The first-ever G-20 meeting of Heads of State was a relatively quiet event, without the presence of President-elect Obama. Two main areas seem to have been discussed: • Regulatory reform, where finance ministers have been given until the end of March to work out new rules for the world’s financial markets • Fiscal stimulus, where […]
Chemicals and the Economy
G-20 tries to support growth
The G-20 was created in 1999, after the financial crises that had hit emerging countries from 1997 onwards. It includes the G7 group of major industrial companies, plus the main emerging economies, including the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China). Its ministerial meeting this weekend became a preparatory session for its first-ever Heads of State […]
Iceland calls in IMF
As the blog predicted, Iceland has been forced to call on the IMF for help. Finally, the country’s leaders have recognised that their $20bn economy couldn’t support the level of debt built up during the ‘go-go’ years. The pity is that it took them so long to recognise reality – and by then, any chance […]
‘The time for piecemeal solutions is over’
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has now increased its estimate of total sub-prime losses to $1.4 trillion, versus $945bn in April. It estimates banks will need to raise $675bn in new capital. And Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF MD, has called for the major economies to respond to the credit crisis with ‘a collective commitment by […]
Iceland on the brink
Last March, the blog noted an excellent article on Iceland by Gillian Tett of the Financial Times. She argued that Iceland was ‘the first country run like a hedge fund’. And she worried that its banks might prove not ‘too big to fail’, but ‘too big to rescue’? Now, it looks as though we are […]
Another view of the Wall St crisis
Ken Rogoff was Chief Economist at the IMF, and is now a Harvard professor. His view on Wall Street’s current problems is refreshingly different. Writing in The Guardian, he notes that ‘efficient financial systems are supposed to promote growth in the real economy, not impose a huge tax burden’. But, he adds, ‘the US financial […]
$514bn and counting
There seems no end to the losses being revealed by the world’s major banks. The total has now reached $514bn. 110 banks and investment firms have now posted writedowns. CitiGroup, the largest US bank, tops the list with $55.1bn of losses, closely followed by Merrill Lynch with $51.8bn. Then comes UBS of Switzerland with $44.2bn. […]
‘Grey hair and good advice matter’
The credit crunch began a year ago. At that time, the blog was very much in a minority when worrying that it might turn into something big enough to impact ‘the real economy’. A year later, it is fascinating to review the crunch’s impact so far, and how people’s attitudes have changed:
The cost of Asian subsidies
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) says Asian governments ‘are caught in the pincer grips of slowing growth and rising inflation’. Whilst the cost of subsidies is ballooning. India, for example, will spend $42.5bn in oil subsidies this year, ‘six times the entire education budget’. As the ADB notes, `increased food and energy subsidies erode fiscal […]
‘Sometimes those questions lead to war’
The weekend’s finance minister meeting in Washington DC seems to have been quite different from its predecessors. Not only did they apparently have an ‘informal brainstorming session’ at one point, but they also found themselves confronted with two major and on-going crises: • We have to ‘put food into hungry mouths’ commented Bob Zoellick, President […]
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