Telegraph: Volcker issues dire warning on slump

[Apologies for straying slightly off-topic]
Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, has warned that the economic slump has begun to metastasise after a shocking collapse in output over the past two months, threatening to overwhelm the incoming Obama administration as it struggles to restore confidence. "What this crisis reveals is a broken financial system like no other in my lifetime," he told a conference at Lombard Street Research in London. "Normal monetary policy is not able to get money flowing. The trouble is that, even with all this government protection, the market is not moving again. The only other time we have seen the US economy drop as suddenly as this was when the Carter administration imposed credit controls, which was artificial."