US President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged coordinated action to fight the worldwide economic crisis, joining British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's call for a global response. Obama told reporters during his Oval Office meeting with Brown that he was “absolutely confident” his administration's plans to shore up the banking system would work and played down the big declines in the stock market. In comments that gave a lift to battered share prices, Obama said there were “potentially good deals” in the market at current levels. “What I'm looking at is not the day-to-day gyrations of the stock market but the long-term ability for the United States and the entire world economy to regain its footing,” he said. “One of the things that Prime Minister Brown and I talked about is how can we coordinate so that all the G20 countries, all the major countries around the world, in a coordinated fashion, are stimulating their economies?” Obama and Brown both called for common principles to bolster the financial regulatory structure. Brown, a former finance minister whose Labour Party is struggling politically, has faced criticism at home for what some see as his failure ahead of the financial crisis to tighten up Britain's regulatory structure. Both Britain and the United States will be eager to show leadership on the global economic crisis but many abroad lay blame for the problems on housing bubbles allowed to fester in those two countries. US stock prices this week hit their lowest level in 12 years, in part over anxiety about whether Obama's plans to deal with the banking sector would yield success.
