Posted Monday, October 12 2009 at 00:00
The annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have run into a predictable roadblock in setting out brave new directions: a roadblock called memory.
What could have been an immensely sensible idea of turning the IMF into a new central bank for the world is up against years of mistrust the IMF has built for itself.
Its disastrous structural adjustment programmes are too recent for countries to be convinced that they can cut national reserves in order to spend more because there would now be this new global bank sitting on a trillion dollars or so, and that if they should need money, they could have it from here without the kind of conditions attached that the IMF has made itself notorious for....
