Finance & Business World

Turkey's central bank will probably leave the benchmark interest rate unchanged at more than five times the rate in the euro zone this week to defend the lira from the impact of the global economic crisis.

The bank will keep the overnight borrowing rate at 16.75 percent, where the Ankara-based lender has held it since July, according to all 16 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The bank will announce its decision at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 19.

Turkey is holding the cost of borrowing high, even as developing economies reduce their rates, to preserve the value of the lira and protect companies that have foreign currency debts. The lira has fallen 21 percent against the dollar since the start of October. The global uncertainty means Turkish monetary policy must remain “cautious,'' the bank said on Oct. 31.

“The bank's major concern has to be the lira,'' said Yarkin Cebeci, economist for JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Istanbul. “They know that any easing would be perceived as premature and have a negative impact on the lira.''

Turkish companies had foreign currency debts that exceeded their assets by $81.4 billion liras at the end of June, according to the latest data from the central bank. A decline in the local currency would fuel inflation by driving up import costs and would raises doubts over firms' ability to finance their borrowing.

Turkey's credit rating outlook was cut to negative from stable by Standard & Poor's on Nov. 13 on concern the country's banks will struggle to meet their financing needs next year because of the global credit crisis.

Rating Cut

Turkey's government and the International Monetary Fund are close to signing a new economic accord, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Nov free credit score. 15. “We are at a point very close to a solution,'' Erdogan told reporters after a press conference in Washington, where he attended a summit of leaders from the world's largest economies to discuss the global financial crisis.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF's managing director, said at a press conference he is confident of reaching agreement on a new accord soon.

Inflation accelerated to 12 percent in October from 11.1 percent a month earlier. The bank is aiming to slow consumer- price growth to 7.5 percent by the end of next year.

The statistics office will announce unemployment data for the three months through September today at 10:00 a.m. in Ankara. The jobless rate in the three months to August was 9.4 percent, the highest summer jobless rate since the measure began in 2005.

Consumer Confidence

The office will also release November consumer confidence figures today. The CNBC-E channel's measure of confidence fell to its lowest since 2002 in October, the channel said on Nov. 3.

The benchmark ISE National 100 Index fell 4.6 percent last week as the global credit crunch brought fears of a recession and cut appetite for investments in emerging markets such as Turkey. The lira weakened almost 4 percent to 1.6063 per dollar as of late Nov. 14. The yield on the benchmark lira bond tracked by ABN Amro rose 56 basis points to 22.16 in the week.

Koc Holding AS, Turkey's biggest company, is due to report third-quarter earnings this week. It hasn't specified a date yet.

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The U.S. downturn will be the longest in three decades, and the drought in consumer spending may be the worst ever, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

The implosion of credit markets last month will cause the economy to shrink at a 3 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter and decline at a 1.5 percent pace in the first three months of 2009, according to the median estimate of 59 economists surveyed Nov. 3 to Nov. 11. Following last quarter's 0.3 percent drop, the slump would be the longest since 1974-75.

“The economy fell off a cliff in October,'' said Richard Berner, co-head of global economics at Morgan Stanley in New York. “We had a huge financial shock that intensified the credit crunch and triggered a sharp downturn.''

Declines in household spending will extend into next year as the worst financial crisis in seven decades forces employers to keep cutting payrolls on top of the 1.2 million jobs already lost this year. President-elect Barack Obama has said the U.S. needs a second economic stimulus package “sooner rather than later.''

The pace of contraction this quarter would be the worst since 1990. Berner is among economists projecting the current slump will also be the most serious in a quarter century as the lack of credit causes a reinforcing, vicious circle of declines in confidence, spending and hiring.

“All of these adverse feedback loops are working to reinforce the downturn,'' he said. “At the moment, it looks like the deepest U.S. recession since '81.''

Some members of the group that officially determines when U.S. contractions begin and end are even more pessimistic.

`Serious Recession'

“We're in for a pretty serious recession,'' Jeffrey Frankel, a member of the business-cycle dating committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research, said in a Nov. 10 interview with Bloomberg Television. “There's a chance it'll be the worst postwar recession.''

In addition to gross domestic product, the group tracks changes in payrolls, production, income and sales to make their call. The NBER usually declares a recession 12 to 18 months after it starts. The odds of an official contraction occurring within the next 12 months rose to 100 percent, according to this month's survey, up from 90 percent in October.

