The minutes of the meeting will be published at 9

Measures of business and consumer confidence have fallen markedly. World trade growth this year is likely to be the weakest for some considerable time.In the United Kingdom, business surveys suggest that the pace of contraction in activity increased during the fourth quarter of 2008 and that output is likely to continue to fall sharply during the first part of this year. Surveys of retailers and reports from the Bank's regional Agents imply that consumer spending has weakened. And the availability of credit to both households and businesses has tightened further, pointing to the need for further measures to increase the flow of lending to the non-financial sector. But the substantial depreciation in sterling over recent months may help to moderate the impact on UK net exports of the slowdown in global growth.CPI inflation fell to 4.1 in November.

Inflation is expected to fall further, reflecting waning contributions from retail energy and food prices and the direct impact of the temporary reduction in Value Added Tax Measures of inflation expectations have come down And pay growth remains subdued. But the depreciation in sterling will boost the cost of imports.At its January meeting, the Committee noted that the recent easing in monetary and fiscal policy, the substantial fall in sterling and the prospective decline in inflation would together provide a considerable stimulus to activity as the year progressed. Nevertheless, the Committee judged that, looking through the volatility in inflation associated with the movements in Value Added Tax, there remained a significant risk of undershooting the 2 CPI inflation target in the medium term at the existing level of Bank Rate. Accordingly, the Committee concluded that a further reduction in Bank Rate of 0.5 percentage points to 1.5 was necessary to meet the target in the medium term.The minutes of the meeting will be published at 9.30am on Wednesday 21 January. Crisis in Credit Economy.

Today Ukrainians all around the world were disappointed to hear how their beloved soccer team lost to Greece 0-1 and failed to qualify for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. You saw some really good goaltending because throughout the series the one goal scored today was the only one scored at all.FIFA people proved to be one smarter than the average person in this one. Most people out there called it to go the other way with Ukraine winning it and advancing. FIFA has world rankings which has Greece ranked at 16 and Ukraine at 22 They called it that Greece would be moving on and they did. They made it all the way to the quarter finals where they eventually got knocked out by the soon to be champs, Italy.In the qualifiers Ukraine did not prove to be any weaker.

In their group this year Ukraine proved to be quite the team. Knocking off other teams with clean sheets, high scoring afairs and pulling off wins when the game looked deadlocked Despite all that effort it's all done now. Ukraine will have to wait to live the dream two more years until 2012 when the Euro will come to Ukraine and Poland.Quick side note, 2012 is also the year the world is supposedly suppose to end(which it won't, I can guarantee it) so it wouldn't be a bad way for Ukraine to go off, but once again the world won't end I'm very sick of hearing everyone talk about it. In the first half Dimitrios Salpigidis put one past Ukrainian net minder, Oleksandr Shovkovskiy who is truly a great goalie, but is very underrated for reasons beyond me Greece was up. This meant that Ukraine needed to answer with two of their own. With 31 minutes already played the rest of the game had to be played at best effort.In the second half, Ukraine put up amazing pressure in the game Sadly it had no result Ukraine finished losing 0-1.