But there is no prestige in pursuing monetary policies that sustain economic misery.
To find the 10 countries hardest hit by the downturn, we used data from the International Monetary Fund to create a misery index: gross domestic product, inflation rate and purchasing power parity.
After years of near-depression, the Greek people are rightfully disgusted with rigid monetary and financial rules that promise only more misery.
PARIS — In talking about how to approach problems like Europe's new prospects of misery, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, has referred to the utility of "the ruthlessness of truth".
This is therefore no time to compound the misery of cuts and fiscal restraint with a monetary tightening that will disproportionately affect consumer confidence and household disposable income at a time of fragile economic conditions.
Emerging economies' stocks, bonds and currencies have been battered as investors fret that they will no longer be "decoupled" from the rich countries.Unless policymakers blunder unforgivably by letting "systemic" institutions fail or by keeping monetary policy too tight there is no need for today's misery to turn into a new Depression.
By the time the sun rose in Brussels, a meeting of eurozone finance ministers, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB) had unleashed a whole new misery upon the residents of one struggling eurozone outpost.
"Don't put all your eggs in one basket," was his homespun version.He was of a generation of economists who felt that government intervention, through monetary or fiscal policy, could smooth out business cycles, helping to prevent the misery of unemployment.
Whereas the greater resilience of the emerging world is a source of stability for the global economy, the monetary linkages between rich and poor economies complicate matters.In this section Map of misery Backing greens with greenbacks First ink, now blood Turning towards Mecca Who needs credit?
Nearly five million Americans out of work for more than six months are left to wonder what kind of help might be coming, as the Federal Reserve, the International Monetary Fund and a bipartisan swath of policy experts implore Washington to act — both to alleviate human misery and to ensure the strength of the economy.
