>ensure that the Sun will appear again next year (Tenochtitlan).
>
>Current economists are more like their Nazca counterparts, however,
>in that while the "scientists" in Egypt or the Anahuac could show the
>"results" of their practices (the Nile flooded the valley again, the
>Sun always rose on the East), the Peruvian community was finally
>wiped away by centuries of drought and famine.
Well, my priestly sect right now are pretty confident that we're more
like the Egyptian priests telling people to plant when the dog star
rises just before dawn. The U.S. policy mix in the 1990s (where our
advice was taken) appears remarkably successful (social policy not
so, as Wendell Primus discusses at length), and so has been the
policy mix in India. Japan and western Europe--where our advice was
not taken--have not moved a step toward resolving the problems they
had at the start of the decade. And much as I quarrel with the
details of IMF intervention in Mexico, East Asia, Brazil (briefly:
Jeff Sachs is right), the fact that the IMF showed up with a lot of
money to help manage the crisis played *some* role in the rapid (if
partial, and inequality increasing) recoveries from those financial
crises.
Of course, Russia and most of Africa continue to be total disasters.
And as Paul Krugman says, mainstream economists have to reevaluate
their blanket disapproval of capital export restrictions in light of
the strong and successful recovery of Malaysia under the policies of
Mahathir Muhammed...
Brad DeLong
