Don't repeat credit bubble with loose credit standards, says IMF; No more protection for India's criminal MPs; 'Africa not rising'; Facebook in housing business

1 Don't repeat credit bubble with loose credit standards, says IMF (Phillip Inman in The Guardian) The International Monetary Fund has warned governments to resist the temptation to relax credit standards to boost growth as it highlighted the UK's lack of lending to small businesses. The global lender of last resort, which helped rescue Ireland, Portugal and Greece from bankruptcy, said policymakers need to weigh the short-term benefits of relaxing credit standards against the potential for a repeat of the 2008 lending bubble.

The IMF said banks remained in a weak state across much of the developed world and a stumbling block to economic growth, which depends on a flourishing and competitive market for commercial and mortgage loans. The Washington-based lender said it was tempting for governments to allow central banks to support lending and for ministers to relax lending rules to boost growth, but the costs over the longer term could be high.

The IMF said its preliminary review of business lending in the UK revealed that business were more concerned about the demand for their goods and the prospect of weak economic growth than the cost of credit. Keynesian economists have long criticised the IMF for backing moves by member governments to tackle supply-side reforms, including making credit easier, in opposition to calls for boosts to public spending to increase the demand for goods and services.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/02/government-not-relax-credit-standards-imf-warns

2 No more protection for India's criminal MPs (BBC) The Indian government has withdrawn a controversial order which allows convicted MPs to run for elections while appeals are pending. The decision was made after PM Manmohan Singh met Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi who had opposed the order. It overruled a Supreme Court directive which bans convicted lawmakers from running for office. 

Campaigners had called the Supreme Court's order a major step in cleaning up Indian politics.

The controversial ordinance had been sent to President Pranab Mukherjee for approval, but the cabinet withdrew it after meeting.  Several leaders of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and some Congress party politicians had also criticised the decree. And in an uncharacteristic outburst last week, Mr Gandhi said it was a "complete nonsense" and "should be torn up and thrown away". 

Mr Gandhi - the son of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi - is seen as the pre-eminent leader within the Congress party and his comments were a huge embarrassment to the government as ministers had been defending the order. Prime Minister Singh was on an official trip to the US when Mr Gandhi made his remarks. In July, the Supreme Court ruled that convicted MPs and state legislators would be barred from office if they were sentenced to imprisonment for two years or more.

More than 150 MPs in the 543-seat lower house of parliament are said to be facing criminal charges. Delhi-based election watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms says across the country there are 1,460 serving lawmakers facing criminal charges.

3 'Africa is not rising' (David Smith in The Guardian) The idea that Africans have never had it so good is rapidly becoming economic orthodoxy. Foreign investors, media and politicians from William Hague to Jacob Zuma have championed a narrative usually summed up in two words: "Africa rising". The majority of Africans themselves, however, feel that the picture is far less rosy, complaining that the continent's much vaunted economic growth is failing to trickle down to their daily lives, according to the biggest survey of its kind.

"After a decade of growth in Africa, little change in poverty at the grassroots," is the title of a report by the Afrobarometer research project, which questioned 51,605 respondents in 34 countries from October 2011 to June this year. Roughly one in five Africans told researchers they still often lack food, clean water or medical care, while about half experience at least occasional shortages. More than two in five regularly lack a cash income that might enable them to meet basic needs, and three-quarters report going without money at least once in the past year.

In 16 countries where data is available over the past decade, the average experience of what researchers term "lived poverty" has hardly changed, the report adds. The poll also found that 56% of Africans feel their governments are doing a bad job of managing the economy. The findings come despite Africa's economies having grown by an average of 4.8% between 2002 and 2011, making it the new darling of the investment community and earning headlines such as "the hopeful continent" from the Economist magazine.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/02/africa-not-rising-survey

4 Facebook in housing business (Andrew S Ross in San Francisco Chronicle) Social networking giant Facebook has partnered on a new, 394-unit apartment complex to be built "within walking distance" of its headquarters and campus in Menlo Park. For Menlo Park, the financial beating heart of Silicon Valley, the complex represents the first significant new housing development in 20 years. While open to the community, including a handful of low-income tenants, it's one way for companies like Facebook to address the housing squeeze affecting the swelling ranks of tech workers up and down the expensive Bay Area.

"Facebook is a strong supporter of its local community and consistently recognized as one of the best places in the world to work," said a Facebook spokeswoman. "This project advances both goals, by providing our employees an excellent new housing option within walking distance to campus while investing in new housing opportunities in our local community."

The $120 million, 630,000-square-foot complex, called Anton Menlo, is a partnership between Facebook and Northern California residential real estate developer St Anton Partners. Details of the financial arrangement, including Facebook's investment, were not disclosed. Last month a 51-unit apartment building, in which Google invested $6.5 million, opened in Mountain View a short distance from the company's headquarters.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/bottomline/article/Facebook-partner-to-build-Menlo-Park-housing-4860826.php