Rapist

Well there he is, one of our elite. If that is what one of them looks like makes you wonder why they think that they deserve to rule the planet. Merit has nothing to do with it of course and the IMF itself is testimony to that. So, it is ironic that an elite, leading architect of global financial destruction is being haggardly perp walked in front of all his victims for appropriately rape. For he has raped many, individuals and nations. If we could only get the remainder of his ilk behind bars it would indeed be a great day for humanity. And while these times may temporarily be uncertain for the IMF the rest of the world can breath a sigh of relief that for now at least this former IMF head can do no more harm. The same unfortunately cannot be said of the debt issuing organization he used to run. That organization has a long dark history of doing all harm and no good.

Any list of countries "helped" by IMF programs reads like a casualty list. The start of the IMF’s painful involvement in Yugoslavia was candidly described in the 1989 issue of the World Bank’s publication, Trends in Developing Countries: "The dinar was devalued in real terms by 19.3 per cent and strict limits were imposed on the growth of nominal wages….The program was supported by the IMF…. Output declined about 2 per cent, and inflation accelerated to 251 per cent by the end of the year. The unemployment rate has been rising, and the real income of the population declined by at least 2 percent."

The same sort of destabilization program was pawned off on several Latin American countries. To obtain a two-year IMF loan in 1982-83, for example, Chile deeply devalued the peso, raised tariffs from 10 percent to 35 percent, and raised income-tax rates. The economy collapsed, and inflation soared. Chile completely reversed those policies in 1984-85, and later ended an onerous payroll tax by privatizing Social Security. Since escaping the clutches of the IMF, Chile has become a model for development.

The IMF’s track record in East Asia is no better. South Korea adopted an IMF program in 1980, including a 17 percent devaluation and a huge increase in the highest income-tax rates. The economy shrank by 5 per cent, and inflation hit 35 per cent. As soon as the term of the IMF loan ended in February 1981, the Korean government began to slash tariffs and tax rates. This was followed by nearly two decades of astonishing economic growth, an achievement tarnished but not undone by Korea’s latest disastrous experiment with currency devaluation.

Even as Dominique Strauss-Kahn adjusts his pallet to prison food the mainstream media shrills fretfully wonder what will the IMF do now. Whatever it does, whoever they replace him with will change little. The mafia will still be a mafia.

The IMF will never stand trial for the rape of the global economy as it should, but at least one of it’s most culpable figures is where he should be. And whether guilty or innocent of the of the rape of a chamber maid in New York, for humanity’s sake they should lock him up somewhere horrible and throw away the key.