Brazil’s President Lula told his country in September, “People ask me about the [financial] crisis, and I answer, go ask Bush. It is his crisis, not mine.” Fifty days later, British Treasury Secretary Stephen Timms told a conference of G-20 nations gathered in Sao Paulo, Brazil: “We are in extraordinary times, the global economy is facing shocks which are wholly without precedent and we need a new approach. … It is a global crisis. It therefore requires an international response.”