Yesterday’s events give us an opportunity to look again at one of the longest-running themes of my writing on here. This is the role of the IMF and to do so I would like to take you back to the 8th of June 2010 when I pointed out this.
1. It has plainly changed from an organisation which helps with balance of payments problems to one which helps with fiscal deficits. Whilst this may suit politicians, taxpayers and voters should in my view be concerned about the moral hazard of one group of politicians voting to increase funds available to help another group of politicians which may include themselves.
This was my response back then to the way that the Dominique Strauss-Khan who was Managing Director of the IMF at the time allowed it to get involved in the Euro area crisis. There was an obvious issue in a French politician doing this and of course the IMF has continued with French political heads. It worried me at the time on various grounds one of which was that poor third world countries were in essence financing a bailout of a much wealthier area overall which could afford to collectively pay for it. In my opinion the reason for this was that whilst Euro area political leaders ( including the French Finance Minister at the time one Christine Lagarde) were proclaiming “shock and awe” in fact the Euro area response was a mess. The so-called rescue vehicle the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) was anything but which my updates from back then show. Over time they have proved this as it was later replaced with the European Stability Mechanism or ESM.
But the fundamental point here was that a modus operandi which involved balance of payments problems was replaced by a fiscal one. This line could be covered up to some extent in Greece as it also had a balance of payments problem but not for example in Ireland which has surpluses pretty much as often as the UK has deficits!
Greece
This of course has been a debacle for the IMF where whatever reputation it had for economic competence has come a cropper as Greece was plunged even further into recession and in fact has yet to emerge from the economic depression created. This contrasts with the official view which I pointed out on March 30th of this year.
but from 2012 onward, improved market confidence, a return to credit markets, and comprehensive structural reforms, are expected to lead to a rebound in growth.
There was supposed to be economic growth starting in 2012 and then running at around 2.1% for two years and then pick-up to 2.7% in 2015.. Then once that obviously did not happen we got the “Grecovery” theme which did not happen either. Along the way we got a “mea culpa” from the IMF as well as something of a hand brake turn as the advocate of austerity became a fan of fiscal deficits.
However something was wrong and at least some in the IMF knew it’ Let me take you back again to the 8th of June 2010.
Mr.Boutros-Ghali (Egypt’s Finance Minister) went on to give us some idea of one of the areas he feels that trouble and hence further demands for funds might come from. He told the Reuters news agency that Greece’s problems were not over yet and there were doubts about its ability to implement the reforms demanded by the IMF and European Union in return for a 110 billion euro aid package.
“We are not out of the woods,” he said in the interview. “The measures they have been required to implement are fairly tough. And there are in some areas doubts whether they are able to continue implementing such tough measures.”
He was of course correct and it is a sad indictment of these times that official sources are still claiming progress on reforms when reality has been very different. After all Greece would not be in the state it is in if they had worked or even been applied. In my opinion there is something worse than the mistakes which is the way that there has been deliberate dissembling and misrepresentation of not only what is going to happen but what is happening at the time.
The implication that the IMF is free
Another feature of IMF aid is the way that it is presented as a type of SPV and sadly not the Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle driven mostly by Captain Blue in my and many other’s childhoods. These official SPVs ( such as the EFSF) are off-balance sheet vehicles which allow politicians to obfuscate about the state of play. Back to June 8th 2010 again.
Politicians should stop implying that the help provided by the IMF is in effect free. For example US Treasury Secretary Geithner suggested that moves to expand the IMF “wouldn’t cost a dime”. This is one of those superficially true statements that are very dangerous. If you are liable for something it does not cost anything until it goes wrong. Just to quote the IMF itself there are “doubts” over Greece. Any proper accounting system allows for the possibility of things going wrong. After the experience of the last two years we should know the implication of sticking your head in the sand like an ostrich and assuming there are no problems around…
In other words it is presented as “free” until it isn’t at which point phrases such as “this could not have been reasonably expected” and words such as “counterfactual” are deployed as weapons. Missing from the conversation is how people who were are regularly told are so intelligent and thus need to be paid highly have been wrong again! This of course brings us to the concept of responsibility.
