Washington Post on A16

Enrique Diaz-Alvarez enrique at anise.ee.cornell.edu
Wed Apr 19 13:57:16 PDT 2000


Brad De Long wrote:


> Meltzer Report.
>
> There are a bunch of people who think that problems with the world
> economy arise because it is not laissez-faire enough--that the World
> Bank and IMF are bad because they are institutions of collective
> self-government that interfere with the free operation of the market
> by creating moral hazard, pushing prices away from market equilibrium
> values, and so on.
>
> That bunch of people are stronger than you are. And you are aiding
> them. It's like watching people congratulate themselves on kicking
> the ball past their own goalie...
>

Yeah, there are also a bunch of people who think the earth is flat. I don't particularly care. Without the IMF, countries in financial trouble will be more likely to default rather than turn their population into debt-servicing machines. That alone is a good argument to shut the thing down.

I'd be happy to put as many goals past Lawrence "Africa is underpolluted" Summers as I can. How on earth you've managed to delude yourself he's "our" goalie is beyond me.

The choice is not between IMF/WB as a bondholder protection funds and IMF/WB the charitable, Keynesian organizations. It's between the former and no IMF. You'd think Stiglitz' fate would have convinced anybody of that.

-- Enrique Diaz-Alvarez Office # (607) 255 5034 Electrical Engineering Home # (607) 272 4808 112 Phillips Hall Fax # (607) 255 4565 Cornell University mailto:enrique at ee.cornell.edu Ithaca, NY 14853 http://peta.ee.cornell.edu/~enrique



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