Cutting interest rates won't be enough to resuscitate the economy, because, whatever the rate, firms will refuse to borrow or invest, and households will hoard their money.
In a normalized year for GDP a combination of rate firming and tonnage growth each exceed GDP.
"It will take some time to be felt on Main Street in Russia," said Edward Parker, an analyst at Fitch Ratings, the bond rating firm.
On Monday, Fitch Ratings, the debt rating firm, reported that credit card companies wrote off 5.4percentt of their prime card balances in January, up from 4.3percentt a year ago.
"Politically, you couldn't have had joint department chairs overnight, or sharing of some specialties," said M. Craig Kornett, senior director at Fitch Ratings, a Wall Street bond-rating firm.
Over at Fitch Ratings, another Big Three credit rating firm, there was also a warning that Alcatel's credit picture would suffer in a Lucent merger.
A.M. Best, an insurance rating firm, downgraded the issuer credit ratings on Wednesday to aa- from aa.
She finds herself at a third-rate firm handling a monstrous 74-year-old movie star.
Indeed, my father served as the elected chairman of the Securities Industry Association -- not a position that would be given to what the article called "a second-rate firm".
The committee voted to hold rates firm.
