Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Central bankers Ben S. Bernanke, Mervyn King and Jean-Claude Trichet need all the help they can get to fend off a global recession and restore confidence to financial markets. Government officials from the world's wealthiest nations meet in Tokyo this week under pressure to devise responses that go beyond monetary policy amid mounting evidence, six months after credit markets seized up, that central banks can't solve the world's economic woes by themselves.
Big government may be on the way back as the Group of Seven nations take a more interventionist stance by imposing greater regulation on financial institutions and perhaps even stepping into the private sector to bail out nonperforming mortgage loans.
``There needs to be outside-of-the-box thinking,'' says Laura Tyson, a former economics adviser to President Bill Clinton who now teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. ``The problem has not been contained, and there's a continuing risk to the economy.''
She suggests the U.S. government work with lenders to convert the interest rates on stressed home loans into longer- term borrowing that is more manageable.
As G-7 finance ministers and central bankers gather Feb. 9, they face the most precarious economic conditions since the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks. Staving off a worldwide slump will top their agenda.
`Policy Coordination'
``I want to discuss where policy coordination is possible,'' Japanese Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga, who will chair the talks, said Jan. 28. His Canadian counterpart, Jim Flaherty, anticipates ``more initiatives.''
``If the medicine is strong enough and if it's done in conjunction with other governments, then I think you have a real possibility to stabilize the situation and make it better,'' Thomas Russo, vice chairman of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in New York, said in a Bloomberg Television interview Jan. 24. ``If the medicine isn't effective or strong enough, you're in for a real downturn.''
Russo proposes offering government-backed loans to U.S. homeowners with adjustable-rate mortgages, whether prime or subprime. He also advocates a tax credit for people who buy homes this year that would triple the current benefits mortgage holders receive.
Stephen King, chief economist at HSBC Holdings Plc in London and a former U.K. Treasury adviser, says the crisis may get so severe that governments will be forced to bail out homeowners who fall behind on loan payments and to buy up worthless assets that are hurting banks.
Unblocking the System
``In a world of monetary drought, cutting interest rates alone is unlikely to unblock the system,'' King says. ``Larger budget deficits are likely to be an increasingly common feature of the policy-making landscape.''
Bernard Connolly, global strategist at American International Group's Banque AIG unit in London, even predicts authorities will eventually have to buy up stocks to prevent a crash.
The leaders of Europe's biggest economies laid the groundwork for more-coordinated action last week at a meeting in London, saying they were ready to step up regulation unless banks hand over more information about their off-balance-sheet risks.
The leaders -- including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown -- also demanded that ratings services give more information to investors.
Limit Foreclosures
In the U.S., Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairwoman Sheila Bair told Congress Jan. 31 that mortgage companies ``invite regulatory and legislative action'' if they don't come up with additional measures to limit foreclosures.
Senator Christopher Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who chairs the banking panel, is exploring the creation of a federal program to buy and restructure delinquent and near-delinquent loans ``to help many borrowers as quickly as possible,'' he says. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, has said he favors the proposal.
Policy makers will discuss similar measures in Tokyo, which might signal a retreat from more than two decades of deregulation. Some U.S. lawmakers blame looser government controls for allowing the excesses that inflated the U.S. real- estate bubble and triggered an unsustainable derivatives boom worldwide.
`Not the Most Creative'
The coordinated effort that Nukaga wants would also represent a break with recent history, says Stephen Roach, Morgan Stanley's Asia chairman. G-7 officials are ``not the most creative types in coming up with new approaches,'' he says. ``I don't see that the G-7 will move very clearly.''
Another handicap: Some of the world's fastest-growing nations won't be at the table. While China, Russia and South Korea have been invited to take part in sideline talks on Asian markets, they won't participate in the formal discussions.
Even so, the G-7 governments may have to find ways to reinforce the steps their central banks have already taken.
The Fed under Bernanke's chairmanship last week lowered its benchmark interest rate a half percentage point to 3 percent, the second cut in as many weeks and the fastest reduction since 1990. The Fed's statement encouraged speculation that rates would keep falling.
Ease the Squeeze
King's Bank of England and the Bank of Canada have also lowered borrowing costs, while joining the Fed, European Central Bank and Swiss National Bank in supplying more cash to markets to ease a credit squeeze.
Such measures, though, don't repair damaged balance sheets or restore value to worthless assets. So lenders faced with mounting losses may keep avoiding risk and refusing to make new loans to companies and households.
Easing monetary policy in such an environment amounts to ``pushing on a piece of string,'' says Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University in New York.
Inflation also limits the ability of some central banks to act. ECB President Trichet and Bank of England Governor King both say price pressures remain a concern in their economies.
So far the U.S. and Canada have been alone among G-7 countries in offering a boost to monetary policy with tax cuts or government-spending programs. President George W. Bush won House of Representatives support for a stimulus package totaling at least $150 billion. Canada initiated a C$60 billion ($60 billion) five-year tax cut.
Break With Tradition
More fiscal easing in the U.S. may be necessary, and other governments should follow suit, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 26, in a break with the fund's traditional push for smaller budgets.
Such a shift at the IMF is ``mildly historic'' and ``an indication of the gravity of the situation we face,'' says former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers.
``We hate the idea of extensive government intervention, but it's going to have to come,'' Connolly says. ``The crisis is real and huge.''