Et Cetera

With domestic inflation running at more than 4% annually, Germany's Bundesbank sought to dampen it by raising the benchmark discount rate for lending to banks a hefty .75%, to 8.75%, the highest level since 1931. But to spur world economic recovery, the board at the same time left unchanged, at 9.75%, the so-called Lombard rate, which governs charges for overnight loans among banks in Germany and has a wider international impact than the discount rate.