After dropping at a 3.1 percent pace in the third quarter, consumer spending will fall 2.9 percent this quarter and 1 short term cash loans.3 percent in the first three months of 2009, according to the survey median. Spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the economy, has never fallen for three consecutive quarters in the postwar era.

Rising Unemployment

Falling demand will cause an even bigger increase in unemployment than projected last month. Economists surveyed forecast the jobless rate will rise to 7 percent in the first quarter of 2009, up from last month's forecast of 6.6 percent. The rate will climb to 7.7 percent by the end of 2009, the highest level since 1992, the survey showed.

The jobless rate rose to 6.5 percent in October, the highest since 1994, the government said last week. Employers cut 240,000 jobs last month and the total number of unemployed Americans jumped to 10.1 million, the highest level in a quarter century.

“The combination of the credit crunch and the rapid decline in consumer spending were the two drivers'' behind the weakening employment outlook, said John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The economic slump is contributing to a plunge in commodity prices that spells good news for inflation. Consumer prices will rise 1.8 percent next year, the smallest gain since the last official recession in 2001, after increasing 3 percent this year, the survey showed.

Less Inflation

The diminishing threat of inflation will give the Federal Reserve leeway to lower interest rates again, the survey showed. The benchmark rate, now at 1 percent, is likely to fall to 0.5 percent by March, its lowest level ever.

Obama, in his first post-election press conference, last week said he would follow up on any fiscal stimulus passed by Congress in the last weeks of the Bush administration with further measures after his Jan. 20 inauguration. Already, the government has approved a $700 billion financial rescue package, on top of wide-ranging measures from the Fed to boost liquidity.

“We have taken some major action to date, and we will need further action during this transition and subsequent months,'' Obama said.

U.S. automakers have been among the hardest hit by the slump in spending. Vehicle sales plunged in October for a 12th straight month, the longest streak in 17 years, overwhelming efforts by General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC to cut costs by trimming payrolls and shutting factories.

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Fitch Ratings cut its debt ratings for four Eastern European countries and downgraded the outlook for Russia, South Korea and Mexico as the global slowdown spreads to emerging economies.

Bulgaria, Hungary, Kazakhstan and Romania had their sovereign ratings cut as part of a review of 17 emerging-market economies, Fitch said in a statement today. The outlooks for Chile, Malaysia and South Africa were also lowered.

The U.S., Japan and the euro zone will all shrink next year, the International Monetary Fund said last week, weakening demand for goods exported from developing nations. The global financial crisis is also making it more difficult for emerging economies to attract foreign capital, putting a strain on their currencies and finances and prompting countries including Hungary and Pakistan to ask the IMF for loans.

“The profound shift in the global economic and financial outlook pose significant real economy and policy challenges for emerging markets,'' David Riley, London-based head of global sovereign ratings at Fitch, said in a statement. “The risks of economic and financial stress that could undermine sovereign creditworthiness have risen.''

Emerging Europe is the “most vulnerable'' to worsening global financial and economic conditions because of its high debt and current-account deficits, Fitch said.

Hungary's Recession

Hungary's long-term, foreign-currency rating was cut one level to BBB, the second-lowest investment grade, in light of “the severity of the recession'' and “foreign-currency mismatches in the private sector,'' Fitch said Faxless pay advances. Still, it added that the country's $20 billion in IMF-led support “largely removed external financing and liquidity risks.''

Bulgaria's one-level cut to BBB-, the lowest investment grade, reflects “the increasing risk of a recession in response to a marked decline in external financing flows,'' Fitch said.

Russia's outlook was revised to “negative'' because “room for policy maneuver is constrained by the risk of deposit and capital flight, the systemic weakness of the banking system and relatively high inflation.'' The country still maintains an “exceptionally strong balance sheet,'' Fitch said.

South Korea's outlook was also cut to “negative,'' on concern the country's foreign-exchange reserves may decline as the nation faces the biggest crisis since it needed an IMF bailout in 1997.

Malaysia's outlook worsened to “stable'' from “positive,'' reflecting the drop in commodity prices and weakening demand for the nation's electronics exports, Fitch said. Mexico's was cut to “negative'' because of a U.S. recession, reduced capital flows and lower oil prices.

