Pressure Builds for Global Solution

The way the current financial crisis spread around the world like a brush fire, outracing all efforts to contain it, underscored a painful reality: We have a global economy but nothing close to a global system for managing it. Now, as senior economic policymakers from the major developed nations meet , the question is whether the worst economic crisis since before World War II will open the door for a comprehensive, unified economic strategy. U.S. officials have been careful not to raise expectations for the so-called Group of 7 meeting. But pressure is building for that to change — both in response to this crisis and to head off potential crises in the future.