Governments got religion after peering into the systemic meltdown abyss: aggressive and comprehensive policy action is now likely but significant downside risks to markets will remain
I spent the weekend in Washington attending the IMF annual meetings and giving a series of talks in a variety of public and private fora (IADB talk, C-Span interview, Euro 50 Group meeting, IMF panel, etc.). After last week crash in stock markets and financial markets (and it was indeed a crash as during the week equity prices fell as much as the two day crash of 1929) policy makers finally realized the risk of a systemic financial meltdown, they peered into the systemic collapse abyss a few steps in front of them and finally got religion and started announcing radical policy actions (the G7 statement, the EU leaders agreement to bailout European banks, the British plan to rescue – and partially nationalize - its banks, the European countries plans along the same lines, and the Treasury plan to ditch the initial TARP that was aimed only buying toxic assets in favor of plan to recapitalize – i.e. partially nationalize – US banks and broker dealers. While many details of these plans are fuzzy and there will be some national variants the contour of the approach are similar and close to the recommendations that I made in this forum. Here are the main policy actions that will be undertaken:
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