Influential And Not-So-Influential Voices Calling On Central Banks And Opera Houses To Be Bold

"Influential voices are calling on central banks to be bold. Willem Buiter of the London School of Economics, a former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee and chief economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, says the recession in advanced economies is “going to be so deep and so prolonged” that zero per cent rates “will be reached even by the most anal-retentive gradualist central bank before the middle of 2009”." ...

Chris Giles in London and Ralph Atkins in Frankfurt "Markets braced for big rate cuts" December 3, 2008

*

HONG KONG — "The chairman of China’s sovereign wealth fund said on Wednesday that China had no plans for further investments in Western financial institutions, nor did it have any plans to “save” the world through economic policies.

The comments by Lou Jiwei, the chairman and chief executive of the China Investment Corporation, are the clearest signal yet that after taking heavy losses on initial investments in the Blackstone Group, Morgan Stanley and Barclays, state-run Chinese institutions have no appetite for further purchases in this sector." ...

Keith Bradshur "China to Shun West’s Finance Sector" December 3, 2008

*

FUSANG
The Discovery of America by Chinese Buddhist Priests in the Fifth Century
by Charles G. Leland
[1875]

*

Pre-Obama Washington National Opera.

Image credit: www.yeefow.org.