IMF urges cleaning up bad investments

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has criticized certain western countries for their slowness in removing toxic assets from their banks. Strauss-Kahn says the countries should clean up the balance sheets of their banks. "In Germany, other European countries or in the United States, everywhere, we are being too slow to deal with this topic," Strauss-Kahn said in an interview with business daily Handelsblatt. He says injecting money into the economy is not a final solution to the current global economic meltdown that began with the credit crunch in the United States. The former French finance minister believes the global economy will not improve until the second half of 2010. Strauss-Kahn also appealed for an ample reconsideration of the market economy system, saying the idea needs firm rules. "I would not say that we are seeing the end of the market economy. But we are certainly seeing the end of the idea that the market can regulate itself," he said. A market economy is an economic system based on the division of labor in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand, that is, not planned or controlled by a central authority.