Fitch affirmed the ratings of Brazil, China, India, Peru, Poland, Taiwan and Thailand.

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President-elect Barack Obama will inherit the worst recession since Ronald Reagan’s second year in the White House, economists said as figures showed U.S. payrolls plunged by more than half a million the past two months.

The economy will shrink at a 3.5 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter and at a 2 percent pace in the first quarter of 2009, nearly twice prior estimates, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economists led by Jan Hatzius wrote today in a note. That would be the biggest back-to-back contraction since 1982.

The surge in unemployment reflected an economic cave-in in October, when car sales plunged 32 percent, manufacturing contracted the most in 26 years and consumer confidence fell to a record low. The deepening recession puts pressure on Obama to quickly assemble a response and name his economic team.

“Today’s unemployment report is a pretty powerful piece of evidence that the economy is still weakening,” Hatzius said in a telephone interview. “We think a sizeable fiscal stimulus program is appropriate at the current juncture.”

Congressional Democrats are preparing a pre-inaugural fiscal stimulus bill and calls are also mounting for more Federal Reserve rate cuts.

The jobless rate in October rose to 6.5 percent and companies slashed 240,000 jobs, for a total of 1.2 million losses so far this year, the Labor Department said. The 1.5 percentage point gain in unemployment over the prior six months was the fastest since the six months ending in Feb. 1982.

President-elect Obama, in his first press conference since the Nov. 4 election, said today any stimulus package would combat unemployment.

U.S. in a ‘Hole’

“It is not going to be easy for us to dig ourselves out of the hole that we are in,” Obama said today in Chicago. “We are going to have to focus on jobs because the hemorrhaging of jobs has an impact on consumer confidence and the ability of people to purchase goods and services.”

The head of the official arbiter for U.S. economic cycles today said there’s no doubt that the economy is in a recession approved cash advance.

“The evidence is more than compelling,” Robert Hall, who heads the National Bureau of Economic Research’s panel, said in an interview following the jobs report. “It’s conclusive, in my personal opinion.”

With today’s remarks, Hall joined fellow panelist and Harvard University Professor Martin Feldstein in calling a recession. The eight-member group will meet at a later date to make an official determination because it needs additional details on gross domestic product figures, Hall said.

Economic Slump

Feldstein and other analysts have said the economic slump is likely to be deeper than the past two recessions, in 2001 and 1990-91. Other economists are also lowering their forecasts.

“We’re in for a rough patch and it’s going to last probably for a little longer than we’re used to,” Drew Matus, senior U.S. economist at Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. in New York, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “We haven’t really seen the impact on the consumer yet from the job losses we’ve just reported.”

Goldman’s call reflects mounting concern that growing numbers of companies and consumers will lose access to credit as the worst financial crisis in seven decades prompts banks to rein in lending.

The Fed will cut its target interest rate by half a point to 0.5 percent by year-end, while Obama and Congress work out a stimulus package of between $300 billion and $500 billion, Goldman economists predicted.

Goldman analysts said Fed policy makers may opt to cut the rate before their next meeting on Dec. 16.

Goldman’s GDP contraction calls would mark the steepest recession since the economy shrank 4.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 1981 and 6.4 percent in the first quarter of 1982 after Fed chairman Paul Volcker drove the overnight interbank rate to as high as 20 percent to stem inflation.

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Scheduled airlines seats to Hawaii between November and January are expected to drop 14.5 percent.

According to the Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, 2.2 million seats are scheduled on nonstop flights to Hawaii for the period.

U.S. Mainland flights are expected to decrease 16.8 percent to 1.5 million, led by a 16.5 percent decline in visitors from the U.S. West region. The number of seats from Las Vegas is projected to be down 40.2 percent to 49,632.

The number of seats from California is projected to be down as well. DBEDT expects arrivals from Oakland to be down 76.9 percent to 24,288; Sacramento and San Diego are forecast to be down 39 percent and 61.3 percent, respectively. Los Angeles is projected to be down 6.9 percent to 487,913 seats.

Flights from Anchorage, however, are expected to increase 144 percent, as seasonal service aboard Alaska Airlines has begun payday advance loans.

Flights from the U.S. East are expected to drop 18.6 percent.

