CAMBRIDGE: Bad news is all the IMF has been getting in the last year. First came a divisive fight over naming a new Managing Director: Germany pushed a little known and unqualified bureaucrat and failed to have him accepted. In the end, Chancellor Schroder was given a fig leaf to hide his embarrassment in the form of the present managing director, Horst Kohler, whose main qualification for the job is being German, unlike his two predecessors De Larosiere and Camdessus, who were distinguished French inspecteusr de finances, i.e. they belonged to the cream of cream in the bureaucratic elite of France. The next slap came from criticism by American Republicans of the IMF’s strategy as nothing but unending bailouts. That criticism was enshrined in the Meltzer Report, which now hangs even more ominously over the IMF because the Republicans now rule in Washington.
CAMBRIDGE: Bad news is all the IMF has been getting in the last year. First came a divisive fight over naming a new Managing Director: Germany pushed a little known and unqualified bureaucrat and failed to have him accepted. In the end, Chancellor Schroder was given a fig leaf to hide his embarrassment in the form of the present managing director, Horst Kohler, whose main qualification for the job is being German, unlike his two predecessors De Larosiere and Camdessus, who were distinguished French inspecteusr de finances, i.e. they belonged to the cream of cream in the bureaucratic elite of France. The next slap came from criticism by American Republicans of the IMF’s strategy as nothing but unending bailouts. That criticism was enshrined in the Meltzer Report, which now hangs even more ominously over the IMF because the Republicans now rule in Washington.