IMF’s Lagarde calls on US to end budget squabbles
The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Christine Lagarde has told politicians to act quickly in order to end a shutdown of the Federal government, as the government comes close to passing its debt ceiling on 17 October.
Lagarde has said that the shutdown and failure to raise the ceiling could "very seriously hurt" both the US and global economy. She says that US economic growth will be "too low" below two per cent as a result of the fiscal tightening. And in major emerging markets expected tapering may have reduced GDP by 0.5 to one per centage points.
However Lagarde sees growth around one percentage point higher in 2014 as those fiscal constraints ease.