Caribbean Faces Uncertain Times

This year promises to be another hard slog for many Caribbean economies.

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Caribbean Faces Uncertain Times

This year promises to be another hard slog for many Caribbean economies.

IMF Urges Barbados To Tax Its Citizens More

Barbados is being encouraged to not only make its recent 2.5% value added tax (VAT) increase permanent, but also to go up by another 0.5%.

EU’s Economic Recovery Gloomy – IMF

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warns that the euro zone debt crisis could dash EU’s hopes for economic recovery, amid continuing financial turmoil in the region.

Ireland Swallows Bitter Pill Asked For Bailout

Debt-crippled Ireland formally applied Sunday for a massive EU-IMF loan to stem the flight of capital from its banks, joining Greece

The Global Currency War

The Finance Ministers of 187 nations began meeting in Washington, DC on Thursday, Oct. 7, 2010 to discuss the growing concerns that the world is now in the grip of an “international currency war” initiated by China.

IMF Head sees “no major danger” Of Escalation Of Currency Devaluations

“I don’t feel today there’s a big risk of a currency war, but that’s part of the downside risks” Strauss-Kahn told reporters at a briefing Tuesday in Washington. “It will be one of the questions that will be very much discussed” in coming meetings of finance ministers and chiefs of state of the Group of 20.

Sold! IMF 10 Tonne Gold To Bangladesh

After India and Sri Lanka, Bangladesh has bought 10 tonnes of gold for $403 million from the International Monetary Fund.

IMF Warns Countries Of Debt Risks

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that many wealthy countries are amassing risky debt burdens, which could spark a market-wide panic.

Barbados Economy On Right Path

No stimulus package. No budget.

Greece Warns Speculators As It Races For Bailout

A resolute Greek finance minister warned investors Sunday that they would “lose their shirts” betting on the country’s economic collapse, as he insisted a massive bailout would come in time to avoid default.

Did Global Elite Kill Polish President Kacznski ?

Damian Thompson, writing for the Daily Telegraph, says there will be plenty of conspiracy theories floating around cyberspace in response to the death of Polish president Lech Kaczynski and a large number of Polish VIPs in a plane crash last week.

Antigua Woes Deepened As Stanford’s Victims Racks Up Pressure

One motion is still awaiting a vote, but another resolution has been introduced in the US House of Representatives to pressure Antigua and Barbuda into cooperating with Allen Stanford’s jilted investors.

Owen & Mia Prophets Of Gloom & Doom On Barbados’ Economy?

Were this duel between Owen Arthur and Mia Mottley not so dangerous and embarrassing for Barbados, it would be entertaining and even hilarious for those of us who enjoy good political drama.

Gold $1180/oz India/IMF At It Again

 November 25, 2009 will be counted as another flying colors day for gold, the hottest commodity traded in global markets these days. Gold prices hit a historic record of $1180 per ounce, again on news reports that India is buying more gold from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Early this month, India’s central bank—the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)—bought 200 tonnes out of IMF’s saleable 403 tonnes of gold for a price of $1045 per ounce. Since then, gold prices have jumped more than $135 per ounce, may be the biggest rise for gold in the history of bullion trading.

Why is it that the mere news of India or for that any country in the world buying some gold from IMF driving up gold prices to unimaginable levels? Is a gold market hysteria on?

IMF Gold Sale Spikes Price

The price of gold leapt to a record peak of $1,095.40 an ounce in trading here on Wednesday in the wake of the International Monetary Fund’s massive sale of the precious metal to India.

Gold had already reached a record high of $1,087.80 on Tuesday as the IMF said it had sold 200 tons of gold to India’s central bank over a two-week period last month for $6.7 billion to bolster its finances.

After spiking to a new high Wednesday, gold pulled back to $1,091.75 in London.

Stanford Investors Seek To Block Antigua’s IMF Loan

  As Antigua and Barbuda awaits final word from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a loan it says it needs, victims of the alleged Stanford fraud are trying to stop the twin-island nation from accessing any funds from the lending agency.

In its latest campaign against the island, the Stanford Victims Coalition (SVC), through lawyers from the New York firm Morgenstern & Blue LLC, has written to members of Congress to get help blocking any IMF loan.

Antigua and Barbuda recently held talks with the Washington-based institution and are close to a final deal, although the amount it would receive has not yet been finalised.

‘End Dollar Supremacy’

The United Nations called on Tuesday for a new global reserve currency to end dollar supremacy which has allowed the United States the ‘privilege’ of building a huge trade deficit.

‘Important progress in managing imbalances can be made by reducing the reserve currency country’s ‘privilege’ to run external deficits in order to provide international liquidity,’ UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, Mr Sha Zukang, said.

Speaking at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Istanbul, he said: ‘It is timely to emphasise that such a system also creates a more equitable method of sharing the seigniorage derived from providing global liquidity.

Financial Crisis Boosts IMF

In reponse to our post ‘Most Countries Worse Off After IMF Agreement – US Think Tank, IMF spokesman Bill Murray, using the handler ‘wmurray’ , rejected the Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) findings as ‘seriously misleading conclusions’, ‘relying on faulty analysis and often inaccurate information.’ Other critics were Ms Caroline Pearce, from international aid agency Oxfam. AFP quoted her saying “‘If the IMF wants to be relevant, effective, credible and legitimate, it has to give countries hardest hit by the financial crisis a say in their own destiny.’

The Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) study was published to coincide with the IMF/World Bank meetings.

The havoc wrought by the economic crisis has given the IMF a new sense of purpose as the world’s emergency lender – and even some of its fiercest critics are starting to mellow.

It is a remarkable turnaround for an institution targeted by anti-globalisation protesters and reviled by millions of people after imposing harsh conditions on its loans during previous crises.

‘I think the response has been much more positive in this crisis and it’s been very constructive,’ said Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist well-known for his diatribes against International Monetary Fund lending practices.

Most Countries Worse Off After IMF Agreement – US Think Tank

Weeks before Jamaica completes its application for a US$1.2-billion standby agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a United States think tank has issued a dire warning about the latest impact of the fund on developing countries.

While making no direct reference to Jamaica’s negotiations with the fund, the Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) yesterday released a discussion paper in which it argues that 31 of 41 of countries with current IMF agreements have been subjected to harmful monetary and fiscal policies.