Quote:"There is no safer investment in the world than in the United States," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

Quote:US reassures China on investment
The White House has sought to assure China that its $1 trillion (£0.7tn) in investments in the United States is safe despite the economic downturn.

"There is no safer investment in the world than in the United States," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao earlier voiced concern and urged the US to remain "a credible nation".

China's huge US bond holdings make it the country with the most money invested in America.

Mr Wen added that his government was ready to introduce new economic stimulus measures "at any time".

He said there was enough "ammunition" to add to a 4tn yuan ($586bn; £421bn) package already announced.

He was speaking at the end of China's annual parliamentary session - the only time he takes questions from reporters.

'Sound stewards'

Earlier, US President Barack Obama's chief economic adviser sought to assure China its investments in the US were safe.

Larry Summers said Washington would be "sound stewards" of the investments.

Mr Summers said there was an "excess of fear" among Americans about the state of the economy.

He added there were some signs that were modestly encouraging, such as improved figures on consumer spending.

President Obama's economic team are doing their best to lift the gloom and talk up the positives about the US economy, the BBC's Jonathan Beale reports from Washington.

This is proving hard as America spends and borrows billions of dollars to lift itself out of recession.

China is now effectively bankrolling much of that debt, our correspondent notes, with $1tn invested in US treasury bonds and other assets.

Mr Wen had said: "I'd like to take this opportunity here to implore the United States... to honour its words, stay a credible nation and ensure the safety of Chinese assets."

Need for confidence

Although Mr Wen said he expected China and the rest of the world to be better off in 2010, he said the government was ready to face tougher times.

REYNOLDS' CHINA
“ [Mr Wen's] news conference has its own stately pace - it's been going on for an hour and a half and we're only on to our sixth question ”

"We have prepared contingency plans to handle greater difficulties," he said.

"We have prepared enough ammunition and we can launch new economic stimulus policies at any time."

He said confidence was "more important than gold or money" in overcoming the world's financial troubles.

"Only when we have confidence can we have courage and strength, and only when we have courage and strength can we overcome difficulties."

Official figures released this week showed that Chinese exports had plunged by more than a quarter in February from a year ago, to $64.9bn, and imports fell by 24.1% to $60.1bn.

The Chinese government is targeting annual growth of 8% and wants to boost consumption and raise consumer demand.

Correspondents say the Communist Party fears that if annual growth slips below 8%, there will be social instability.

Magda Hassan Wrote:Now Peter, as the Wall Street guys keep saying $12,000,000,000,000.00 will not go far these days. It will hardly get you your own country or bank. They are struggling, suffering, going with out.

Peter Lemkin Wrote:Meanwhile, AIG has disclosed for the first time the names of the financial institutions that benefited from the government’s $173 billion bailout. Goldman Sachs was the largest recipient at nearly $13 billion. Over $35 billion was also paid out to foreign banks including Société Générale of France, Deutsche Bank of Germany, Barclays of Britain and UBS of Switzerland.
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Quote:'It seems very pretty,' Alice said when she had finished it, 'but it's rather hard to understand!' (You see she didn't like to confess, ever to herself, that she couldn't make it out at all.) 'Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas--only I don't exactly know what they are!

Quote:IMF poised to print billions of dollars in 'global quantitative easing'


The International Monetary Fund is poised to embark on what analysts have described as "global quantitative easing" by printing billions of dollars worth of a global "super-currency" in an unprecedented new effort to address the economic crisis.


By Edmund Conway
Last Updated: 3:39PM GMT 13 Mar 2009

Alistair Darling and senior figures in the US Treasury have been encouraging the Fund to issue hundreds of billions of dollars worth of so-called Special Drawing Rights in the coming months as part of its campaign to prevent the recession from turning into a global depression.

Should the move, which is up for discussion by the summit of G20 finance ministers this weekend, be adopted, it will represent a global equivalent of the Bank of England's plan to pump extra cash into the UK economy.

However, economists warned that the scheme could cause a major swell of inflation around the world as the newly-created money filters through the system. The idea has been suggested by a number of key figures, including billionaire investor George Soros and US Treasury adviser Ted Truman.

Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the IMF, said: "The principle behind it is that everyone would get bonus dollars and instead of the Federal Reserve having to print them, everyone gets them.

"The objective is to create a windfall of cash. However if everybody goes out and spends the money it could be very inflationary."

Quote:"I can't believe that!" said Alice.
"Can't you?" the Queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes."
Alice laughed. "There's not use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Quote:SDRs basically were created to replace gold in large international transactions. Being that under a strict (international) gold standard, the quantity of gold worldwide is relatively fixed, and the economies of all participating IMF members as an aggregate are growing, a perceived need arose to increase the supply of the basic unit or standard proportionately. Thus SDRs, or "paper gold", are credits that nations with balance of trade surpluses can 'draw' upon nations with balance of trade deficits.

So-called "paper gold" is little more than an accounting transaction within a ledger of accounts, which eliminates the logistical and security problems of shipping gold back and forth across borders to settle national accounts.

Joseph Stiglitz has argued that usage by central banks of SDRs as foreign exchange reserve could be viewed as the prelude to the creation of a single world currency.[2] It has also been suggested that having holders of US dollars convert those dollars into SDRs would allow diversification away from the dollar without accelerating the decline of the value of the dollar.[3][4]

===============
2 Stiglitz, Joseph (2006). Making Globalization Work. Penguin Books. pp. 261–263. ISBN 0-393-06122-1.
3 Special drawing rights : Here's a good way solve the dollar problem - International Herald Tribune
4 FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - How to solve the problem of the dollar

Peter Lemkin Wrote:AIG’s new chief executive Edward Liddy justified the bonuses, saying AIG would have trouble attracting and retaining talent ....
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