Max B. Sawicky wrote:
>> Max, for the ADA I'd spin it by saying that the IMF deliberately depresses
>> investment in countries desperately in need of higher levels of
>> investment.
>> In Asia, the only region of the "Third World" to show gains in income
>> relative to the First over the last several decades, they're forcing down
>> the high I share that made the advances possible.
>
>I would have thought the right point of departure
>is that the IMF wants to depress public and private
>consumption for the sake of debt repayment, which
>is tantamount (for the IMF) to 'saving' and investment.
>This is trickle-down economics, international style.
>And we all know that doesn't work.
>
>Liberals don't get excited about investment. That's
>for the Clintonoids. I suspect my folks will find an
>traditional Keynesianism perfectly appropriate.
>
>The IMF is a pro-austerity leg-breaker for bankers,
>anti-public sector, anti-democratic, etc.
>
>No?
Everyone knows the anti-consumption, leg-breaking for the bankers stuff;
for the ADA to foreground that would be "predictable," which journalists
hate when it comes from folks even vaguely left of center. If the
Clintonoids are so in awe of investment, then why do they find soulmates in
the bond market or at the IMF?
It was Summers himself who co-authored that classic paper on the relation
between producers' durable equipment investment and growth, right? And here
he is in an administration that's forced declines in PDE invesetment. Of
course he also co-wrote some classic papers on noise traders and excess
volatility, but that hasn't stopped him from promoting Emerging Markets.
Doug
