by Daniel Costello

Broad and rapid government stimulus measures helped the global economy to avert the worst of the recent financial crisis, but the global economy remains highly vulnerable to new shocks, International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said Monday. He said it is far too early to end fiscal interventions as an early exit may jeopardize a fragile recovery.

"The storm has passed. The worst has been averted," he said at the Confederation of British Industry annual conference in London Monday. With unemployment at historic levels, and still climbing, he said it's difficult to claim that the crisis is over and added global banking systems remain undercapitalized, weighed down by toxic assets and a rising number of non-performing loans.

The IMF is looking at a controversial plan for a tax on all financial transactions as a way of forcing banks to pay for any future bailouts. Critics of the plan say a punitive tax on the financial services sector could harm the recovery at a delicate time.

 

Early signs of holiday sales were mixed. After showing signs of improvement in recent months, sales of electronic goods and online sales jumped while luxury goods and clothes sales weakened in the first half of November, figures released Tuesday show.

Analysts say rising gas prices are helping online sales because shopping online lets consumers drive less.

And talk about a deal. A judge has cleared the way for Pontiac, Mich., to sell the stadium that was once home to the NFL's Detroit Lions to a Canadian company for $583,000 - a little more than 1 percent of the cost of building the domed sports stadium in 1975. An original deal fell through in a dispute over environmental cleanup costs.

The Lions abandoned the 80,300-seat Silverdome in 2002, when they moved to Detroit's Ford Field. Pontiac has been spending $1.5 million a year to maintain the largely unused stadium.