Brazilian president slams rich countries' attitudes towards financial crisis

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva criticized the rich countries Wednesday for their attitudes during the global financial crisis.

He complained about Europe's slow reaction to the Greek problem, and about how the United States dealt with the Lehman Brothers.

"I simply don't know any economist that can explain to me why the European Union took three months to deal with the Greek question," the president said while speaking to the press after the 10th Portuguese-Brazilian Summit.

"I can't understand why they let Lehman Brothers go bankrupt, because it would be much cheaper to find a way out if it was still in operation. I can't understand why the rich countries' financial system doesn't have a regulation like Brazil that the institutions are forbidden to leverage over ten times of their assets," he said, pointing out that the rich countries won't be the ones that pay for the crisis.

He also complained that the current system lacks global governance. "The commercial policies are global, but the implementation of the decisions are local, and the losses are global."

Source:Xinhua