Christine Lagarde
I have been critical of the IMF’s Managing Director quite a few times on the grounds that she has been intimately involved with the disastrous bailout of Greece via her roles as French Finance Minister and Managing Director of the IMF. Not everyone has spotted this as the Financial Time has proved this morning as it reviews her.
a blow to her previously unblemished reputation for managerial competence
But even the FT which appears ever keen to stand firmly behind any establishment vehicle has to admit this.
A conviction for negligence is somewhat at odds with a commitment to “the highest standards of efficiency and technical competence”.
Mind you perhaps something in the past has influenced this.
The Financial Times therefore argued earlier this year that she deserved reappointment for a second term on merit.
Is negligence the new definition of merit? I will have to update my financial lexicon for these times. This next bit is full on internal contradictions and effectively self-critiques.
It found her guilty of negligence because she did not appeal against the eventual decision — but it has not imposed any sentence, and the verdict will not result in a criminal record. Short of full exoneration, this is the mildest possible verdict.
This is an unusual verdict from an unusual court. Politicians who sit on the special tribunal may well have wished to avoid a tougher ruling that would have deterred ministers from making delicate decisions in future.
Comment
There are a litany of issues here. We see yet again that the more important you are the less you are apparently responsible for anything. Someone lower down the scale would have received punishment if they had been found guilty of negligence yet the leader of the world’s major financial organisation apparently can shrug it off. Punishment is for the little people only it would seem.
This leaves the IMF as a whole in an even bigger hole. As the economic world shifts east towards places like India and China it looks ever more like a western and to some extent French fiefdom. At the same time more of its bailouts have gone rogue of which Greece is the most extreme example. The worst part is the way that this is all covered-up and the truth is bent and miss shaped.
The only hope we have is that this statement from the IMF turns out to be like one about a manager from a football club’s board of directors.
In this context, the Executive Board reaffirms its full confidence in the Managing Director’s ability to continue to effectively carry out her duties.
Oh and “outstanding leadership” also needs to go into my financial lexicon for these times. Although we do need perhaps to go through the Looking Glass of Lewis Carroll.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
Notayesmanseconomics's Blog 
This discredited organization should be scrapped
but it will never happen as too many crooks will suffer
Forbin
Hi Forbin
Too many well paid jobs for politicians at the IMF for it to be scrapped. I have noted mentions of Ed Balls and George Osborne for it. Whilst George played nicely as Chancellor by so publicly backing Mme Lagarde I think post the EU leave vote no-one originally from these shores is in the race! Of course a certain Canadian though….
My vote goes to Gordon Brown as he is fully qualified at “saving the world” which after all is what the IMF does.
Not to mention that the IMF made a 2.5 billion profit from the Greek bailout.
Yet another case of teflon members of the high table & in this case a harpie who screeched at the Greeks for not paying their taxes, while not paying any herself. IMF forecasting is a joke as is the apparent belief that they could indefinitely carry on regardless without the plebs getting kind of fed up about it.
Thank you for the effort you put into this very informative blog – I also like the music references as being aged 59, I recognise them, along with today’s Captain Blue SPV, which led me to the thought that in terms of the banks – they could perhaps be said to be presenting themselves as the indestructible Captain Scarlet, whereas in reality they are in fact Captain Black.
Merrry Christmas to you & yours.
Hi Stevie
Thank you and welcome to the comments sections. Let me wish you a Happy New Year.
too many crooks spoiled the broth it seems….
Yep…..
Hi Shaun
When the next big crunch comes,
is the IMF the only solution for “The precious.”
http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/sdr.htm
Same as it ever was.
JRH
Hi JRH
You have interesting timing as there have been a few references on Twitter today to the Economist magazine from 1988 which predicted a world currency in 2018. Things would have to change fast though! As to the IMF SDR they have been tilling some of the ground by admitting the Chinese Yuan.
Job should have been open globally not just to the ‘right’ French, Euro supporting, candidate.
Appointed bureaucrats have three principal rules:
1. Once it is understood, in all appointed political positions, you can’t be voted out by the plebs that pay the wages, pensions, expenses and ‘bonuses’, budgets and any losses, keep the job and the benefits, at all costs, for as long as possible and help the other politicians (especially if they can make life difficult or get rid of you), so you have a mutually supporting system which maximises the ‘elites’ collective troughs.
2. A spoiler is democracy as the plebs can get rid of you, if they dislike what you have done, so resist that at all costs, so the IMF, EU, Euro, ECB, BOE, Fed etc. will never have any meaningful democratic mandate.
