O'Neill: "WB has driven poor countries into a ditch"

[Bradford DeLong]

>>And how are countries to get the hard currency to buy the 
>>western-made capital goods that embody so much technology?
>
>That's not the most urgent priority for a low-income country, which 
>needs to feed and house people and teach them to read. A lot of hard 
>currency debt is just a millstone, and the compulsion to earn 
>dollars and euros is a distraction from a lot of humanly urgent 
>tasks.
>
>If the model worked, why are debt burdens still so high, and income 
>gaps (aside from China and a few other Asian countries) wider than 
>ever?

China is a *really* *big* aside... India is becoming an "aside" too...


>
>>The problem with the WB projects is not that they are 
>>export-oriented, but that the WB is a lousy judge of what 
>>export-oriented projects would be successful...
>
>Who does? The Market?
>
>Doug

Well, this is a big problem. Which is worse, state-led development 
led by a corrupt anti-developmental state, or market-led development 
driven by clueless guys in New York who spend all their time trying 
to guess what average opinion expects average opinion to be?