Flash crashes, debt default and panic selling haunt IMF

Every year, the great and the good (if that is an appropriate term for finance ministers and central bank governors) come together at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in order to "save the world". This year they met in Peru where the air of the Andes appeared to infuse them with optimism.

The very fact that they expressed optimism seemed to calm markets. It was rather like the "no business" meetings held during the Great Depression when financial leaders would simply smoke behind closed doors and then claim to have come up with solutions - which fooled everyone for a while.

Bankers, brokers and other denizens of the financial jungle went to Lima to hear what those in high places were doing to avert another global financial crisis, while those supposedly in control of the situation were intent on hearing the market view - a case of the blind leading the blind.