Cees Quirijns

Leaders of advanced and emerging economies are closing ranks behind plans for tougher rules on financial markets to prevent another collapse like the one that wiped out much of Wall Street.

Industrial production is collapsing faster than during the Great Depression. Social and political devastation will not be far behind, unless the G20 can heal global divisions, writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.

Russia supports expanding the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR) to include the rouble, the yuan and gold, but sees no chance of the G20 Summit accepting a new reserve currency, a Kremlin aide said on Saturday, agencies reported.

This month’s record rally in U.S. financial companies is in jeopardy, according to the bond market, where concern about bank failures is growing.

A U.N. panel will next week recommend that the world ditch the dollar as its reserve currency in favor of a shared basket of currencies, a member of the panel said on Wednesday, adding to pressure on the dollar.

March 18 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve said it will buy $300 billion in Treasury securities and increase its purchases of mortgage and agency debt in an effort to bolster housing and hasten the end of the recession.
The printing presses are still running overtime.

The International Monetary Fund is poised to embark on what analysts have described as “global quantitative easing” by printing billions of dollars worth of a global “super-currency” in an unprecedented new effort to address the economic crisis.

Investors have restrained the amount they are willing to lend, banks have grown reluctant to entrust their cash to each other and levels of stress in the system have hit new peaks, according to the Bank’s Quarterly Bulletin.

Middle East private equity fund managers raised a record $6.4 billion in 2008, up more than 10% over 2007 and more than double the amount raised in 2005. $11 billion is yet to be deployed.

Interesting interview to see how the “most important man next to the president” is thinking. Although his remarks make quite some sense here and there, I think we shouldn’t forget that the FED (and other central banks) are primarily responsible for the explosion of credit over the past decade. It seems kind of awkward to [...]