Credit Crunch: Policymakers Speak

Top policy makers give their view of causes and consequences of the credit crunch, one year after it started in August 2007.

Henry Paulson - US TreasuryJean-Claude Trichet - EBCDominque Strauss Kahn - IMF

George Soros - investorPascal Lamy - WTOAngel Gurria - OECD

HENRY PAULSON - JULY 2008

US Treasury secretary Henry Paulson told Newsnight's Emily Maitlis he was doing everything he could to ensure a rapid economic recovery, admitting problems had been more severe than he anticipated.

He dodged the question of whether the US was entering a recession, but pointed out that conditions were not as severe as in the Great Depression of the 1930s.

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GEORGE SOROS - MAY 2008

BBC business editor Robert Peston interviewed international investor George Soros, reputed to have made a £1bn by speculating against the pound during the 1992 ERM crisis.

Mr Soros was extremely pessimistic, and warned the US and the UK were likely to suffer most in the economic downturn because of their reliance on credit.

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JEAN-CLAUDE TRICHET - MAY 2008

The European Central Bank (ECB) played a central role in the crisis, intervening to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars to boost banks' balance sheets.

The head of the ECB, Jean-Claude Trichet, told BBC business editor Robert Peston that despite the scale of the intervention, there was no sign the crisis was over.

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PASCAL LAMY - MAY 2008

Pascal Lamy, director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), has said that finance needs to be subject to tougher international and national rules.

He told BBC business correspondent John Moylan that the crisis has revealed that capitalism needs a rule-based system to function effectively.

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DOMINIQUE STRAUSS-KAHN - APRIL 2008

The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) told BBC business reporter Michelle Fleury it had not done enough.

Dominque Strauss Kahn admitted it had not foreseen the scale of the crisis. He conceded IMF warnings about the risks banks were taking on were not pursued seriously enough with governments and regulators.

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ANGEL GURIA - JUNE 2008

The head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the rich nations' club which generally backs free markets, admitted to the BBC the crisis showed that markets needed regulation to work properly.

OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria told BBC business reporter Nigel Cassidy that a lack of supervision of US mortgage markets was the root cause of the crisis.

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