Monday, Apr 06, 2009
IMF Chief economist says western world no better than banana republics
The Atlantic: The Quiet Coup
Great essay. The brief conclusion is that the public is being persistently ripped of by financiers, who are essentially dictating terms to governments. Also points at the absurd privileges made laws to benefit financiers.
Posted by stillthinking @ 06:01 PM (673 views) Add Comment
8 Comments
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1. little professor said...
Definitely well worth the (long) read. This guy was the former chief economist of the IMF, and knows what he is talking about.
2. enuii said...
I agree with LP, takes quite a while to read but worth it especially for some of the interesting statistics used relating to the finance sector their earnings and remuneration in respect to US GDP and how it has increased almost exponentially over the last 20 or so years.
3. mountain goat said...
Thanks Stillthinking excellent article. I like the approach that the problem is 2 fold.
1. Insolvent banks need to be fixed, nationalise them, wipe out share holders and sell them off.
2. "The second problem the U.S. faces—the power of the oligarchy—is just as important as the immediate crisis of lending. And the advice from the IMF on this front would again be simple: break the oligarchy." In other words no amount of bailouts, stimulous, bad banks, QE etc can fix this until the powerful Wall Street oligarchy, elite, call them what you will, are turfed out.
Both won't happen and so neither will a recovery.
4. icarus said...
But the IMF itself is full of dirty tricks and has been part of the Washington consensus to help US banks to break down barriers in order to invest around the world, holding countries to ransom by threatening to short countries' equity, bond and currency markets. The speed with which investment flowed out of the whole of SE Asia in 1997 was suspicious and who d'you think bought up the assets that had dropped in value as a result of that disinvestment? And who but the US helped some of the crony dictators and their friends grab power in the first place and then retain it?
Other ex-employees of the IMF have blown the whistle on the dirty tricks (e.g. manipulating statistics to make countries' finances look worse than they actually were) after they left office
5. doggett said...
Following on from Icarus' post above, the lead article on Counterpunch today by Michael Hudson is somewhat less than flattering to the IMF (and the G20 conference).
http://www.counterpunch.org/
6. paul said...
Just before this article drops off the frontpage, NICE ONE stillthinking.
This is a great article.
7. richc said...
Great article. As a follow up to the points made about the influence of the financial industry on the US government, it's interesting that the New York Times just came out with an article about how Lawrence Summers, one of Obama's chief advisers, made more than 5 million dollars over two years by working 1 day a week for a hedge fund in New York. The US is now offering hedge funds huge subsidies through their latest bailout plan. That hedge fund's investment really seems to be paying off.
8. Bear said...
For more on this perspective, read Tradgedy and Hope, by Carole Quigley.