4. The economy, global or domestic, did not improve much compared to last year. After some signs of recovery at the end of 2009, the global economy was hit by another outbreak – the euro debt crisis which brought with it a fresh wave of uncertainty and heightened risk aversion. Global economic recovery turned out to be slow and uneven. Unemployment stayed persistently high.
But I thought it would at least be helpful to offer the Federal Reserve's perspective. First, we support the idea of finishing an NPR on Basel II and related supervisory guidance as soon as possible, which right now looks to be in the first quarter of 2006.