>And the US government knew it, charges Stiglitz, at least in the case of
>the biggest privatisation of all, the 1995 Russian sell-off. 'The US
>Treasury view was: "This was great, as we wanted Yeltsin re-elected. We
>DON'T CARE if it's a corrupt election." '
Strange. Inside the U.S. Treasury that I was at, there was enormous
anxiety about Chubias's loans-for-shares program--that not only was
it a bad thing in advance, but that its implicit corruption would
retrospectively taint the earlier voucher privatization program
(which it has done). The judgment was that a second term for Yeltsin
would be a better thing for Russia than the alternative, but I met no
one inside the Treasury who did not care.
Stiglitz must be talking about some other U.S. Treasury...
Brad DeLong
