The International Monetary Fund took aim at Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, calling the economist's criticism of the fund's advice to governments ``snake oil'' that "runs against the wisdom of Planet Earth.''
In a rare personal rebuke by the fund against one of its critics, IMF Chief Economist Kenneth Rogoff and main spokesman Thomas Dawson each published rebuttals of a new book by Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents. While Rogoff praised Stiglitz as an academic, he labeled the former World Bank chief economist "a loose cannon" for suggesting that IMF policy advice to countries such as Thailand and South Korea deepened their recessions in 1997 and 1998.
"In the middle of a global wave of speculative attacks, that you yourself labeled a crisis of confidence, you fueled the panic by undermining confidence in the very institutions you were working for," Rogoff told Stiglitz in a debate Friday at the World Bank. "Did it ever occur to you for a moment that your actions might have hurt the poor and indigent people in Asia?" The row comes as the collapse of Argentina's economy after a decade of advice from the fund has given anti-IMF candidates new support across Latin America, from Brazil to Bolivia.
Many of them share Stiglitz's contention that the IMF's typical advice to governments of developing nations to cut budgets, raise interest rates and open capital markets often leaves countries unable to expand their economies and exposed to the whims of foreign investors.
The fight is also a rare public glimpse at the differences between the two lenders, whose headquarters are across the street from one another in Washington.
The attack by Rogoff drew the ire of World Bank economist Uri Dadush, who complained during Friday's debate of the personal nature of the comments.
Dawson said today that Stiglitz, once an economic adviser to President Bill Clinton, began the personal attacks, and he had an assistant count the references to the IMF in the book's index -- 340 -- to prove his point.
While Stiglitz focuses his criticisms on the economic policy advice of the IMF to Russia, Thailand, South Korea and Argentina in the 1990s, he has gotten personal, too. He once said the IMF attracts "third-rank students from first-rate universities." He argues that opening up to capital helped fuel the near collapse of economies from Mexico to Southeast Asia to Russia and Brazil in the last decade. The IMF's advice of budget cutting and raising rates only exacerbated the problem, he says.
"There is a great hypocrisy and inequity about the way globalization has been carried out," Stiglitz said at the World Bank.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
UNWAVERING: Paraguay remains steadfast in its support of Taiwan, but is facing growing pressure at home and abroad to switch recognition to Beijing, Pena said Paraguayan President Santiago Pena has pledged to continue enhancing cooperation with Taiwan, as he and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed opposition to any unilateral change to the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait using force, Japanese media reported on Saturday. Kishida yesterday completed a trip to France, Brazil and Paraguay, his first visit to South America since taking office in 2021. After the Japanese leader and Pena spoke for more than an hour on Friday, exchanging views on the situation in East Asia in the face of China’s increasing military pressure on Taiwan, they affirmed that “unilateral attempts to change the