Dealing with the next financial meltdown

Washington

ONE of the important observations made by officials and economists who gathered in Washington recently for the bi-annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was that monetary policy by itself would not bring the United States and other leading economies into the promised land of full recovery.

There is no doubt that the aggressive monetary policies adopted by the US Federal Reserve and other central banks, including lowering interest rates and engaging in quantitative easing (QE), helped ensure that the Great Recession didn't turn into a Great Depression.