I felt sorry for Christine Lagarde yesterday as she faced the press
after the IMF meeting in Washington. As a top-flight lawyer, she is
superbly equipped verbally and she pulled out of the dictionary every
hopeful-sounding adjective and adverb she could find. Also, like any
seasoned advocate, she used the weakest part of the IMF's armoury in
the most positive way to make it sound like real policy. It's a
matter of "Implementation, implementation, implementation", she said
repeatedly.
But, of course, that's precisely what has not happened in the last
two years as the IMF, the Eurozone politicians and the European
Central Bank have tried to devise a rescue plan for Greece's economy.
Two bail-outs have failed so far. Hundreds, and sometimes thousands,
of public service workers and ex-workers have been demonstrating
every day for the past four months outside the Parliamentary Building
in Athens. Small businesses are going bankrupt. The better-off
professional classes continue to skilfully avoid many of the recent
additional taxes. The rich have sent their money out of the country.
The tax-inspectors are allowing their files to get on top of them.
Despite "Implementation, implementation, implementation" what the IMF
decided yesterday was to kick the can further down the road until a
G20 meeting in November that could possibly devise a huge loan for
the Eurozone as a whole. With interest rates on some of its bond
debts rising to 50% p.a. already, Greece cannot wait that long. The
IMF might at least have engineered a graceful mode of default for
Greece so that it has a chance of surviving on its own but no, it
stays trapped, at least far as the Eurozone is concerned.
If Greece defaults ungraciously in the next few weeks, or even days,
then a string of other countries are in danger from those European
banks, pensions funds and other investors which will want to withdraw
their loans. Portugal and Spain certainly, possibly not Ireland, but
then Italy almost certainly. And then France itself, the political
mainstay of the Eurozone, will be in danger. The French Managing
Director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, might have to preside over
the total break-up of the Eurozone, which will mean that even her own
country will have to start standing on its own feet and not be
dependent on subsidies from Germany, Finland and Holland. No wonder
Christine was very nervous yesterday as she kept her hands steady on
the table in front of her but couldn't prevent the micro flashes of
fear around her eyes as she faced the next press questioner.
Keith
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2012/08/
_______________________________________________
Futurework mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
