(So it's nil-nil between us.)
As for the Daniel Davies Default thesis, well, that's one of the things that was bothering me. Yeah, IMF money should not go towards bailing out, eg, core banks (I mean, these suits get either 'certainty' or they get 'free markets' - they shouldn't be allowed both), but wouldn't, eg, South Korea (an example I use, because it has actually gone some way to feeding its workers again since '98 - unlike big lumps of the Indonesian economy, f'rinstance) have gone completely belly-up without some gap-filler in the moment? I mean, a lot of fundamentally viable concerns would have been destroyed and consigned millions of people to the scrapheap, no? Other stuff that bothers me about, say, the SK example is to do with conditionality - effectively putting SK's assets and policy at foreign (mainly US) disposal.
I guess I'm just hoping there is some meachanism possible by which gap-filler / panic allaying funding can be delivered without IMF loan money finding its way into the pockets of big core speculators and without the local political economy falling into the hands of the political economy who effectively controls the (rather secretive) lending body.
Cheers, Rob.
>--- Rob Schaap <rws at comedu.canberra.edu.au> wrote: > G'day all,
>> >
>> I reckon those questions would want answering if we're
>> properly to get to
>> this conclusion (and to avoid a pessimist's view that much of
>> what
>> apparently worked has neither improved the lives of the
>> working class nor
>> solved a tendency to crisis not unlike the '97 disasters.
>>
>> " ... work needs to be done to rebuild support for a
>> crisis-management
>> system that seems--ironically--to have worked relatively well
>> in the past
>> decade. And if support cannot be rebuilt, than a new system
>> of crisis
>> management that can command broad political support needs to
>> be built in
>> its place."
>>
>
>I believe that this is pretty close to the official position of
>Brad DeLong. Personally, I've always been in favour of default
>and let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may. Of course this is only
>a general philosophical opinion and should not be taken as
>specific advice to any sovereign or supranational body who
>might be considering default in a specific situation.
>
>dd
>
>=====
>... in countries which do not enjoy Mediterranean sunshine idleness is
>more difficult, and a great public propaganda will be required to
>inaugurate it. -- Bertrand Russell
>
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