Brad wrote:
>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.
one problem with this is that it uses GDP growth as the main criterion for
judging success. Since GDP ignores external costs and benefits, it's a
circular argument. Brad's "priestly sect" advocating policies that promote
such things as GDP growth even though it's not a good measure of what's
good for people or the world.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
