By EILEEN WISEMAN
Ideas Program Curator
From their highly protected meeting place in London this week, the leaders of the world's 20 richest countries had their collective finger on the planet's fiscal button. Between the chatty photo ops and Michelle's literal (good gracious!) embrace of the Queen, these leaders were engaged in impossibly difficult and intensely urgent conversations and negotiations on the nature of, and the way out of, our global financial disaster. It certainly is a lot of intellectual firepower---the very fact of these folks coming together has driven up markets in anticipation of, at the very least, some consensus and global policy alignment.
We're watching all this with even more than usual interest here at the Festival, because on June 25, we'll be convening a panel on the global economy. Because the situation has been changing so fast, we've held off on inviting participants so that our conversation will be completely timely and relevant.
We're curious about who you're paying attention to---what journalists, scholars, economists, business leaders are making the most sense, giving the most insight, providing the clearest explanations? Who do you believe? Who do you want to hear from?
We'd like to know.....we all get our news and information from so many places these days, sometimes it's hard to sort it all out. Tell us who helps you sort it all out.
In the meantime, we'll all be watching and waiting for hopeful tidbits and positive developments from President and Mrs. Obama's first European tour. What a lot he has in his hands, and on her shoulders!
Please share your thoughts with us!