While the IMF suffers Sore Bottom Syndrome, the Slog gets off the fence
As the IMF produced a hedge-fund of a global outlook today, the tendency for contemporary reporting to confuse news with analysis continues unabated. Here are three efforts from today by opinion-leading business media:
‘The risk of a slowdown in the global economic recovery has risen sharply, but governments should continue planning to tighten fiscal policy, the International Monetary Fund has said. In the near term, the main risk is an escalation of financial stress and contagion, prompted by rising concern over sovereign risk. The [IMF] world economic outlook said,“This could lead to additional increases in funding costs and weaker bank balance sheets, and hence to tighter lending conditions, declining business and consumer confidence, and abrupt changes in relative exchange rates.”’
‘Wise old heads in the City and on Wall Street were today quietly discussing whether the IMF had a perception problem, or had perhaps acceptdd a huge bribe to say everything’s lovely in the garden and don’t worry about that Japanese Knotweed over there – we’ve got it covered.
‘They particularly wondered how a 4+% global growth rate could be extrapolated from the observation that ‘the main risk is an escalation of financial stress and contagion, prompted by rising concern over sovereign risk’, given that most dealers and credit agencies think these to be near-certainties.
‘Finally, old men clearly past it and unable to tell a liquidity pool from a bonus pool debated the significance of analysts continuing to declare that the eurobank stress tests have no credibility; and those same bank’s interlend rates continuing to rise beyond the stratosphere’.
However, I lack the time to write that piece…..so you’ll have to find it elsewhere.
The Slog 