These reassurances, however, have not removed uncertainty from the markets. The stronger the economic recovery in the United States, the more sense it makes to begin hiking rates sooner rather than later. Also, the longer the Fed waits, the sharper eventual rate increases may have to be. Monetary normalization will obviously be a welcome development, for at least two reasons.
Having been Minister of Finance for four years, in the middle of the financial crisis and having navigated the difficulty of that, having had to put in place a lot of regulations that still apply today to sanitise and strengthen the financial sector at the time, and having had the privilege of leading the International Monetary Fund for eight years, which is in many instances the lender of last resort to countries in difficulty, I know some of the facets of the work that is done here.