BlackRock's Fink blames government for economic malaise

BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Laurence D. Fink said most of the “anemia” in the U.S. economy and uncertainty from CEOs at American companies is a result of government policy and this year’s sequester. “Washington is a source of so many of these problems,” Fink said Wednesday in an interview on CNBC. Investors are increasing their investments in equities compared with fixed income, Fink said. New York-based BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, saw about $5 billion of deposits into its emerging-market stock exchange-traded funds starting about two weeks ago, he said in the interview. “I’m sure tomorrow we’re going to see even more flows into emerging markets,” he said, after the Federal Reserve’s announcement today that it would refrain from reducing the pace of its monthly bond buying until it sees more signs of lasting improvement in the economy. Fink said he was surprised by the Fed’s decision. “I thought the Fed had a free option to do a small amount of tapering,” he said. (Bloomberg News)