Posts Tagged ‘imf’
By Simon Johnson After receiving US support at the critical moment, Christine Lagarde was named Tuesday as the next managing director of the International Monetary Fund. In campaigning for the job, Ms. Lagarde – the French finance minister – made various promises to emerging markets with regard to improving their relationships with the IMF. But [...]
By Simon Johnson Just a few years ago, eurozone countries were at the forefront of those saying that the International Monetary Fund had lost its relevance and should be downsized. The organization was regarded by the French authorities as so marginal that President Nicolas Sarkozy was happy to put forward the name of a potential [...]
By Simon Johnson Ms. Christine Lagarde, French finance minister, is the nominee of the European Union for the recently vacant position of managing director at the International Monetary Fund. The EU has just over 30 percent of the votes in this quasi-election; the US has another 16.8 percent and seems willing to keep a European [...]
By Simon Johnson; for more on related issues, see my new Bloomberg column on the IMF succession. For more background on the IMF, see Tuesday’s Planet Money Podcast. Greece has no good options. Without question, Greece brought debt problems on itself – this is the consequence of politicians using irresponsible fiscal policy to win elections. As [...]
By Simon Johnson (this post comprises the first two paragraphs of a column now running on Bloomberg) Even before the shocking events of the past few days, the international policy community had been contemplating a successor to Dominique Strauss-Kahn at the International Monetary Fund. Strauss-Kahn, the IMF managing director, was expected to begin campaigning soon [...]
By Peter Boone and Simon Johnson The EU, led by France and Germany, appears to have some sort of financing package in the works for Greece (probably still without a major role for the IMF). But the main goal seems to be to buy time – hoping for better global outcomes – rather than dealing [...]
By Simon Johnson European Union pressure is growing for Greece to “do the right thing” – which means, to the EU’s leaders, a massive and sudden cut in the Greek budget deficit. Greece, without doubt, has gotten itself into a fine mess; still, it is now time for the Greek government push back more effectively. Fuming at EU arrogance will accomplish [...]
I’ve commented earlier that many economic forecasts seem to assume reversion to the mean – here, meaning average economic growth over the last two decades. For a great example, go to the Wall Street Journal and admire the GDP growth rates projected for Q3 2009 through Q2 2010, marching happily up and to the right. [...]
Confidence is returning to most credit markets, consumer spending is likely to rebound for some items (autos and housing repair are leading contenders), and firms in the US are starting to sound more optimistic. On NYT.com’s Economix yesterday, Peter Boone and I suggested that we are out of the panic phase of the crisis - in [...]
Yesterday I testified to the House Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade (part of the House Financial Services Committee). The hearing’s title was “Implications of the G-20 Leaders Summit for Low Income Countries and the Global Economy,” and the main topic was whether Congress should support an extra $100bn for the IMF that the Obama Administration [...]
The Washington Post is widely read on Capitol Hill and the reception among key people to The Hearing blog (run by us and the Post) has been generally very positive. Members of Congress and their staff want to get you more involved in their discussions around economic policy, and we’re experimenting with ways that will [...]
Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, is in big trouble. It turns out that a medium-sized industrialized democracy like the UK can be run in pretty much the same way as a traditional emerging market – fiscal irresponsibility (cyclically-adjusted general government deficit now forecast at 12.2 percent of GDP for 2010) gives you a boom for [...]
One of the central themes of our Atlantic article was that the current crisis in the U.S. is very similar to the crises typically seen in emerging markets, and that resolving the crisis will require (some of) the measures often prescribed for emerging markets. This, Simon said, would be the assessment of IMF veterans who [...]
If you want an unusual insight into our potential future, take a look at Channel 4′s interview on Thursday with Peter Mandelson (UK’s Business Secretary, very close to Gordon Brown and a key person around the G20 summit). In this clip, Mandelson comes on around the 12:48 mark (after Peer Steinbruck, the German finance minister, provides [...]
Tweets About Us- RT @baselinescene: Cute: http://t.co/rzK8VjXl. But is it fair to call "ignorance" the result of a steady stream of lies amplified by the media? emmett_j@twitter.com (Emmett Johnson)
- RT @baselinescene: Cute: http://t.co/rzK8VjXl. But is it fair to call "ignorance" the result of a steady stream of lies amplified by the media? JoScoMac@twitter.com (Scott McLean)
- RT @baselinescene: Purebred dog shows have always been creepy. This just confirms it: http://t.co/6iu2bwjR. /JK gebersole@twitter.com (Garrett Ebersole)
- RT @baselinescene: Purebred dog shows have always been creepy. This just confirms it: http://t.co/6iu2bwjR. /JK april_harding@twitter.com (April Harding)
- RT @baselinescene: Purebred dog shows have always been creepy. This just confirms it: http://t.co/6iu2bwjR. /JK APogonowski@twitter.com (AP)
- RT @baselinescene: Purebred dog shows have always been creepy. This just confirms it: http://t.co/6iu2bwjR. /JK jamiesw@twitter.com (JamieSW)
- The Bear&Bull Blog Daily is out! http://t.co/mcAbzHbi ▸ Top stories today via @thestalwart @baselinescene bearbull@twitter.com (bearbull)
- RT @TheBrowser: Mean-Spirited, Bad Economics: @baselinescene on unemployment benefits & Republican party plans to cut them http://t.co/GVnNzAUN drooperman@twitter.com (Drew)
- Agree with RT @baselinescene: Felix Salmon mocking Jack Welch's vacuous management lesson for Facebook http://t.co/BBKIGOIl /JK Alheri@twitter.com (Lilly Evans)
- #FF for political and other insight: @SarahBarfield @BuddyRoemer @RoyBlunt @StartSnitching @delong @TheGoodReport @baselinescene normanwlucas@twitter.com (Norman Lucas)
Our Book
-
All contents are copyright of the authors. The Baseline Scenario is a trademark of the authors.
Will The IMF Save The World?
September 25, 2011 in Commentary
Tags: eurozone crisis, imf
By Simon Johnson The finance ministers and central bank governors of the world gathered this weekend in Washington for the annual meeting of countries that are shareholders in the International Monetary Fund. As financial turmoil continues unabated around the world and with the IMF’s newly lowered growth forecasts to concentrate the mind, perhaps this is [...]