Fasten your seat belts, folks - more turbulence ahead in financial markets

A VERY simple but absolutely key question was posed on Wednesday by a senior IMF official in commenting on the extreme turbulence rocking financial markets at present. "Who really is in charge?" asked financial counsellor Jose Vinals during a very timely policy analysis he delivered in London as markets continued to shake.

Who indeed? Clearly, it is not the International Monetary Fund itself - which is limited to doing only what its member governments mandate it to do, while national finance ministries and central banks follow their own courses without much apparent regard to the need for global coordination. This, as Mr Vinals (who is head of the Washington institution's Monetary and Capita…