they are in the rich countries.’
This statement came from a leader under whom the number of millionaires has mushroomed and the divisions of wealth and welfare remain among the most extreme in the world. It makes some sort of sense only because the G20 meeting (which included Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa) seemed to have displaced the G7 at the exclusive top table of important countries. Whatever else, the President of Brazil was not going to be patronized.
