Posted on 08/06/2002 12:27:56 PM PDT by ReaganIsRight
The IMF, boat people and a better way Lawrence Minard, 04.06.98
A great deal has been written about the International Monetary Fund in the past few months. So why offer more, as we do in this issue? Because most of the coverage has accepted the IMF's opinion that it must take on ever bigger and more expensive responsibilities to supervise the world economy. Globaloney, say our three contributors to the debate. Each looks at the IMF from a different perspective, yet they arrive at similar conclusions.
Forbes Global Deputy Editor Nigel Holloway, who covered the world's financial markets for 18 years for The Economist and Far Eastern Economic Review, shows how the IMF practices mission creep -- the tendency of bureaucracies to grow. "Enough, already!" cries Holloway in "Doctor knows best,"starting on page 26.
To the displeasure of the IMF and the U.S. Treasury, FORBES columnist Steve H. Hanke, an expert on currency boards, has been advising Indonesian President Suharto on how to stabilize the rupiah. In "The misguided fireman" (page 28), Hanke warns that the devalued currency could spark massive rioting and force huge numbers of Indonesians to flee their country. "You've heard of boat people," Hanke writes. "This could be a waterborne exodus that would make Vietnam's look like a Sunday regatta."
FORBES GLOBAL Publisher Domingo Cavallo worked closely with the IMF when he was Argentina's Economy Minister from 1991 to 1996. He respects the Fund and acknowledges its help, but he also argues the Fund should not try to be a supergovernment. Domingo Cavallo's first column for FORBES GLOBAL, "A better role for the IMF," appears on page 19.
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