Think that the United States being in financial limbo has no repercussions on the rest of the world? You’d be thinking wrong. In Nigeria, financial authorities have attempted to construct strong fiscal measures in an attempt to extricate the country’s stock market in the wake of the collapse of major U.S. financial institutions. Nigeria’s two chief government-operated financial policymakers, The Central Bank of Nigeria and the Securities and Exchange Commission have announced new policy measures they plan to enact in order to prevent this hemorrhage of assets in the Nigerian capital market. The plan includes measures set forth by the Central Bank such as reducing the Monetary Policy Rate, reducing the Cash Reserve Ratio, and reducing the Liquidity Ratio. Following three years of spiraling growth and high returns, the Nigerian market is now seeing prices crashing beneath initial quotation.
Nigeria is not the only nation hit hard by the U.S.’s financial troubles. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy addressed his people, telling them that the current crisis will have lasting effects on growth, unemployment, and purchasing power in the French economy. Sarkozy called for a rethinking of the world’s financial system, which included worldwide regulation made possible by the globalization of trade. Additionally, Sarkozy called for government regulation on the pay of top finance executives and traders, citing “abuse of financial capitalism.” With respect to corporations in other nations, the U.S. has, by far the highest ratio of CEO-to-worker pay imbalance: in 2005, it was 262:1. Comparing this with other countries, such as Germany (12:1), or Japan (11:1), it isn’t difficult to see that the U.S.’s ratio is by-and-far the largest in the world. If CEOs of companies such as Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual are receiving similar pay ratios for failing to manage their companies efficiently, why should they receive bailouts from the government?
Perhaps Sarkozy is right. Perhaps the U.S. could learn from its neighbors overseas on how to prevent such crises in the future. The worst is yet to come for the U.S., but one thing is for sure: the consequences will reach the international sphere, and pulls for major changes in global economic policy are imminent.