Interest-Rate Cut Won't Expedite Reform

Whether the Federal Reserve Board's Federal Open Market Committee lowers U.S. interest rates at its Sept. 29 session or waits until Nov. 17, the vital, longer-term matter of structural economic reform will remain far from being resolved. Although finance ministers and central bankers from the world's most-advanced industrial nations and several economically emerging countries are slated to start work in Washington, D.C., by mid-October on recommendations for strengthening the global financial system, their preliminary report on reforms isn't due to their respective heads-of-state until New Year's Day 1999.