Heartache. Without President-elect Obama in attendance at this weekend’s meeting of the G20, there will be no pressure to remake the entire world economic order. MSDNC Senior Producer John Schoen writes:

President George Bush has invited leaders of 20 of the world’s richest and most populous countries to discuss how to stem the global economy’s slide and repair the battered financial markets.
But with President-elect Barack Obama keeping his distance, there is little likelihood that major steps will be take to transform the world’s economic order. Given the current fragile state of the global economy and financial markets, that raises the prospect of a dangerous drift until Obama’s inauguration Jan. 20.
Bush set the tone in a Thursday speech arguing against substantial new regulations for financial markets, saying, “It would a terrible mistake to allow a few months of crisis to undermine 60 years of success.”

Here’s the text of President Bush’s remarks yesterday. I’ll excerpt the section where the President talks about the “substantial new regulations” he is proposing and that MSDNC somehow missed:

In addition to addressing the current crisis, we will also need to make broader reforms to strengthen the global economy over the long term. This weekend, leaders will establish principles for adapting our financial systems to the realities of the 21st century marketplace. We will discuss specific actions we can take to implement these principles. We will direct our finance ministers to work with other experts and report back to us with detailed recommendations on further reasonable actions.
One vital principle of reform is that our nations must make our financial markets more transparent. For example, we should consider improving accounting rules for securities, so that investors around the world can understand the true value of the assets they purchase.
Secondly, we must ensure that markets, firms, and financial products are properly regulated. For example, credit default swaps — financial products that insure against potential losses — should be processed through centralized clearinghouses instead of through unregulated, “over the counter” markets. By bringing greater stability to this large and important financial sector, we reduce the risk to our overall financial systems.
Third, we must enhance the integrity of our financial markets. For example, authorities in every nation should take a fresh look at the rules governing market manipulation and fraud — and ensure that investors are properly protected.
Fourth, we must strengthen cooperation among the world’s financial authorities. For example, leading nations should better coordinate national laws and regulations. We should also reform international financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, which are based largely on the economic order of 1944. To better reflect the realities of today’s global economy, both the IMF and World Bank should modernize their governance structures. They should consider extending greater voter — voting power to dynamic developing nations, especially as they increase their contributions to these institutions. They should consider ways to streamline their executive boards, and make them more representative.
In addition to these important management changes, we should move forward with other reforms to make the IMF and World Bank more transparent, accountable, and effective. For example, the IMF should agree to work more closely with member countries to ensure that their exchange rate policies are market-oriented and fair. And the World Bank should ensure its development programs reflect the priorities of the people they are designed to serve — and focus on measurable results.
All these steps require decisive actions from governments around the world. At the same time, we must recognize that government intervention is not a cure-all. For example, some blame the crisis on insufficient regulation of the American mortgage market. But many European countries had much more extensive regulations, and still experienced problems almost identical to our own.