IMF Chief Urges Bailout Action

The United States needs to act urgently to shield its economy from an escalating credit crisis and Europe must ready plans in case its problems worsen, the head of the International Monetary Fund said. "We're right at the moment where action is needed," the IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn told Reuters. "A non-perfect plan is better than no plan at all," he said of the $700 billion bank bailout plan rejected by the U.S. House of Representatives. Strauss-Kahn said restoring market confidence required the bailout plan to be passed quickly and for the U.S. public to understand what is at stake unless the economy starts to function properly again.