U.S. alone in financial triage

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- Foreign financial leaders have waived off the idea of engineering major bailouts for their own countries, leaving the United States to manage the triage alone.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. has urged other countries to join in the effort to quell financial turmoil with plans of their own. But, none have and several pointed to the issue as an American problem, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

"Member states do not at this point consider that a U.S.-style plan is needed," said the European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Policy Joaquin Almunia in Brussels, the Post reported Thursday.

Similarly, the managing director of the Kuwait Investment Authority Badr al-Saad declared in a television broadcast Tuesday, "We are not responsible for saving foreign banks."

Other foreign interests have turned the financial turmoil into a shopping opportunity. Japan's largest brokerage, Nomura Holdings, bought Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s profitable Asian operations after Lehman declared bankruptcy last week. Mitsubishi UFJ, the country's largest bank stepped in, buying 20 percent of Morgan Stanley for $8.5 billion, the Post said.

Similarly, British bank Barclays has said it will buy portions of Lehman's, including its landmark headquarters in New York.