These are welcome signs, of course, but at this stage conditions in financial markets are still far from normal. A number of securitization markets remain moribund, risk spreads – although off their recent peaks – generally remain quite elevated, and pressures in shortterm funding markets persist.
A time for choosing Nearly 30 years ago, at another critical time of choosing – in a period of economic malaise – policymakers were reminded from many quarters of the need to keep their wits about them in making policy.