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4/2/09

The farce continues: U.S. eases accounting rules as G20 acts - who is kidding whom?

EU-DigestThe farce continues: U.S. eases accounting rules as G20 acts - who is kidding whom?

As world leaders were meeting to find solutions to the financial crisis, the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board moved to give banks more flexibility in valuing troubled assets. The changes, to take effect in the second quarter, could reduce writedowns and soften blows to bank earnings. In London's heavily guarded Docklands region, world leaders were set to triple the war chest of the International Monetary Fund to fight the worst economic crisis since the 1930s and impose new curbs on financial markets, monetary sources said.The G20 nations also agreed to a crackdown on tax havens, asking the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to publish a list of tax havens, and promising to enforce sanctions on noncompliant countries. This was a long-standing demand of the French side.

France and Germany raised the stakes Wednesday in the run-up to the summit, saying an overhaul of global financial oversight was a "nonnegotiable" take away from the gathering and dismissing calls for further stimulus packages. "We would never have hoped to get so much. This is not the victory of one camp against the other, but shows the growing awareness that the world needs to change", Sarkozy said. Obviously since this was basically a political meeting, everyone needed to declare some kind of victory. If results stay out the politicians we saw and heard will have to pay the bill. The voters usually have little patience.

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