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Business Daily: Is $1,000,000,000,000 enough?

23/04/2012

Is $1,000,000,000,000 enough?

BBC World Service - Business Daily, Is $1,000,000,000,000 enough?

The IMF increased its lending firepower to $1 trillion this weekend, but is that enough?

This weekend the IMF increased its lending firepower to one trillion dollars, but is that enough?  Plus Lucy Kellaway on why the older generation are hanging onto all the best jobs.

Spring is usually a time for optimism.  At last here in the northern hemisphere there's a bit of warmth back in the air, the blossom is on the trees, the birds are singing.  

And there were all sorts of reasons to feel optimistic as the International Monetary Fund met in Washington this weekend.  For a start the IMF had nudged up its forecast for world growth this year to three and a half per cent and succeeded in getting the world - or most of it - to back the IMF's call to increase the institution's lending firepower to one trillion dollars.  

But as the Dutch government announced its talks on austerity measures has broken down, is even a trillion dollars enough?

Professor Ngaire Woods, Dean of Blavatnik School of Government and a former member of IMF European regional advisory group explores the challenges of the eurozone with Justin Rowlatt.

Plus Chinese demand is powering a boom in top quality wine but there is a downside: as wine prices have risen so has the amount of counterfiet wine on the market.

Jeannie Cho Lee, the founder of Asian Palate, a food and wine website aimed at the Chinese market explains how China's growing thirst for fine wine is fueling a rampant trade in fake plonk.   

And, our regular commentator Lucy Kellaway, of the Financial Times, gives her unique solution to the problem of youth unemployment.

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