EconomicCrisis.US

The International Monetary Fund turns 65 this year. Until the current economic crisis, it had reduced its workload drastically to a near-retirement level — its total loan portfolio plummeted by 92 percent in four years. But like many senior citizens, the Fund has kept working past retirement age — and is now expanding its responsibilities.

The I.M.F. has a track record that seems to have been almost completely ignored in discussions of a proposed $750 billion increase in its resources. Nearly 12 years ago, a financial crisis hit Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia. The word “contagion” became part of the financial reporting lexicon as the crisis spread to Russia, Brazil, Argentina and other countries.
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Fewer Americans moved in 2008 than in any year since 1962, according to census data released Wednesday, and immigration from overseas was the lowest in more than a decade.

The Census Bureau reported that the annual rate at which people moved dipped last year to 11.9 percent, compared with 13.2 percent in 2007 and a recent high of 20.2 percent in 1984-85. It was the lowest rate since the bureau began measuring mobility six decades ago.

The declines appeared to be directly related to the housing slump and the recession.

“It represents a perfect storm halting migration at all levels, since it involves deterrents in local housing-related moves and longer distance employment-related moves,” said William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution.
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In-Depth Look – Recipe Of World Free Of Black Swans

Today at his general audience in St. Peter’s Square, the Pope focused his attention on the monk Ambrose Autpert. Drawing on the monk’s teachings, the Pope pointed to greed as the root of the global economic crisis.

Continuing his series of teachings on the great writers of the Eastern and Western Churches in the middle ages, the Holy Father explained that Ambrose Autpert “is a little-known author of the eighth century.

Born to a high-ranking family in Provence, France, Autpert was tutor to the future emperor Charlemagne before traveling to Italy to enter a Benedictine monastery. He was ordained a priest in 761 and was elected abbot 16 years later. He died on January 30, 784.
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