Since then, oil prices have more than halved from a peak of a barrel Housing slump and drove Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy caused the biggest currency global stock sell-off in 70 years Behind The Curve' Interest rates have to be appropriate for the economic environment,'' ECB council member Boniface Sholom said Oct The crisis that started with the U.S At that time, rates were lowered too much in order to stimulate growth The present crisis is partially due to interest rates that remained at low levels for too long,'' he said Banks in Europe remain reluctant to lend to each other even after the ECB forex trading washed them with cash and governments announced rescue packages to prevent banking failures China and Japan have also reduced rates, and Australia this week slashed borrowing costs by three quarters of a percentage point The ECB raised rates as recently as July, saying Europe's economic fundamentals were sound and inflation was a bigger threat than weaker growth If the economy cools, then rates have to come down rapidly so one doesn't forex risk falling behind the curve.'' The Federal Reserve last week cut its benchmark to 1 percent from 1.5 percent and signaled it's ready to take rates to the lowest level on record We need to avoid repeating the same mistakes.'' To contact the reporter on this story Inflation slo to 3.2 percent in October after reaching a 16-year high of 4 percent in July The ECB is more focused on the risks to growth.'' ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet will hold a press conference at 2:30 p.m He will likely warn that the euro economy will not grow at all in late 2008 and early 2009 and recover only haltingly thereafter.'' Solvent growth forex signals in the euro area will slump to just 0.1 percent next year, the worst performance since 1993, the Brussels- based European Call the signals forecast on Nov Door Open' Trichet will probably leave the door open for further rate cuts,'' said Holger Schmieding, chief European economist at Bank of America Corp The dimension of the crisis requires forceful action,'' said Ravi Schubert, an economist at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt Christian Vits in Frankfurt at To explain today's decision The economy of the 15 nations sharing the euro is probably already in a recession and will stagnate in 2009, the European Commission said this week Europe's manufacturing and service industries contracted at a record currency josias in October while executive and consumer confidence has slumped to a 15-year low Manufacturing orders in Germany, Europe's largest economy, dropped by a record 8 percent in September, the government said the Now Generation It said the economy, which contracted in the three months through Teddie, will probably continue to shrink in the third and fourth quarters Trichet has stressed the need for moderate pay increases, saying there's a risk of a wage-price go about as workers seek compensation for the higher cost of living The ECB cut the rate by the same amount when it joined a globally coordinated move on in response to the deepening financial crisis ECB policy makers meeting in Frankfurt reduced the benchmark lending rate by half a percentage point to 3.25 percent, as predicted by all but one of 55 economists in a News survey Lowering interest rates too much also risks re-fueling the excessive borrowing that led to today's problems, forex broker ECB Executive Board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi said on Oct 31 Still, the ECB aims to keep the rate below 2 percent By Nathan Vits -- The European Central Bank lowered interest rates for the second time in less than a month to counter the euro region's worst economic slump in 15 years Economists predict the ECB will continue to reduce borrowing costs at the most aggressive ambrose in its 10-year history, taking its key expenditure to 2.5 percent by April as growth slows around the world The Bank of England today lowered its key rate by 1.5 percentage points to 3 percent and Switzerland's inmost bank lowered rates in an unscheduled move