Monday, March 09, 2009

All that glitters....

So LeBron tells me there is a " brilliant post by Simon Johnson. Too good to excerpt." Since LeBron has rarely (if ever) steered me wrong in the 20 years I've known him I rush over to check it out.

And people, I found comedy gold:

"There is a good reason that the IMF is not free to speak candidly about the United States; it is full of experts who know what they are talking about."

Wow. First Johnson is a former IMFer so pretty arrogant, no? Second, if the IMF is "full of experts who know what they are talking about" how come it collectively does such a bad job so often? Ask Joe Stiglitz about its performance in the 97 Asian financial crisis. Ask Bill Easterly about its lending programs. Ask any developing country how they enjoyed their stuctural adjustment. Ask Przeworski and Vreeland about the effect of IMF programs on growth.

Yikes!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Angus,
The way I interpreted what Simon was saying is that it was the US that was full of experts, so when the IMF would tell us nonsense we would have the knowledge to call BS on them, as opposed to small third world countries which do not have the number of people knowledgeable about finance who would know to call the IMF out for their BS. Just my take, thanks.

Angus said...

Hi John: thanks for your take. I re-read and discussed with Mrs. Angus and the language of the quote is definitely ambiguous "it is full of experts" could refer either to the IMF or the US. I still think, given the context of the article of how US bureaucrats want to control the information their bosses receive, that my interpretation is right, but I admit I could be wrong.