US budget discord top threat to global economy

 

Global investors say the state of the U.S. government’s finances is the greatest risk to the world economy and almost half are curbing their investments in response to continuing budget battles, a Bloomberg poll shows.

With the government within weeks of reaching its borrowing limit, 36 percent of respondents cite the nation’s fiscal woes as the biggest threat compared with 29 percent who choose Europe’s sovereign debt crisis and 15 percent who name a slowing Chinese economy, according to the quarterly poll on Jan. 17 of investors, analysts and traders who subscribe to Bloomberg.

The International Monetary Fund in October cut its forecast for global economic growth this year to 3.6 percent, 0.3 percentage point lower than its July 2012 estimate by Bloomberg.