ECB says will do what it takes; S. Korea adds $130 billion

Please understand that everything happening is very serious. Serious in the sense that it is REAL. Trust me I too feel like life is imitating a fictional movie. Every government around the world has been placed on high alert and is scrambling to plug up every hole in the financial markets. It's nice to see them give a damn for a change. Although, I'm afraid that its too late. Nature has a way of overpowering anything man-made. I guess it had to hit them in their pocketbook for them to pay any attention. I am not being a pessimist. I am being a REALIST!

We can't live in denial. It is what it is. How else are we going to be able to USE our critical thinking skills and apply them appropriately. Panicking doesn't clean up a mess, it only serves to make the situation worse and prolong it. Think about it for a moment, panicking causes you to react and you will tend to ignore your reasoning mind. Please click here to read the following article from Reuters.

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Reuters.com

ECB says will do what it takes; S. Korea adds $130 billion

By Ros Krasny and Anna Willard

Sun Oct 19, 2008 7:49pm EDT

WASHINGTON/PARIS (Reuters) - The head of the European Central Bank (ECB) on Sunday pledged to do whatever it takes to restore confidence to rocky markets, as governments world-wide pour cash into banks and financial markets hit by the worse economic crisis since the Great Depression.

South Korea was the latest country to join efforts to help stabilize markets, while the Dutch government agreed to pump some 10 billion euros ($13 billion) into ING, the country's largest listed bank.

Governments are looking to put into place measures to shore up their economies and global growth as the crisis spreads throughout the world.

They have pledged about $3.2 trillion -- about equal to the economic output of Germany -- to guarantee bank deposits and bank-to-bank lending, and in some cases have taken stakes in banks that are awash in bad assets.

ING will gain two government representatives on its board who will have veto power over certain decisions, in return for the huge capital infusion.

The moves come on top of huge cash injections into money markets and coordinated interest rate cuts to offer some respite to money markets, which have been gripped by the fear of more bank failures after U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers went bankrupt.

Still, with markets ready to open for what will likely be another week of neck-braking volatility, efforts to break open a liquidity lock-down appeared to be paying off in the form of tighter credit spreads. 4 page article continued...