>>At the econ. convention in early January, I heard one speaker (Jagdish >>Bhagwati?) talk about how the IMF was micromanaging the world. His example >>was that the IMF guy (a young economist who knew nothing at all about >>Jamaica) telling the government that they should switch from FM broadcasts >>to AM. Who made these guys gods? > Doug writes: >There's a reason they call the IMF teams that visit countries - typically >2-4 weeks at the finance ministry & central bank, I think - "missions." and what is the missionary's position? A history prof. told me when I was in college that the strength of the Chinese Empire rested partly on the fact that the mandarins in charge of the provinces did not come from the provinces they ruled, so that their loyalty was instead to the Son of Heaven. It's similar for the minions of the IMF, whose greatest sin, I've heard, is to "go native" and start sympathizing with their charges. They remain loyal to the Son of Finance. The main news organizations in the US also move their reporters regularly, afraid that they'll get too much understanding of what they're reporting... Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html
