This post features a discussion at the Yalta Annual Meeting/Yalta European Strategy between Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The moderator of the three-part discussion is Chrystia Freeland, US managing editor of the Financial Times.

Part 1: The financial crisis

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Part 2: Global financial regulation

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Part 3: Crisis exit strategies

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Source: Chrystia Freeland, Financial Times (here, here and

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I should immediately reassure my readers that I am not going to re-account or even continue Macro Man's story of 2007 in which Sherlock Holmes was looking for a vanishing bid in risky assets. Also, I am not sure that we are actually looking at a bid which will vanish but one which will perhaps taper off gradually or so at least is the estimated scenario policy makers would like markets to believe in. Of course, recent messages from the BOJ suggested a very cautious stance towards the economic outlook and although the ECB's chairman Trichet has ardently argued that an exit strategy from extraordinary financing provisions, the statement that, now is not the time to exit, still echoes most of the official messages coming from the ECB.

But perhaps more important than when to exit is the question of how and whether indeed it will be so

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I'm a few days behind on this as I've been busy with other parts of this website, but there have been a number of developments since my post last week regarding how Russia discusses its currency maneuvers. The specific language used here is VERY important, so bear with me as I get nitpicky.

First, the facts as reported by various news outlets whose links are embedded within each bullet point:

Bank Rossii officials announced a plan to swap $10 billion worth of US Treasury holdings.for the equivalent in the proposed IMF bond issue expected in the fourth quarter of this year.Brazil and China also expressed interest in buying $10 billion and $50 billion, respectively, of IMF bonds. Alexei Kudrin said Russia has full ...

Highlights include Citigroup, Inc. (C), Bank of America Corp. (BAC), JPMorgan Chase & Co., Inc. (JPM), Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) and Morgan Stanley (MS).Finance ministers from around the world, including U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, have held a sort of economic summit this weekend in Washington D.C. While there appears to be signs that the global economy is in the process of stabilizing, financial ministers remain cautious that the world may not emerge from what is being categorized as the "worst recession in decades" until the middle of next year.At the day-long meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), stimulus packages, bank recapitalization and other actions taken by governments and central banks to deal with the crisis are beginning to show results, according to many finance ministers from around the world. To paraphrase the IMF's Policy-Steering Committee Chairman and Egyptian ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL - April 27, 2009 - Zacks Equity Research picks Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA) as Bull of the Day and Amgen, Inc. (AMGN) as Bear of the Day. In addition, the analysts at Zacks Equity Research discuss the latest on Wells Fargo (WFC), US Bancorp (USB) and SunTrust (STI).

Full analysis of all these stocks is available at: http://at.zacks.com/?id=2678

Bull of the Day

We are initiating coverage on Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA) with a Buy rating and a price target of $52. We are impressed with the company's strong performance in 2008 despite the global slowdown and are optimistic on growth prospects.

We expect Teva to continue posting strong revenues and earnings going forward thanks to new product launches, both generic and branded. We are also pleased to see Teva's progress with its branded and biogenerics pipeline. Biogenerics should help drive growth in the long-term.

Meanwhile, the

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Highlights include Citigroup, Inc. (C), Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), U.S. Bancorp (USB) and SunTrust Banks, Inc. (STI).Starting today, finance officials from the Group of Seven Nations (G7) and Twenty Nations (G20) -- which includes major emerging nations such as China, Russia, India and Brazil -- are meeting in Washington for 3 days of discussions on the global economy.We would characterize the comments made yesterday by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as an attempt to keep these pending meetings on course. Ms. Strauss-Kahn urged the U.S. and Europe to do more to remove distressed assets from banks' balance sheets, and while "We still have long months of economic distress in front of us, postponing such steps would result in the postponement of a recovery."To that end, Ms. Strauss-Kahn and ...

Wall St slides on bank jitters, earnings outlook caution… US dollar rallies broadly as equities worldwide tumble… Government debt shines on banking worries flare up… Oil drops over 8 pct on economic outlook, dollar rise

Oil prices and stocks around the world tumbled on Monday after a jump in troubled loans at Bank of America and renewed signs of economic weakness cooled investors’ optimism the worst of a global slowdown was over.

The U.S dollar rallied broadly to trade at one-month highs as the slide in worldwide equity markets boosted safe-haven demand for the greenback, U.S. and European government debt and gold.

Bank of America stock shed 17 percent after reporting its purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co helped to more than double first-quarter profit, but credit quality deteriorated sharply, hurt by a flagging economy and growing unemployment.

Also weighing on sentiment was a key gauge of

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First Russia, then China, now U.N.? Powers of the world move to ditch the dollar …Puru Saxena on why the Fed secretly wants inflation… the more the better…The 5 examines the future of energy… from deep-water drilling to “polywell fusion”… Another government biz on the verge of collapse… one that will affect us all… Plus, some good housing news, maybe… home prices retreat to historic range

“A new global reserve system,” a panel of United Nations economists declared yesterday, “could contribute to global stability, economic strength and global equity.”

We begin with this today not because the U.N. is saying anything revolutionary, but because the global chorus to ditch the dollar is quickly becoming deafening. The Kremlin last week, China’s central bank earlier this week, Tim Geithner yesterday and now this… a U.N. panel led by an American no less.

There is “a growing

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by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /And the Swedish Krona clearly didn't like the news.br /br /a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SaQaih-dh2I/AAAAAAAAMxw/gQ-hh9-k2fo/s1600-h/krona.png"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306395441487513442" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 297px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SaQaih-dh2I/AAAAAAAAMxw/gQ-hh9-k2fo/s400/krona.png" border="0" //abr /br /blockquoteStandard amp; Poor's Ratings Services today said it had lowered its sovereign credit ratings on the Republic of Latvia to 'BB+/B' from 'BBB-/A-3' and removed the ratings from CreditWatch negative, where they were placed on Nov. 10, 2008. The outlook is negative.......br /br /We believe the necessary process of private sector deleveraging is likely to continue over several years, during which time real incomes will decline, testing Latvia's commitment to both its exchange rate regime and its obligations under the EUR7.5 billion assistance program from the IMF, EU, and other official lenders. The adjustment is made more difficult as external demand for Latvia's key exports continues to decline."br /br /The negative outlook reflects ...

Well it's pretty clear to me at least that there is now one, and only one, major and outsanding topic towering head and shoulders above all those other pressing and important problems those of us following the EU economies currently find lying in our macro-policy in-trays: the issue of wage cuts. Not since the 1930s has the possibility of such a generalised reduction in wages and living standards loomed out there before policymakers, and doubly so if we now hit - as I fear we may well for reasons to be explained at the end of this post - systematic price deflation in a number of core European economies. br /br /The issue that has suddenly and even violently erupted onto the European macro horizon over the last week (as if we didn't already have sufficient problems to be getting on with) is, quite simply, how, if they either ...