In a blog that lacked few of the usual trappings of diplomatic reticence that often shroud their work the IMF warned yesterday that:
The global economic recovery has so far been resilient to the pronounced swings in financial markets–but investors and policy makers shouldn't take too much comfort from that fact. They should remain attuned to the risks associated with rising interest rates, elevated market volatility, and increasing protectionism. The road ahead may well be bumpy.
You can argue that the IMF is seeking to retain the status quo.
And you can also argue that the IMF is inherently anti-protectionist.
You can even argue that this is the DC elite arguing against Trump in one of the ways that they can.
And in all cases you might be right.
But that's not really the point here. Whatever the motives of those posting this blog might be there is a simple fact that they have simply stated, which is that the transition from what has been to what might be is going to be tough, uncertain, and will impose real risk as to outcomes, many of which are unpredictable.
I readily embrace change. I want change, in fact. The idea that we should move from a world still built in no small part around the Washington Consensus that the IMF did so much to promote at one time is appropriate. That consensus has failed. 2008 proved that. But the direction of travel in which we are headed is wrong. We are not heading for a world of greater accountability, more robust fiscal policy, stronger democracy, greater international cooperation in the face of the challenges that exist and the creation of greater participation in decision making processes by those impacted by decisions. We are heading in the opposite direction of all those things right now.
The IMF is right to warn that there may be trouble ahead. What is deeply troubling is that we might pay a high price for no gain and a great deal of loss.
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Such a comfort to know the INF are on the ball 🙂
Cue for a song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjJHnKw7YNA
🙂
The business editor at The Scotsman, Bill Jamieson, is only interested in the IMF growth forecast (ignoring any mea culpas of course) and used that to write “Here’s how the world is leaving Scotland behind” –
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/bill-jamieson-here-s-how-the-world-is-leaving-scotland-behind-1-4726527
To justify his thesis, he equates GDP per head to standard of living, as you can see here –
“And, in terms of GDP per head (standard of living), Scotland has now experienced no change since the start of 2015, compared to a rise of 3.2 per cent seen for the UK over the same period.”
Apart from anything else, it is surely more sensible to look at UK regional data. ONS data shows that in 2016 Scotland had the third highest GVA per head of all UK regions – just above London.
https://spice-spotlight.scot/2018/04/04/what-do-the-latest-statistics-on-economic-growth-tell-us-2/
Not too shabby?
Scotland is bound to have a lower standard of living than the south east
More profits are recorded in the south east than Scotland
This is a mea culpa by the IMF . At the height of the Washington Consensus they advocated for austerity, privatisation and financial liberalisation – all the policies that have brought us to the sorry pass we find ourselves in now. But they also sense the days of the neoliberal consensus are numbered and so it seems to me when the change comes ( and it will ) they want to be on the right side of history.
We all have to do mea culpas
I can live with it
Erm… shouldn’t that be ‘meas culpa’
Sorry, Andy AND Richard. “Culpa” is a 1st declension feminine noun.
Accordingly, it should be “meae culpae” (nominative). But as you’re “doing” rhem, they’d be in the accusative, so “meas culpas”.
Of course, the phrase is actually in the ablative: “mea culpa” = “by my fault”, so a plural would be strange to a native Latin speaker.
So speaks an old “chalk and talk” Latin teacher!
And anyway, we’ve turned it into an English word, so I can live with Richard’s version: “We all have to do mea culpas”.
Phew
I was a disaster at Latin….
Forgot to say that the IMF is going to have to do a bit more than offer a “Windrush” style bleeding heart apology, and ritual me a culpa for having wrought more destruction (and almost certainly death) on the developing world through their dogmatic “one size fits all” Structural Adjustment Programmes” (SAP’s indeed for their sap victims) than Genghis Khan and the Golden Horde, Attila the Hun, the Vandals, Goths and Lombards combined – ALL of whom left behind valid cultural achievements, where all the IMF will be able to do is recite the last line of one of Wilfrid Owen’s early poems:
“Starkly I returned, To stare upon the ash of all I burned”.
A generation long penance of trying to repair the damage they have wrought would be appropriate.