Washington Post on A16

Brad De Long delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU
Thu Apr 20 08:00:32 PDT 2000



>Brad De Long wrote:>
>
>
>
>Shouldn't the Koreans be allowed to choose whether they want to deal
>with the IMF or not, rather than having you decide it for them by
>zeroing it out? If there is such a fundamental conflict between the
>IMF's policy and the interests of the countries it lends to, why
>haven't borrowing governments realized it?
>
>****
>
>They have, but one of their solutions--an Asian Monetary Fund--was
>resolutely squelched by the United States. Even if borrowing govt's
>have realized the conflict of interests between themselves and the
>IMF, what's the use if the US and IMF dismiss them out of hand? Do
>you really think this was a choice in any meaningful sense of the
>term?
>
>
>All best
>Christian

I heard it differently. An Asian Monetary Fund would be a Japanese-run monetary fund. It could be a fine thing if we had confidence that the people running it would have a clue as to what to do. But I, at least, have no confidence in either the Bank of Japan or the MOF.

Brad DeLong



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