Thread: Berlusconi says suspending markets possible

The Associated PressPublished: October 10, 2008

ROME: Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Friday that world leaders might consider suspending stock markets in response to the financial meltdown.

Berlusconi told a press conference in Naples that EU leaders may hold a summit on the crisis Sunday in Paris. He also said leaders from the Group of Eight also were considering a summit in the coming days.

The solutions to the crisis will have to be "global and innovative," Berlusconi said. "There is talk of suspending the markets" while international financial rules are "rewritten."

He stressed that suspending trading was an "hypothesis," and that nothing had yet been decided.

Also on Friday, Italy's stock market regulator widened a monthlong ban on short selling to include all shares traded in the country.

The measure bans the common practice of selling borrowed shares in hopes of buying them at a lower price and will be in effect until Oct. 31. Last week the regulator had banned short-selling bank and insurance company stocks.

The ban aims to help stop the free fall of the Milan Stock Exchange, which along with other global markets has been suffering heavy losses in the wake of the U.S. financial crisis.

The benchmark S&P/Mib index was down 4.5 percent Friday afternoon.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/10/ ... ltdown.php

This is sounding like Biblical prophecy. One world government with the head in Rome. The book of Daniel speaks of this. It also speaks of Babylon (Iraq) being the seat of commerce. When Joel Rosenberg spoke on Glenn Beck a while back, he mentioned the Biblical prophecies in Ezekiel 38 and 39. We are very close to the end of times. Exciting.

I've always said, I believe it will be in my life time or my kids. Now I believe it will be both.

Berlusconi Says Leaders May Close World's Markets


By Steve Scherer

Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said political leaders are discussing the idea of closing the world's financial markets while they ``rewrite the rules of international finance.''

``The idea of suspending the markets for the time it takes to rewrite the rules is being discussed,'' Berlusconi said today after a Cabinet meeting in Naples, Italy. A solution to the financial crisis ``can't just be for one country, or even just for Europe, but global.''

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell as much 8.1 percent in early trading and pared most of those losses after Berlusconi's remarks. The Dow was down 0.5 percent to 8540.52 at 10:10 in New York.

Group of Seven finance ministers and central bankers are meeting in Washington today, and will stay in town for the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings this weekend. European Union leaders may gather in Paris on Oct. 12, three days before a scheduled summit in Brussels, Berlusconi said today, while Group of Eight leaders may hold a meeting on the crisis ``in coming days,'' he said.

Berlusconi didn't give any details about what kind of rules leaders were looking to change, except to say that leaders are ``talking about a new Bretton Woods.''

The Bretton Woods Agreements were adopted to rebuild the international economic system after World War II in a hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. The aim of the agreements was to establish a monetary management system, initially by pegging currencies to gold. The IMF was set up later to help manage the international financial system.

www.bloomberg.com