The world’s main central banks have announced an emergency $180bn injection of dollar liquidity in the latest attempt to halt the escalating global financial market crisis. The US Federal Reserve said it was making available the extra funding to overnight and longer-term money markets. In a joint statement, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, the Bank of Canada and Swiss National Bank pledged they would continue to work closely together and will take appropriate steps to address the ongoing pressures.
If history ended on November 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, it returned with a vengeance on the week starting September 14, 2008, when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch rushed into the arms of Bank of America and one of the world’s largest insurers, AIG, was effectively nationalised by the US government.