29 Mar 2009

Lessons From The Crisis

One interesting thing about the global screw-up is that one sees how things work more clearly. One sees what clothes the various emperors are wearing, with the help of people in the know. Like former IMF chief economists.
The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

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