And this is not said by an anti-American blogger from outside the US. It is said by the Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank as he expressed his great concern last Friday that the global stimulus measures in the US would be inflating asset bubbles.
“Given the role of the dollar, frankly, there’s not a tremendous amount one can do other than try to run a good, sound policy and restore the U.S. economy to growth,” Mr. Zoellick told a panel discussion on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum annual summit.
A Russian official said that Pacific Rim finance ministers told U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that the region needs a strong dollar and that Washington needs to back up its strong-dollar rhetoric.
In the meantime, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, said that in his opinion, the dollar was “incredibly resilient” during the financial crisis and that its recent fall has been within a normal range.
This week’s APEC meetings, which culminate this weekend with a summit of the 21 nation’s leaders, has had a constant theme about the sagging dollar, which is trading near 15-month lows, and the declining Chinese yuan, which is informally linked to the U.S. currency.
The second hottest topic in that meeting was the lack of progress on U.S. free-trade deals — also preoccupied delegates. Asian leaders and some U.S. business representatives have complained that the U.S. isn’t doing enough to promote free trade, including moving forward with potential trade pacts with South Korea and other Asia-Pacific countries that they say are important for ensuring the world’s economic recovery continues.
Some of the APEC APEC heads of government said the global economy is feeling its way to recovery but that care is needed in exiting the massive economic-stimulus measures that have helped to prevent a global collapse.
Several agrees with Zoellick and expressed their concern that the global stimulus, especially the flood of liquidity pumped out by central banks, could create asset bubbles. “What central banks did in the face of the crisis is just open the tap of liquidity,” the World Bank’s Mr. Zoellick said. The increased liquidity could lead to inflation, such as in commodities. Asset bubbles “could undermine confidence in 2010,” he said.
Many acknowledge the recent surge in financial markets. But several heads of government including Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong are not quite sure whether this surge was sustainable.
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November 14th, 2009
Elisheva Wiriaatmadja
Posted in
What I would like to know is when is it going to stop and get better!