Word: augustness
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...Right now, it's a familiar place to many of Britain's banks. On August 7, rival Barclays added $5.4 billion to the enormous sums British lenders have written off amid the credit crisis; London-based HSBC, Europe's largest bank, made a similar contribution a few days earlier. For banks across Europe, as for their U.S. counterparts, 2008 is proving painfully difficult. Globally, banks could write down as much as $450 billion more over the next three to four years, according to research from Deutsche Bank. Lenders, it says, are short of funds equivalent to 4% of their balance...
...housing market, British lenders have in recent weeks begun squeezing their fixed-rate mortgages to lure buyers in. The government, meanwhile, is examining a temporary suspension of the tax paid by new buyers. What's really needed, though, is an interest rate cut. That's unlikely. On August 7, the Bank of England opted to hold rates at 5% because it's scared a cut will allow inflation to balloon further...
...Grappling with rising inflation at a time of weakening expansion is a challenge for the European Central Bank, too. Figures released on August 6, for instance, showed a shocking 2.9% fall in German manufacturing orders in June. The country, fuelled by a booming market for its exports, has lately helped drive growth in the 15 nations that use the euro. Rendered more costly by the recent strength of the currency, those exports are under pressure. The result: though inflation within the euro area stands at 4.1% - more than double the ECB's goal of 2% - the region's central bank...
This is an updated version of a story that originally appeared on Friday August...
This is an updated version of a story that originally appeared on Friday August...