March 20, 2003
RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING:
IMF admits its policies seldom work (Simon English, 20/03/2003, Daily Telegraph)The International Monetary Fund, the Washington-based bank set up to police the financial globe and assist the Third World, yesterday made the startling admission that the policies it has been pursuing for the last 60 years do not often work.In a paper that will be seized on by IMF critics across the political spectrum, leading officials reveal they can find little evidence of their own success.
Countries that follow IMF suggestions often suffer a "collapse in growth rates and significant financial crises", with open currency markets merely serving to "amplify the effects of various shocks".
Kenneth Rogoff, the IMF chief economist who is one of the report's authors, called the findings "sobering".
A recent study by the United Nations reported that the 47 poorest countries in the world - the biggest recipients of loans from the IMF and the World Bank - are poorer now than they were when the IMF was founded in 1944.
Hatred of France...dismissal of the UN...now acknowledgment that the IMF does more harm than good...all of the great conservative shibboleths are coming true at the same time. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 20, 2003 8:09 AM
Well, they aren't poorer now. That's just silly. Consumption levels worldwide are about double what they were in 1944, everywhere except a few places that are devastated by civil war, and, in Africa, by disease also.
The relative standing of the poor and the rich has widened, IMF or not, but merely because relative commidity prices have plunged, and poor countries have nothing to offer but commodities.
Commodity prices were high in 1944 because so many producers were not producing. They fell because world production increased manifold, and because the creation of multiple sources for just about every commodity forced markets to compete on price.
The increase in absolute consumption in the poorest countries is due largely to outside investment in commercial agriculture.