The Quiet Coup - The Atlantic (May 2009) - The Diigo Meta page

• 26 Dec 09
  

  madzientist

  finance

• 07 Dec 09
  

  gabrielle verdier
• 19 Nov 09
  

  Vinessa Nevala

  economics

• 18 Nov 09
  

  mascurioso

  economics IMF oligarchy Crisis economy Politics finance simon johnson baseline scenario the atlantic

• 19 Oct 09
  

  scriptbabe451

  *Simon Johnson*

• 17 Oct 09
  

  Daniel Murray

  An interesting article about the financial crisis and influence.

  article economics economy Politics

  • the IMF specializes in telling its clients what they don’t want to hear
  • to IMF officials, all of these crises looked depressingly similar.
  • 7 more annotations...
  • • countries in crisis need to learn to live within their means after a period of excess
    • exports must be increased, and imports cut
    • biggest obstacle to recovery, is almost invariably the politics of countries in crisis
    • the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or—here’s a classic Kremlin bailout technique—the assumption of private debt obligations by the government.
    • So the IMF staff looks into the eyes of the minister of finance and decides whether the government is serious yet.
    • only if at least some of the powerful oligarchs who did so much to create the underlying problems take a hit.
    • depth and suddenness
• 02 Oct 09
  

  wolf hesse

  economy economics IMF oligarchy politics

• 14 Sep 09
  

  Thomas Nordlund

  economics politics capitalism collapse government imf crisis interlegere

• 31 Aug 09
  

  jordan goss

  the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform.

  economy IMF finance obama finance industry wallstreet

• 18 Aug 09
  

  john doughnut

  usa imf emerging market kapitalismus capitalism

• 09 Aug 09
  

  rbosse11
• 23 Jul 09
  

  Bob Steigerwald

  The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

  economy Politics

• 07 Jul 09
  

  Peter Hollard

  economics economy Crisis

• 25 Jun 09
  

  David Lester
  • Typically, these countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason—the powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks. Emerging-market governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit—and, most of the time, genteel—oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company in which they are the controlling shareholders.
• 04 Jun 09
  

  Bruce Marks

  The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

  Banking Regulation Economics

• 03 Jun 09
  

  Andrew Murphie

  financialcrisis economics Politics

• 

  Jonathan Greenberg
• 30 May 09
  

  Bert Hopkins

  economy economics banks oligarchy financial

• 09 May 09
  

  Robert Proctor

  Outstanding. Banks own America

  Bankers

• 02 May 09
  

  mfsmithusa Smith

  Maceoconomics Banking economy

• 27 Apr 09
  

  John Dodson

  The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

  economy' banks oligarchy income disparity accountability

• 

  Sean Carmody

  The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

• 24 Apr 09
  

  Sara Horvath
• 21 Apr 09
  

  P D

  economy news united states

  • Under duress, generosity toward old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk—at least until the riots grow too large.
  • More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them.
  • 1 more annotations...
  • • From 1973 to 1985, the financial sector never earned more than 16 percent of domestic corporate profits.
• 

  etrader888
• 20 Apr 09
  

  Andres Graffe
• 

  Aviva Gabriel

  The finance industry has effectively captured the U.S. government-a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets...Recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that's blocking essential reform. ~ The Atlantic, May 2008

  economics economy economic crisis kleptocracy financial finance politics democracy oligarchy plutocracy financial oligarchy economic gangsters finance industry financial industry banks U.S. USA american IMF

• 18 Apr 09
  

  Steve Rafferty
  • Typically, these countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple
    reason—the powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too
    many risks.
  • Emerging-market governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a
    tight-knit—and, most of the time, genteel—oligarchy, running the country rather
    like a profit-seeking company in which they are the controlling shareholders
  • 11 more annotations...
  • • Overborrowing always ends badly, whether for an individual, a company, or a
      country. Sooner or later, credit conditions become tighter and no one will lend
      you money on anything close to affordable terms
    • “crony capitalism
    • Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among
      emerging-market governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis,
      the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government,
      such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break,
      or—here’s a classic Kremlin bailout technique—the assumption of private debt
      obligations by the government. Under duress, generosity toward old friends takes
      many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most
      emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk—at least until
      the riots grow too large.
    • particularly with regard to wresting control of the banking system from the
      hands of the most incompetent and avaricious “entrepreneurs.”
    • From long years of experience, the IMF staff knows its program will
      succeed—stabilizing the economy and enabling growth—only if at least some of the
      powerful oligarchs who did so much to create the underlying problems take a hit.
      This is the problem of all emerging markets.

    • But there’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity: elite business
      interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating
      the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the
      government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using
      their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and
      fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or
      unwilling, to act against them.

    • Top investment bankers and government officials like to lay the blame for the
      current crisis on the lowering of U.S. interest rates after the dotcom bust or,
      even better—in a “buck stops somewhere else” sort of way—on the flow of savings
      out of China. Some on the right like to complain about Fannie Mae or Freddie
      Mac, or even about longer-standing efforts to promote broader homeownership.
      And, of course, it is axiomatic to everyone that the regulators responsible for
      “safety and soundness” were fast asleep at the whee
    • But these various policies—lightweight regulation, cheap money, the unwritten
      Chinese-American economic alliance, the promotion of homeownership—had something
      in common. Even though some are traditionally associated with Democrats and some
      with Republicans, they all benefited the financial sector
    • The financial industry has not always enjoyed such favored treatment. But for
      the past 25 years or so, finance has boomed, becoming ever more powerful. The
      boom began with the Reagan years, and it only gained strength with the
      deregulatory policies of the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.
    • Not surprisingly, Wall Street ran with these opportunities. From 1973 to 1985,
      the financial sector never earned more than 16 percent of domestic corporate
      profits. In 1986, that figure reached 19 percent. In the 1990s, it oscillated
      between 21 percent and 30 percent, higher than it had ever been in the postwar
      period. This decade, it reached 41 percent. Pay rose just as dramatically. From
      1948 to 1982, average compensation in the financial sector ranged between 99
      percent and 108 percent of the average for all domestic private industries. From
      1983, it shot upward, reaching 181 percent in 2007
    • . But that first age of banking oligarchs came to an end with the passage of
      significant banking regulation in response to the Great Depression; the
      reemergence of an American financial oligarchy is quite recent.
• 

  Geekgirl 397

  economics politics finance economy government imf banking crisis

• 17 Apr 09
  

  william adie

  finance industry captured the govt. sez former IMF chief economist

• 15 Apr 09
  

  W21st NYC

  wealth transfer from public to private oligarchy

  • Naturally, the fund’s economists spend time figuring out the policies—budget, money supply, and the like—that make sense in this context. Yet the economic solution is seldom very hard to work out.

    
    
    

    No, the real concern of the fund’s senior staff, and the biggest obstacle to recovery, is almost invariably the politics of countries in crisis.

  • Typically, these countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason—the powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks. Emerging-market governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit—and, most of the time, genteel—oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company in which they are the controlling shareholders. When a country like Indonesia or South Korea or Russia grows, so do the ambitions of its captains of industry. As masters of their mini-universe, these people make some investments that clearly benefit the broader economy, but they also start making bigger and riskier bets. They reckon—correctly, in most cases—that their political connections will allow them to push onto the government any substantial problems that arise.
• 13 Apr 09
  

  Kathryn Frech

  economy banks

• 

  Sorin Rease

  IMF Politics economy

• 10 Apr 09
  

  Jenifer Ancona
• 

  jjmerkler

  The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

  economy IMF Politics atlantic

• 

  Jeehoon Jeong

  The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

  Economics Politics IMF Bailout

• 09 Apr 09
  

  David Lee
  • From long years of experience, the IMF staff knows its program will succeed—stabilizing the economy and enabling growth—only if at least some of the powerful oligarchs who did so much to create the underlying problems take a hit. This is the problem of all emerging markets.
  • In each of those cases, global investors, afraid that the country or its financial sector wouldn’t be able to pay off mountainous debt, suddenly stopped lending. And in each case, that fear became self-fulfilling, as banks that couldn’t roll over their debt did, in fact, become unable to pay. This is precisely what drove Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy on September 15, causing all sources of funding to the U.S. financial sector to dry up overnight.
  • 6 more annotations...
  • • disturbing similarity: elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive.
    • Even though some are traditionally associated with Democrats and some with Republicans, they all benefited the financial sector.
    • From 1973 to 1985, the financial sector never earned more than 16 percent of domestic corporate profits. In 1986, that figure reached 19 percent. In the 1990s, it oscillated between 21 percent and 30 percent, higher than it had ever been in the postwar period. This decade, it reached 41 percent.
    • Pay rose just as dramatically. From 1948 to 1982, average compensation in the financial sector ranged between 99 percent and 108 percent of the average for all domestic private industries. From 1983, it shot upward, reaching 181 percent in 2007.
    • gave bankers enormous political weight—a weight not seen in the U.S. since the era of J.P. Morgan (the man)
    • first age of banking oligarchs came to an end with the passage of significant banking regulation in response to the Great Depression
• 08 Apr 09
  

  cpapapietro

  simon johnson economics economy IMF oligarchy Politics Crisis atlantic The

  • From long years of experience, the IMF staff knows its program will succeed—stabilizing the economy and enabling growth—only if at least some of the powerful oligarchs who did so much to create the underlying problems take a hit. This is the problem of all emerging markets.
  • elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them.
  • 3 more annotations...
  • • Brooksley Born
    • Not surprisingly, Wall Street ran with these opportunities. From 1973 to 1985, the financial sector never earned more than 16 percent of domestic corporate profits. In 1986, that figure reached 19 percent. In the 1990s, it oscillated between 21 percent and 30 percent, higher than it had ever been in the postwar period. This decade, it reached 41 percent.
    • Pay rose just as dramatically. From 1948 to 1982, average compensation in the financial sector ranged between 99 percent and 108 percent of the average for all domestic private industries. From 1983, it shot upward, reaching 181 percent in 2007.
• 

  La Ligne
• 06 Apr 09
  

  Gary Edwards

  The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

  financial-crisis obama-socialism obama-soros imf

• 

  Ann Feeney

  economy recession

• 

  jmead60
• 

  Alyssa Duncan
  • 1989, and with the private sector in Asia and Latin America during the crises of the late 1990s
  • politics of countries in crisis.
  • 5 more annotations...
  • • even if that backing gives off the faint whiff of corruption.
    • sometimes pressured by the government,
    • the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government,
    • at least until the riots grow too large.
    • because the government can’t stay tough on erstwhile cronies, and the consequences are massive inflation or other disasters. A
• 05 Apr 09
  

  Patrick Metzger
• 

  Chuck Brands
• 04 Apr 09
  

  broadtop

  HOW THEFINANCE INDUSTRY HAS CAPTURED THE US GOVERNMENT

• 

  John Thomas
• 

  stevenson34

  Simon Johnson: formerly with IMF may have only viable solution to the world economic crisis.

  economics oligarchy Crisis

• 

  Susan Dineen
• 

  Levy Rivers

  economics Politics oligarchy

  • Typically, these countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason—the powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks
  • As masters of their mini-universe, these people make some investments that clearly benefit the broader economy, but they also start making bigger and riskier bets. They reckon—correctly, in most cases—that their political connections will allow them to push onto the government any substantial problems that arise.
• 

  Eldritch Crank

  Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among emerging-market governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or—here’s a classic Kremlin bailout technique—the assumption of private debt obligations by the government. Under duress, generosity toward old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk—at least until the riots grow too large.

  economy civilizational decline futurism

• 

  kndtc1

  The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

  economy

• 

  Edward T Wong
• 

  Nick Scalco

  economics oligarchy politics finance

  • From 1973 to 1985, the financial sector never earned more than 16 percent of domestic corporate profits. In 1986, that figure reached 19 percent. In the 1990s, it oscillated between 21 percent and 30 percent, higher than it had ever been in the postwar period. This decade, it reached 41 percent.
• 03 Apr 09
  

  Mark Bonchek

  Simon Johnson
  

  lobbying

• 

  Arthur C

  A masterly article from Simon Johnson

  PolEcon Crisis World Macro

• 

  Sharon Bode

  The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

• 

  Michael Feher
• 

  gerassimos arsenis

  Johonson finacial crisis

• 

  John J Ferrari

  referred to in David Brooks colom of April 13, 2009

  banks

• 

  Dewey Rochester
• 

  Gary Myers

  the quiet coup

• 

  Rushdy Ahmad

  The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

  The greed narrative of why the market crashed

• 

  Jerry Monaco
  • The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.
  • Typically, these countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason—the powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks.
  • 11 more annotations...
  • • Emerging-market governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit—and, most of the time, genteel—oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company in which they are the controlling shareholders.
    • In Russia, for instance, the private sector is now in serious trouble because, over the past five years or so, it borrowed at least $490 billion from global banks and investors on the assumption that the country’s energy sector could support a permanent increase in consumption throughout the economy. As Russia’s oligarchs spent this capital, acquiring other companies and embarking on ambitious investment plans that generated jobs, their importance to the political elite increased. Growing political support meant better access to lucrative contracts, tax breaks, and subsidies. And foreign investors could not have been more pleased; all other things being equal, they prefer to lend money to people who have the implicit backing of their national governments, even if that backing gives off the faint whiff of corruption.
    • Yesterday’s “public-private partnerships” are relabeled “crony capitalism.” With credit unavailable, economic paralysis ensues, and conditions just get worse and worse.
    • Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice
    • It’s a game of musical chairs:
    • Many IMF programs “go off track” (a euphemism) precisely because the government can’t stay tough on erstwhile cronies, and the consequences are massive inflation or other disasters. A program “goes back on track” once the government prevails or powerful oligarchs sort out among themselves who will govern—and thus win or lose—under the IMF-supported plan. The real fight in Thailand and Indonesia in 1997 was about which powerful families would lose their banks. In Thailand, it was handled relatively smoothly. In Indonesia, it led to the fall of President Suharto and economic chaos.
    • But there’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity: elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them.
    • they all benefited the financial sector.
    • The boom began with the Reagan years, and it only gained strength with the deregulatory policies of the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. Several other factors helped fuel the financial industry’s ascent.
    • Paul Volcker’s monetary policy in the 1980s, and the increased volatility in interest rates that accompanied it, made bond trading much more lucrative. The invention of securitization, interest-rate swaps, and credit-default swaps greatly increased the volume of transactions that bankers could make money on. And an aging and increasingly wealthy population invested more and more money in securities, helped by the invention of the IRA and the 401(k) plan. Together, these developments vastly increased the profit opportunities in financial services.
    • Not surprisingly, Wall Street ran with these opportunities. From 1973 to 1985, the financial sector never earned more than 16 percent of domestic corporate profits. In 1986, that figure reached 19 percent. In the 1990s, it oscillated between 21 percent and 30 percent, higher than it had ever been in the postwar period. This decade, it reached 41 percent. Pay rose just as dramatically. From 1948 to 1982, average compensation in the financial sector ranged between 99 percent and 108 percent of the average for all domestic private industries. From 1983, it shot upward, reaching 181 percent in 2007.
• 

  Mark Fichman
• 

  Richard Wanek

  Economy

• 

  Rod Monk
• 02 Apr 09
  

  mike kopp
• 01 Apr 09
  

  grabb0
• 

  Clay Burell

  economy economics

• 

  nico flores

  economics

• 31 Mar 09
  

  Marsh Feldman

  economy International Fund - IMF monetary

• 

  Brent Cochran

  former IMF official compares US to banana republic

  economics politics

• 

  Benjamin Brewer

  academic teaching finance

• 

  charlesijones
• 

  Joshua Myers

  Banana Republic IMF Reform

• 

  Zebratail

  Simon Johnson on Oligarchs

• 

  Joey Hundert

  US crisis *****

  • Typically, these countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason—the powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks. Emerging-market governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit—and, most of the time, genteel—oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company in which they are the controlling shareholders. When a country like Indonesia or South Korea or Russia grows, so do the ambitions of its captains of industry. As masters of their mini-universe, these people make some investments that clearly benefit the broader economy, but they also start making bigger and riskier bets. They reckon—correctly, in most cases—that their political connections will allow them to push onto the government any substantial problems that arise.
• 

  Michel Bauwens

  the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us wha

  Meltdown P2P

• 30 Mar 09
  

  superlumina

  One thing you learn rather quickly when working at the International Monetary Fund is that no one is ever very happy to see you. Typically, your “clients” come in only after private capital has abandoned them, after regional trading-bloc partners have been unable to throw a strong enough lifeline, after last-ditch attempts to borrow from powerful friends like China or the European Union have fallen through. You’re never at the top of anyone’s dance card.
  
  The reason, of course, is that the IMF specializes in telling its clients what they don’t want to hear. I should know; I pressed painful changes on many foreign officials during my time there as chief economist in 2007 and 2008. And I felt the effects of IMF pressure, at least indirectly, when I worked with governments in Eastern Europe as they struggled after 1989, and with the private sector in Asia and Latin America during the crises of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Over that time, from every vantage point, I saw firsthand the steady flow of officials—from Ukraine, Russia, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, and elsewhere—trudging to the fund when circumstances were dire and all else had failed.

  economics IMF economy oligarchy Politics bank

• 

  Bjoern Sievers

  finanzkrise delicious

• 

  nytwm1

  economy imf crisis

• 

  Len Richardson

  Joan Walsh refers to this article as possibly being correct assessment to recovery solutions.

• 

  Howard Dunlavy

  Simon Johnson

  Politics

• 

  bob blum
• 29 Mar 09
  

  geheimdienst

  econ

• 

  Gary Schreiner

  Simon Johnson gets a pulpit at Atlantic

  economics Domestic Policy

• 

  Hans Wobbe

  $ pest.e

• 

  jgar535

  simon johnson from baseline scenario looks at the history of the growth in the financial industry as a percent of gdp and impact on the economy
  

  economics

• 

  Cody Edwards

  economics IMF

• 

  sven duzont
• 28 Mar 09
  

  Mike Cane

  One thing you learn rather quickly when working at the International Monetary Fund is that no one is ever very happy to see you. Typically, your “clients” come in only after private capital has abandoned them, after regional trading-bloc partners have been unable to throw a strong enough lifeline, after last-ditch attempts to borrow from powerful friends like China or the European Union have fallen through. You’re never at the top of anyone’s dance card.

  atlantic imf depression 2.0

• 

  kguest

  The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

• 

  dj extracrispy

  The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government-a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF's staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we're running out of time.

• 

  David Guinee

  oligarchy economy 2009 economics

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  jeunium jeunium

  philosophy nwo_jokes

• 27 Mar 09
  

  markhammel2
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  rpwilson

  The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

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  Claudia Scholz

  finance econsoc Economic Sociology

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  Dan M

  economics oligarchy usa

Page Comments

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  Jerry Monaco on 2009-04-03
  This article could be entitled "oligarchy and free markets". The article is both interesting and frustrating. It is both right on point and misses the point altogether. I think the main prooblem is that the author, Simon Johnson, is an economist and actually believes that there can be such a thing as "free markets". He was an IMF economist after all and he specialized in shock troop invasion of economies. Economics oligarchs essentially seek extra profits from states (rent=seeking) structuring the market to their own advantage. Economic oligarchs capture governments and use it to their own ends. Over-borrowing and extra risk taking results from the fact that the economic oligarchs are essentially guaranteed success by their governments. Essentially, Johnson is saying that we are performing like a third world country. True. But Johnson ignores so much. He points out that the policies that led to the current crisis all benefited the financial sector and that the financial sector has essentially acted in our country the way that third-world oligarchs act in their countries. But this has always been the tendency and is one reason why both the New Deal and the Bretton Woods agreement put strict limitation on the ability of finance to flow freely.

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