24 September 2008 - 19H20
Financial crisis: no way out? Part 2
There are doubts in the U.S. Congress about the government's plan for a $700 billion dollar bailout fund to rescue the ailing US banking system. Part 2 of 2.
There are doubts in the U.S. Congress about the government's plan for a s$700 billion dollar bailout fund to rescue the ailing US banking system.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told the Senate on Tuesday that unless Congress acted urgently to approve the plan, the US economy and financial markets faced very serious consequences. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said failure to act on the package could put the entire US economy at risk.
But lawmakers from both the Democratic and Republican parties appear reluctant to be panicked into action. Did it make sense, some asked, to risk such a massive sum of money on bad securities and what assurances were there that ordinary American home-owners would benefit as well as executives on Wall Street?
After their grilling in the Senate, Bernanke and Paulson must today make their case in the House of Representatives.
Robert Parson's guests are:
Jacques MISTRAL, Director of Economic Studies at the French Institute of International Relations.
Oliver GRIFFITH, who is President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris, by satellite from London
Jan RANDOLPH, who is an economist at Global Insight and by satellite from Geneva
Alexander SWOBODA, who is Professor of economics at the Graduate institute in Geneva.
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