> rc&am wrote:
>
> >i'm thinking of how the world bank recently bailed out some national
> >banks (i can't exactly remember which country), this being, heralded
> >at least, as a significant shift in the world banks' approach, with
> >all sorts of talk about it contravening the world banks' charter....
>
> Yes, the Bank is supposed to lend to official entities only, which is a
> problem in a world where nearly everything's been privatized. The Bank is
The World Bank ought to referred to as the World Bank Group, since it comprises 5 organizations. Its the IBRD, intl bank for reconstruction and development, and IDA, intl development association, that are usually what people mean when they refer to the WB. IFC, intl. finance corporation, does in fact lend only to private entities, while IDA and IBRD lend primarily to govts. http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/wbgis.htm
Its charter (of funding infrastructure and poverty alleviation projects *only*) was long forgotten, when in attempts to get some of its debt back it started meddling in economic policies set by sovereign governments, some of which were pretty misguided no doubt. A good recent book on the WB is Masters of Illusion, by Catherine Caufield.
--prashanth