Federal Bank slashes official lending rate to -2%

NEW YORK TIMES - The U.S Federal Bank has followed the .75% reduction in rates to 3% with another rate reduction of 5%, taking the official rate to -2%.

The massive cut was made after the first minor rate reduction saw a slight bounce on the stock exchange after twelve consecutive days of losses.

"We've already taken a point of here and there," said Federal bank Chairman Ben Bernanke," and it only fixes things for a day before everyone starts panicking again, so when President Bush suggested it would make sense to make the interest rate a negative, we all though, 'to hell with it' and cut the rate by a full five percentage points."

The cut marks the first time that the official cash rate has gone into negative. Investors have been buoyed to push shares back up to levels prior to the fortnight of successive falls.

"We think it's great", said one leading dealer, " I don't really understand why, but if enough people think it's good, it doesn't matter."

Australian banks acknowledged the unprecendented cut by raising their home lending rates by 3.75%.

"We know it doesn't make sense to some people," said an ANZ spokesperson,
"but, well, we don't really care."