At the Istanbul meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) there is a certain amount of anguish. The US has gone rogue and demonstrated that there is a nominally liberal administration in the White House now. Over the weekend, Timothy Geithner announced that the World Bank needed better governance and more disclosure or the US was not going to contribute much. And US Congressman Barney Frank gave an interview from afar in which he excoriated the World Bank’s Doing Business Report as "a terribly reactionary influence" that is both anti-labor and anti-welfare (The report awards countries high ratings for ‘doing business’ if, legally, you can fire a worker for sneezing and you’re not encumbered by intrusive minimum wage laws).
Speaking of anti-labor, we spotted David Mulford in the lobby of the Convention Center yesterday holding James Wolfensohn – former World Bank president known for his anti-corruption crusade – in a warm embrace. Mulford, you will recall, engineered a number of dubious privatization deals for the Menem government in Argentina in the ‘90s. One after the other, these schemes busted Argentina’s trade unions, dismantled the vocational education system and caused working class pensions to disappear into offshore bank accounts owned by...?
The last of Mulford’s financial maneuvers, the "Mega Swap" of nearly unredeemable bonds even then, added billions to the external debt of Argentina without bringing the government tangible fiscal relief. Coincidentally, the deal earned millions in fees for Mr. Mulford and his cronies at Credit Suisse First Boston who helped think it up. Not long afterwards, Mulford’s counterpart in this deal, Domingo Cavallo of the Argentine Finance Ministry, went to jail for illegal weapons sales. Not for long, it’s true.
Mr. Mulford, in contrast, went to India as the US Ambassador for George W. Bush! And now he’s lurking around the IMF/World Bank meetings chatting up Mr. Wolfensohn. The two had a delightful exchange about the lovely textiles their wives found in India on a fondly-recalled shopping trip (We were all waiting for the same elevator; I couldn’t help but overhear).
And speaking of anti-welfare, the police were itching for a fight today. They had new outfits, including Kevlar, bionic helmets, plexi-glass shields and automatic weapons. Like they were an expecting an attack from outer space. This did not materialize.
You have to wonder why institutions like the Bank and the Fund, which are simply trying to ‘fight poverty’ and ‘stimulate growth,’ have to worry about being attacked all the time. You would think that if they’re just giving money away to poor people for promising ventures, they could pretty much walk around without a police escort, never mind a Jump-Out Squad.
Hard to figure. Unless somehow the public found out that Mr. Mulford is slithering around at the elevators, networking for Credit Suisse.