Stop rocking the boat

The prospect of dimmer global growth predicted by the International Monetary Fund should make it a matter of urgency for US politicians to stop manufacturing crises.

Five years after the start of the global financial meltdown triggered by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, it is pitiful that the US is now putting the fragile global recovery under renewed threat with its mind-boggling political infighting.

The IMF on Tuesday cut its global growth forecast to 2.9 percent this year and 3.6 percent for next year. This year's growth forecast is 0.3 percentage points lower, and next year's 0.2 percentage points down, than the July projection.