IMF is Decaying, Clueless, Corrupt
Brazil Leader Lashes Out at IMF
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The International Monetary Fund continues to try to manipulate the economies of poor countries in ways that are not beneficial to those countries. Since the IMF has a lot of money, it manages to have some influence. Instead of bureaucratic manipulations, what poor countries need are economic justice and free markets. The IMF offers neither one. Here are portions of a recent Associated Press report on the new awareness sweeping over the countries that the IMF has been manipulating. |
Using unusually blunt language, Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso lashed out at the International Monetary Fund, saying its accounting rules should be changed to help developing nations to fend off financial crises more easily.Speaking at the 43rd annual meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank, Cardoso fired a broadside at the Fund and its attitude toward developing nations. "Why freeze our possibilities to finance our development by using mere accounting maneuvers?" asked Cardoso, adding that the Fund's accounting rules for developing nations were not the same as those used in Europe, for example.
He also said the Fund's Special Drawing Rights should be increased to allow the IMF to react faster and more effectively in helping poorer nations fend off financial crises.
Special Drawing Rights are the IMF's artificial currency units used to supplement members' reserve assets and determine their loan availability. "We have already asked the IMF several times to clarify this issue," said the usually diplomatic Cardoso. "The answers they've given us so far were as if we were illiterates," he said. "We're not. The Peruvian President is an economist. He can read. I am a sociologist."
Cardoso's remarks, coming on the heels of an appeal from Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo that the pursuit of so-called free-market reforms should not eclipse Latin America's need to combat widespread poverty, won Cardoso a hearty ovation.
There was no immediate comment from guilty IMF officials at the meeting. The broadside came as Latin American nations are increasingly questioning the effectiveness of so-called free-market reforms as a bulwark against financial crises.
The so-called free market reforms supported by the IMF are not free market at all; they are favored, privileged manipulations of the market. The IMF is out of touch and out of control. Do you have an opinion on this issue? Tell us!
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