The Bourbons of Global Finance


by Prof Howard Stein and Prof Claudia Kedar
Global Research, March 27, 2009
project-syndicate.org


Today’s International Monetary Fund (and, to a lesser degree, the World Bank) recall Talleyrand’s description of France’s Bourbon kings: it has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. At a time when rich countries like the United States are running deficits of 12% of GDP because of the global financial meltdown, the IMF has been telling countries like Latvia and Ukraine, which did not start the crisis but have turned to the Fund to help combat it, that they must balance their budgets if they want aid.

Such hypocrisy would be laughable if global economic conditions weren’t so dire that even countries that once swore never again to deal with the IMF have returned to its door, cap in hand. Some leading economists in Argentina justify this reversal by arguing that the world now has an “Obama IMF,â€