Flights from Japan are projected to be down 11.8 percent to 3987,118 seats. Meanwhile, airlines traveling from Sydney and Auckland will have 13 percent fewer seats.

Canada flights are expected to dip 11.1 percent to 86,264 seats.

Air seats to Honolulu, Kahului and Kona are projected down 4.1 percent, 7.5 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, Lihue will benefit from a 16.7 percent increase to 27,336 scheduled air seats.

The DBEDT analysis is based on scheduled flights as noted in the Official Airline Guide flight schedules as of October and are subject to change.

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Wall Street now has a new worry: bonus season.

There are already rumblings that the notoriously lavish payments for bankers and traders could be cut in half from a year ago, following what has been an abysmal year for the securities industry.

Just a year ago, the bonus pie was worth about $33.2 billion, which broke down to an average of $180,420 for the more than 180,000 individuals employed by Wall Street firms at the time, according to the New York State Comptroller’s office.

At the same time, opposition to big bonuses has snowballed in recent weeks after Congress effectively saved some of the country’s biggest financial firms from certain disaster.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle - including House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass. - put the first nine banks and securities firms that received a government capital injection on notice that they will not tolerate companies using the money to pay bonuses.

Similarly, New York state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has demanded information about this year’s bonuses from many of these companies, which include Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500), Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500).

But compensation experts say they are hard-pressed to believe that most finance pros won’t get a payday this year.

"You’ve got to pay the army that is generating the results for the organization - there is no question about that," said Dave Swinford, president and CEO of the compensation consulting firm Pearl Meyer & Partners.

The same may not necessarily be said for the industry’s top executives. Some could forgo their payday in order to avoid a hellish backlash from both politicians and taxpayers.

Top level executives at Deutsche Bank (DB), including Chairman Josef Ackermann, already agreed to give up their bonus payments this year.

A handful of execs did that last year as troubles began to mount in the industry, including Morgan Stanley Chairman and CEO John Mack and then-Bear Stearns chief James Cayne. Cayne gave up his bonus a few months before the firm was ultimately absorbed by JPMorgan Chase.

"I think all of the most senior executives are thinking hard about what the right thing is for the organization and, frankly, for themselves in the long run," said Swinford.

Annual bonuses are hardly a phenomenon unique to Wall Street, but certainly no other industry has faced such skepticism about the practice.

That’s due in large part to the size of the payouts given out in recent years no fax pay day loans.

Last year, Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) chief Lloyd Blankfein enjoyed a windfall of nearly $68 million for helping his firm avoid many of the toxic mortgage assets that ultimately sank rivals such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. Nearly two-thirds of that payment came in the form of restricted stock and stock options, while the remainder - roughly $26.8 million - was cold, hard cash.

Morgan’s Mack enjoyed a whopping payout of more than $40 million in 2006, while former Lehman CEO Richard Fuld was awarded $11 million in restricted stock that same year.

Some critics have charged that the current compensation model, which took root in the 1980s, helped fuel the excessive risk-taking that contributed to the credit crisis.

While financial firms are unlikely to make any changes to that payment model this year, compensation experts believe that changes could soon be forthcoming.

Tim Bartl, vice president and general counsel at the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Executive Compensation, said he could envision Wall Street firms making a shift towards higher salaries for employees or bigger equity stakes in the form of restricted stock or options instead of large cash bonuses.

There’s also the possibility, he noted, that some firms could employ some sort of deferred compensation plan aimed at preventing employees from getting paid for bets that ultimately come back to haunt the company years later.

There are concerns, however, that changes to how compensation and bonuses are paid out could signal another major modification to an industry that has undergone a major transformation in the last two months.

One of the biggest risks is that top talent, knowing that their bonus is capped, could head for more lucrative opportunities, notes Alan Johnson, whose compensation consultancy firm Johnson Associates tracks compensation trends in the financial services industry.

But with hedge funds and private equity firms suffering alongside the big banks, it remains to be seen if Wall Street workers could indeed find the kind of wallet-busting payday they have grown accustomed to elsewhere.

Johnson warns that a change in the way bankers and traders are paid could also spell trouble for the companies that employ them. Should a bank have a difficult year, they would still be obligated to pay hefty salaries.

"It cuts both ways," said Johnson. "The question is how do you do it without destroying the business?" 

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While attendance may be down at the 49th annual Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show and boat sales have run into choppy seas, some positive signs persist for both the show and boat sales across South Florida.

