US President Barack Obama urged fellow leaders yesterday to agree swift action at next month’s G20 summit to spur global recovery.
His call came one day after Washington unveiled a plan to soak up toxic assets plaguing credit markets.
In an article for German newspaper Die Welt, Obama called for an agreement on stimulus measures at the April 2 meeting in London which he said could revive economic growth.
“First, we must take quick measures to stimulate growth,” Obama wrote, according to the German translation of his comments.
The US and Europe have been at odds over whether more spending was needed on top of what governments have already adopted, with many Europeans arguing the stress should now shift to strengthening market regulation.
But Obama suggested it was too early to close the taps with public funds.
“If the London summit contributes towards immediately initiating joint measures, we can smooth the path for a secure recovery and prevent future crises,” he wrote.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Monday detailed a raft of incentives for private investors to buy up to as much as US$1 trillion of troubled assets that have strangled global debt markets and pushed the world economy into its worst slump since the 1930s.
By bringing in private investors, the US government hopes finally to establish prices for the assets that have languished on banks’ books and constricted the flow of credit.
Relief that the details of a long-awaited scheme were finally out and hopes that it will attract enough buyers to unclog credit markets spurred a stock market rally. But analysts poring over the plan’s details wondered whether the scheme would reach a critical mass to spur economic recovery and some highlighted its lopsided nature — the potential for profits for private investors and the brunt of potential losses being borne by the taxpayer.
Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman slammed Geithner’s plan in his Monday column. He said it was a rehash of a “cash-for-trash” proposal the Bush administration floated last fall, and that the incentives meant investors could profit if asset values increase but “walk away” if they fall.
Meanwhile, Obama is urging a more tempered response to public furor over bonuses paid to executives of the publicly rescued insurance giant American International Group (AIG). He was virtually certain to use a televised news conference last night to continue an effort that began over the weekend: cooling the anti-AIG ferocity that threatens to undermine his efforts to bail out the financial sector.
Also See: AIG employees to return US$50 million
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS