At the IMF, Discord on How to Pick Next Chief

[54anickel]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13912-2004Mar21.html

In an unusual show of dissension within the board of the International Monetary Fund, directors representing more than 100 countries have issued a public statement calling for the next IMF managing director to be chosen "regardless of nationality."

The statement, in a press release issued by the IMF on Friday, was a rebuke aimed at Europe and the United States for a longstanding arrangement in which the top job at the IMF has always gone to a European and the presidency of the World Bank has always gone to an American.

Controversy over the method of choosing the IMF and World Bank leadership has mounted since the surprise resignation of Horst Koehler from the IMF's managing directorship on March 4 to run for president of Germany.

European officials have made it clear that they expect Koehler's successor to come from their ranks, and a number of them have signaled their preference for Rodrigo Rato, the finance minister in Spain's outgoing government. The newly elected Socialist government in Madrid has said it would back Rato's candidacy. But the selection process involves backroom dealings among European finance ministries, and some European news organizations have reported that France may oppose Rato.

more...

[Dover]

1. My...Spain has gotten so cozy with the big players. Is it any surprise

that a member of an ousted right leaning government would end up in a leading position in world financing?

[Village Idiot]

2. "Call It Democracy" - Bruce Cockburn

padded with power here they come 
international loan sharks backed by the guns 
of market hungry military profiteers 
whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared 
with the blood of the poor 
who rob life of its quality 
who render rage a necessity 
by turning countries into labour camps 
modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom 

sinister cynical instrument 
who makes the gun into a sacrament -- 
the only response to the deification 
of tyranny by so-called "developed" nations' 
idolatry of ideology 

north south east west 
kill the best and buy the rest 
it's just spend a buck to make a buck 
you don't really give a flying fuck 
about the people in misery 

IMF dirty MF 
takes away everything it can get 
always making certain that there's one thing left 
keep them on the hook with insupportable debt 

see the paid-off local bottom feeders 
passing themselves off as leaders 
kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows 
open for business like a cheap bordello 

and they call it democracy 
and they call it democracy 
and they call it democracy 
and they call it democracy 

see the loaded eyes of the children too 
trying to make the best of it the way kids do 
one day you're going to rise from your habitual feast 
to find yourself staring down the throat of the beast 
they call the revolution 

IMF dirty MF 
takes away everything it can get 
always making certain that there's one thing left 
keep them on the hook with insupportable debt 

(TORONTO, 11/85) 

[54anickel]

3. Hi Village Idiot and welcome to DU. Those are great lyrics, so sad

and yet so true. Thanks for sharing it. :hi: