SF-Financial Archives - Foreign Policy In Focus

The IMF is Back? Think Again

by Aldo Caliari, Emily Schwartz Greco | May 28, 2009

Last year, as the financial crisis reached global and historic proportions, many commentators identified one institution as the debacle’s great winner: the International Monetary Fund. Just two years ago, the IMF seemed to be on an inexorable downward path: its credibility and effectiveness in question, its portfolio of borrowers severely reduced, its legitimacy and governance structure under challenge, and its own finances in disarray. In fact, the Fund had started “downsizing” its staff as the only way to avoid running one of the deficits that it so strongly advises client countries to steer away from.

Overhauling Global Finance

by Emily Schwartz Greco, Alex Wilks | May 28, 2009

The global financial crisis has discredited the financial institutions that played a part in causing it. Discussions of radical alternatives are beginning to flourish, with the world’s governments rushing to consult experts who previously found themselves out in the cold.

World Bank Corruption

by Bea Edwards, Emily Schwartz Greco | May 21, 2009

The International Development Association (IDA), the arm of the World Bank that makes grants and interest-free, long-term loans to poor countries around the world, lacks effective safeguards against corruption, according to a report by the Bank’s own Independent Evaluation Group (IEG). The report concluded that IDA, which currently lends and grants about $10 billion annually to governments in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, doesn’t protect its funds adequately from theft and diversion.

G20 and Global Poverty

by Neil Watkins | Apr 8, 2009

Depending on whose analysis you read, the G20 summit in London was the best or the worst of meetings. To some critics, it was an abysmal failure by a self-appointed illegitimate body. To others (read: Gordon Brown), the world has been saved from the brink of its economic demise by inspired leadership and deft summitry.

U-20: Will the Global Economy Resurface?

by Walden Bello, John Feffer | Mar 30, 2009

The Group of 20 (G20) is making a big show of getting together to come to grips with the global economic crisis. But here’s the problem with the upcoming summit in London on April 2: It’s all show. What the show masks is a very deep worry and fear among the global elite that it really doesn’t know the direction in which the world economy is heading and the measures needed to stabilize it.

Fixing the IMF

by Daniel D. Bradlow, Emily Schwartz Greco | Mar 30, 2009

The leaders of the G20 will meet on April 2 in London. One item on their agenda will be to consider enhancing the International Monetary Fund’s role in international financial governance. This can only be successfully achieved if the IMF undergoes substantial reforms that require either difficult political compromises or amendments to the Fund’s Articles of Agreement, the formal international treaty that created the IMF and that has only been amended three times since the organization’s inception in 1946.

Planning for Failure in Afghanistan

by Sam Gardiner, Erik Leaver | Mar 30, 2009

It’s official. President Barack Obama now fully owns the war in Afghanistan. Standing alongside his military advisors and in front of the Washington press corps, he outlined a plan with “a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan.” While the goal and the five objectives to meet this goal are clear, they’re also unattainable and will likely result in the U.S. (and NATO) being trapped in the region for decades to come.

Chomsky: Understanding the Crisis Markets, the State and Hypocrisy

by Sameer Dossani, Emily Schwartz Greco | Feb 9, 2009

Noam Chomsky is a noted linguist, author, and foreign policy expert. Sameer Dossani interviewed him about the global economic crisis and its roots. His first interview with Chomsky can be found here.

Obama: Sweep Away a Free Trade Relic

by Sarah Anderson, Emily Schwartz Greco | Feb 9, 2009

It’s not easy to make the International Monetary Fund look like a beacon of progressive enlightenment. But the Bush administration managed to do just that by letting ideology blind them to lessons from the Asian financial crisis that even doctrinaire IMF economists couldn’t ignore.

The Coming Capitalist Consensus

by Walden Bello, John Feffer | Dec 24, 2008

Not surprisingly, the swift unraveling of the global economy combined with the ascent to the U.S. presidency of an African-American liberal has left millions anticipating that the world is on the threshold of a new era. Some of President-elect Barack Obama’s new appointees – in particular ex-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers to lead the National Economic Council, New York Federal Reserve Board chief Tim Geithner to head Treasury, and former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk to serve as trade representative – have certainly elicited some skepticism. But the sense that the old neoliberal formulas are thoroughly discredited have convinced many that the new Democratic leadership in the world’s biggest economy will break with the market fundamentalist policies that have reigned since the early 1980s.