The crisis has clearly demonstrated the limits of national responses in dealing with cross-border, systemically important financial institutions, markets and instruments.
The first thing is to confine the increased level of spending to investment, put a lid on current expenditures, and show it explicitly. The government ought to ratify not only the ceiling on total spending for 2002, but also its breakdown to current and capital expenditure, and present the figures in comparison to the estimated figures for 2001.