The show, which ran Oct. 30 through Nov. 3, saw a 4 percent decrease in attendance from last year for all of the days of the show, excluding the final Monday, a show spokeswoman said.

Show Management, the managerial agency, did not immediately provide exact headcounts for each day or final figures. The spokeswoman estimated that between 130,000 and 140,000 people attended last year.

Sales figures may not be available until a week after the show ends, but the general outlook was positive, according to Show Management COO Andrew Doole.

The financial crisis caused some concern for vendors and show organizers, he said. Still, “I think everybody here is pleasantly surprised at the crowd we’ve got.”

The crowd was relatively steady, thanks to increased marketing efforts abroad. The show targeted Russia, the Middle East and South America, in particular, Doole said. The result: a 15 percent increase in international attendance.

International attendance was helped by the fact that many new marinas have been built in Central and South America and the value of the U.S. dollar, which, until recently, had declined against many foreign currencies, Doole said.

“The boats here are a bargain at the moment,” he noted.

While the dollar and the soft market for smaller boats have caused many price tags to drop, not every boat is a bargain. Some brokers and builders said the megayacht sector –those boats longer than 80 feet and often priced in the millions – are selling just fine.

“Under 100 feet or under 80 feet, those guys are dying,” said Tim Johnson, a broker at International Yacht Collection’s Fort Lauderdale office emergency cash loans. But, since most of International Yacht Collection’s boats are “well above” 100 feet and its clientele is extremely affluent, the company’s business is steady, he said.

“People ask me on a daily basis: ‘Isn’t the price of fuel affecting your business?’ Oh, give me a break,” Johnson said.

Mike Dickman, director of marketing for HMY Yacht Sales in Dania Beach, said that most of HMY’s boats are in the mid range – 45 feet to 80 feet – exposing them to more market pressure than the biggest boats. Still, early sales from this year’s show forecast a better year than last, he said.

The credit crunch may make financing a boat more difficult, but it didn’t play a large role, said Frank Herhold, executive director of Marine Industries Association of South Florida. However, it could impact lower-end sales where the industry is seeing a slowdown, he said.

“My gut feeling is [getting financing is] a little bit tougher but it’s there,” Herhold said. “I haven’t had dealers tell me they lost a sale because they couldn’t get financing.”

At any rate, the high-end deals are mostly cash, he noted.

South Florida Business Journal reported data in late September showing that new boat sales here declined 26 percent for the first half of 2008 compared to the same period in 2007.

The decline is a large concern for the marine industry, which has an estimated $13.5 million impact on the region and accounts for more than 150,000 jobs.

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The University at Buffalo’s Engineering Awareness for Minorities received an award this month from the U.S. Department of Labor for its efforts to promote equal employment opportunities.

BEAM is the winner of the 2008 Exemplary Public Interest Contribution award. It is one of two non-profit organizations to receive the award. F.E.G.S. Health and Human Services System in New York City is the other recipient.

BEAM works with middle school and high school students in the Buffalo-area who want to attend college to pursue science and engineering degrees freecreditreport. Since it began in 1982, it has allowed more than 10,000 students to get involved in science, math and computer projects at after-school clubs, summer programs and career days, the university said.

It is funded by contributions from companies, educational institutions, community organizations and individuals.

The award was presented Oct. 16 in Washington, DC.

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Jason’s Deli, which operates six restaurants in the Austin area, is nixing high fructose corn syrup—completely.

The Beaumont-based deli chain says it’s rolling out an entirely new menu of breads, dressings, desserts and other items that will all be free of the common additive. Jason’s Deli says it’s already eliminated artificial trans-fats and MSG.

The company has more than 200 restaurants in 25 states including markets like Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas and Houston.

“Even though this was an enormous undertaking as high fructose corn syrup is pervasive in the food system, we found that removing HFCS actually makes the food taste better” says Rusty Coco, a co-owner and executive vice-president of Jason’s http://paydayintime.com. “We’re fighting The Battle for Real Food as the food industry has gotten addicted to cutting back on quality and cheapening products. Our aim is to serve the tastiest meals at the best prices.”

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Asian and European leaders called for an overhaul of World War II-era banking rules, lending support to French President Nicolas Sarkozy as he pushes the U.S. to embrace greater supervision of global financial markets.

