Again, we try to take the lead in the way we organise supervision in the Netherlands. Co-operation between bank and insurance supervisors dates back to the early nineties and has performed well. Nevertheless in anticipation of a continuation of the trend that I have described, we have come to the conclusion that a cross sectoral approach to supervision is the right way forward.
When inflation is very low, interest rates tend to be very low also, even in good times. And when interest rates are generally very low, the Fed has only limited room to cut them to help the economy in bad times.