3. If other politicians or the plebs try to get rid of you, see and use rule 1.
Hi Rods
The job was open globally to er one candidate. Actually I am also reminded of Barosso’s son who was apparently so talented he is the only person to be taken on by the Bank of Portugal without interview. Makes it feel like the business model of the Kinnock family
This whole episode epitomises the failings of the current system. A set of politicians scratching each others’ backs at our expense.
Why the rest of the imf shareholders put up with a French head I will never know. I have nothing against the French, but these appointments will perpetuate the euro-centric view.
Hi James
Yes I too have wondered about the global politics of this but I guess once you have the US.UK and a few others you are well on the way. Many people are convinced that the US has a firm grip on the IMF which makes me wonder why it seems to have become compulsory for the main job to go to the French? Perhaps the Germans either don’t want the job or may not be pliant enough?
Great blog as always, Shaun.
Among Mme Lagarde’s breaches must be considered the appointment of Louis Marc Ducharme Director of the IMF’s Statistics Department in June 2013. It was probably the worst administrative appointment ever made. Caligula naming his horse a consul was a judicious choice by comparison. Before he took over at the IMF he was instrumental in retaining unacceptable practices for calculating component contributions to inflation rates that were contrary to the IMF’s own manual, “Practical Guide to Producing Consumer Price Indices”. The worst error ever in the history of the Canadian CPI, which underestimated the inflation rate for traveller accommodation over a multi-year period, was due to a revamping of that traveller accommodation module for which he was responsible.
As you say, Christine Lagarde has been a disaster at the IMF. The Mexican candidate for IMF head, Agustín Carstens, probably would have been a better choice. Too bad for him that he looked like the before picture in a weight loss ad.
” Caligula naming his horse a consul was a judicious choice by comparison. ..”
LoL!
(spilt me coffee over the keyboard )
Hi Andrew
There have been some excellent replies to this blog over time but I have been contacted today to say your Caligula reference is amongst the best.
Hi Shaun
Why are we surprised when the ruling elite protect their own?
We have a world ruled by a non-elected global elite. Unfortunately it seems the only way that situation could be disrupted is by the actions of powerful individuals currently excluded from the ‘group’. Whether that disruption is successful on any meaningful measure remains to be seen, as does any benefit arising for the majority from the disruption.
Why are we surprised? Well, I for one am shocked at the astonishing self-protecting and overpaid elite. My surprise stems from the continuing behaviour which none of us plebs would ever get away with. I include
1. MPs expenses in the Uk
2. MEPs expenses in Brussels (no receipt required)
3. DSK and now CLagarde getting away with everything
4. Bankers STILL getting ridiculous bonuses
5. Bankers STILL not in gaol
6. Carney’s incompetence
7. Sir Hector Sants’ knighthood
I could go on. And on. However, reminding myself of Sir Hector’s gong on top of all his “earnings” has made me want to lie down
Two choices, suck it up or bloody revolution; they’re not going to let go peacefully, are they?
Indeed. Just look at the eu reaction to Brexit, which can be summarised as
1. Let’s screw the Brits
2. Let’s ban other popular votes
Not one word about what might be to the benefit of the majority. Not one word.
Bankers are not known as Banksters for nothing,however the untouchables seems an equally good fit.DSK and CLaG were both accused of serious crimes just like all these people no matter the crime they will never do time.
The system is crumbling but the elites are never going to admit it because they are beneficiaries.
Our monetary and economic systems hit the debt iceberg 8years ago the water is gushing into the hull.
The IMF serves no purpose except as a tool of the failed neo liberal agenda….it has failed the great unwashed but has made the elite rich beyond the dreams of avarice
..Spectrum Is Green😊
Hi Private Fraser
Spectrum is always green here except of course a ground floor flat is a long way below Cloudbase. Should they ever need a volunteer to drive an SPV I am available!
As to the “elite” they are simply out of control and as you say the laws somehow seem to melt away in their presence.
Hi Shaun,
The word Humpty was referring to was —- “Glory”
There’s no doubt the elite at the IMF are simply covered in glory.
Hi Eric
They are indeed and it deserves a full airing I think. Via Wikipaedia.
“”I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ ”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”