The leaders “pledged to undertake effective and comprehensive reform of the international monetary and financial systems,'' according to a statement in Beijing yesterday. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told reporters after the gathering of more than 40 heads of state and government that “we need even more financial regulation to ensure financial safety.''

U.S. and European leaders have sparred over the causes of the credit crunch and how to cure it. Sarkozy has called for stricter government oversight of banks and hedge funds. President George W. Bush, who will host the Group of 20 industrialized and developing nations on Nov. 15, emphasized the role of free markets in a speech yesterday.

“It is foolish to think that within a few weeks Europe and the U.S. are going to be able to overhaul international financial regulation,'' said Allan Meltzer, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “It will be extremely hard to come up with a consensus. I doubt the Europeans will even be able to agree among themselves.''

Meltzer chaired a U.S. congressional commission that studied the international financial system in 2000 after the Asian financial crisis.

European Proposals

The EU has floated the ideas of including more bank supervision, stricter regulation of hedge funds, new rules for credit-rating companies and changes at the International Monetary Fund. The French president has compared the effort to the 1944 Bretton Woods conference in New Hampshire that fixed exchange rates, hitched the world to the gold standard and created the IMF and World Bank.

“While the specific solutions pursued by every country may not be the same, agreeing on a common set of principles will be an essential step towards preventing similar crises in the future,'' Bush said in his weekly radio address.

Nations must focus on “the fundamentals of long-term economic growth: free markets, free enterprise and free trade,'' Bush said.

The two-day summit in Beijing was the first meeting of Asian and EU chiefs since calls for coordinated action mounted along with bank failures and plunging stock prices that began last month.

IMF Scrutinized

“The IMF, World Bank and other agencies are falling behind the times,'' said Jeon Hyochan, a researcher at Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul. “The agencies need to strengthen their ability to take pre-emptive measures.''

The Washington-based IMF is considering an emergency program to prevent a collapse of emerging markets by almost doubling borrowing limits for members and waiving its standard demands for economic austerity measures. The agency agreed Oct. 24 to lend Iceland $2.1 billion in accordance with existing rules after the island nation's banking system collapsed, threatening a prolonged economic contraction internet payday loans.

“There is a unanimous consensus to push forward reform,'' said Kazuo Kodama, a spokesman at Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. No agreement has been reached on the details of that reform, he said.

Japan wants the IMF to be able to act in a “nimble, speedy, timely manner'' and “without excessively stringent conditions'' when helping poorer nations, said Osamu Sakashita, a spokesman for Prime Minister Taro Aso.

`Critical Role'

The EU and Asian leaders were less specific in their statement, which says the “IMF should play a critical role in assisting countries seriously affected by the crisis.''

Sarkozy's campaign for an overhaul threatens to expose differences with the U.S. over global financial governance. That may provoke tensions and bog down talks while individual countries continue to act on their own to limit the fallout.

Sarkozy said the mid-November meeting in Washington will involve regulatory decisions because EU and Asian leaders agree that action is needed.

“We have all understood it would not be possible to simply meet and have a conversation,'' Sarkozy said. “We needed to turn it into a decision-making forum.''

The gathering to be hosted by Bush, who leaves office in January, will be the first of a series of financial summits that will also address foreign-exchange rates, according to Sarkozy, who said talks about currencies may be put off until after Nov. 15. “It is simply impossible to talk about the financial crisis without discussing currencies and the way in which they interact.''

Exchange Rates

The pound and the euro have both lost more than 20 percent against the dollar in the past three months, and more than 30 percent against the yen. Aso said derivatives products that “flow around the world'' should also feature on the agenda.

South Korea stressed the importance of trans-Atlantic unity in taking any actions. “If Europe and the U.S. become united, it would enhance whatever countermeasures are taken,'' South Korean President Lee Myung Bak said, according to his spokesman, Lee Dong Kwan.

The credit crisis is choking off funds to companies and people, undermining business and consumer sentiment. Economists at Deutsche Bank AG expect the Group of Seven economies to contract 1.1 percent next year, the worst since the Great Depression, and global growth to be the weakest since the 1980s.

Stock markets and commodities have tumbled along with currencies this year amid growing concern that governments, central banks and finance ministers are powerless to counter eroding corporate earnings and a global recession.

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