>
>Hi Ed,
>
>a few months ago you and I had an exchange following a posting of my book
>review on the MAI.
>
>What are your thoughts on the matter these days?
>
>You are probably aware that the City of Waterloo has passed a resolution
>calling more a halt on negotations and further public disussion.
>
>Rose Dyson
Hello Rose,
>From all I've read recently, the MAI - at least in its present incarnation -
is dead. There are many reasons for this: The OECD was not the right
organization to put it together; countries wanted too many exceptions to it;
the process of negotiation was not "transparent" enough; and it raised a lot
of grass-roots opposition from people who felt that the autonomy of their
governments would be undermined.
In a variety of posting to several different lists - often at the risk of
being drawn and quartered - I've said that I didn't see too much wrong with
the MAI. I argued that, given the enormous importance and growing scale of
international investment, a common set of rules applying equally to all
signatories, was a good idea. I still think it's a good idea. If a MAI had
been in place during the past decade, the Asian meltdown might not have
happened, and would almost certainly not have been as severe as it now
appears to be (provided, of course, that the Tigers were signatories).
In my mind, we need rules for something as big as international capital
flows. The question then is, who will set those rules? Will they be
imposed by the banks of big creditor nations on small debtors? Will they be
imposed in a typical one-size-fits-all manner by the IMF following each
crisis? Or will they be established by international negotiation and
national ratification, as was supposed to have happened in the case of the
MAI? The latter approach, while not perfect, appears preferable to me.
I'm copying this to the Futurework list. Someone on the list may still want
to tell me of the error of my ways.
Best regards,
Ed Weick
