Steve Forbes On The IMF (International Monetary Fund

Steve Forbes is one of the few of the ultra-rich in our society that I feel a camaraderie with. He ran for President twice (1996 and 2000) and is a Conservative. I have the latest Fortune and Forbes magazines before me. I open the former with a healthy dose of caution but look forward to the latter knowing that it actually encourages responsibility to society in fiscal decisions. It's Forbes' editorial in this latest issue that I want to write about. Titled Immolate The IMF, Forbes writes as if addressing Everyman of whom I am a part of. He begins with "What is the IMF.....and do we need it?", and proceeds to give a summary of the organization which most recently made headlines with the arrest of its then chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. I'd like to pass his summary on to you. He writes, "It possesses some $375 billion in assets, including 90 million ounces of gold. Most of the money came from you, the American taxpayer." Beginning his story with "Once upon a time" he describes the International Monetary Fund as having a purpose when it was created "in the waning days of World War II." It was to "undergird the new postwar international monetary system" where "the dollar was fixed to gold" and "other countries tied their currencies to the greenback at a fixed rate." It was created to give "emergency short term loans...to give them (struggling countries) breathing space." According to Forbes, it worked very well for a time, then in the early 70s, the United States was "beguiled by false economic nostrums" and nixed the fixed exchange rates. "Did the IMF close shop" asked Forbes, now that it wasn't needed. No, it "reinvented itself as a "global economic doctor." that would "cure all the (world's) country's economic woes." It could now "impose draconian measures on wayward borrowers" while the banks profited while avoiding blame for those measures. It was "Keynesianism on steroids" and "perpetuated poverty for its patients." Fortunately for us, Ronald Reagan came along and the U.S. economy "boomed" and other nations of the world "started to engage in more free-market economics." The result was that the IMF "had nothing to do." and "fewer and fewer countries on which to ply its poisons." Alas, "then came the economic crisis and the IMF  was back in business" and is "peddling austerity without the necessary companion policies that engender growth." Steve Forbes' conclusion is to "shut it down" and "distribute the booty back to those who put it in in the first place" of which "Uncle Sam would ultimately collect more than $70 billion." South Carolina Senator Jim Demint, who is my choice to become our next President in January of 2013 (should God permit us to last that long as a Constitutional Republic) locked horns with Barack Obama on this last year and wrote "The International Monetary Fund board has approved a $40 billion bailout for Greece, almost one year after the Senate rejected my amendment to prohibit the IMF from using taxpayer money to bailout foreign countries." He continued in describing how various accounting methods were going to be used to "hide the bailout from Americans already angry with the $700 billion bank bailout," and also wrote "America can't afford to bail out foreign countries with borrowed dollars from China and certainly shouldn't allow state sponsors of terror a hand in that process." Thomas Sowell wrote as early as 2003 "More and more economists and others have begun to complain that the policies which the international donor agencies like the IMF  have imposed on various poor countries around the world, using the leverage of foreign aid money, have made matters worse instead of better." This issue is still simmering and back on the front burner as President Obama, earlier this month, said in a speech concerning Greece, "We have pledged to cooperate fully in working through issues both on a bilateral basis but also through international and financial instituions like the IMF."

http://www.conservatives4demint.com/
http://www.tsowell.com/