The International Monetary Fund should not be blamed for missing warning signs of the financial crisis because the United States rejected a banking regulatory and oversight method the Fund had suggested, IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on Thursday.
Strauss-Kahn said most European countries had adopted measures spelled out in the Financial Sector Assessment Program, which was introduced in 1999 as a means to promote sound financial systems. The FSAP requires that a team of experts perform detailed assessments of the financial sector.
Reuters | U.S.rejected IMF's banking supervision: IMF chief [April 10, 2008]
Given the above, freely available through the MSM and on the Web, I'm a bit perplexed by the prominence given the U.S. FSAP to be undertaken as soon as George W. Bush flees Washington D.C.
"... to imagine the IMF investigating the US financial system is unthinkable, or was. But, at the weekend, Der Spiegel reported that the IMF would conduct a full investigation into virtually every aspect of it."
"Der Spiegel wrote that the IMF had "informed" Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke of plans that would have been unheard of in the past: a general examination of the US financial system. The IMF's board of directors has ruled that a so-called Financial Sector Assessment Program is to be carried out in the US.
"This, Der Spiegel wrote, '... is nothing less than an X-ray of the entire US financial system', adding that 'no Fed chief in US history has been forced to submit to the kind of humiliation that Ben Bernanke is facing'."
The Age | IMF finally knocks on Uncle Sam's door
Let Der Spiegel — which, at the time of Strauss-Kahn's April speech, took one look at the U.S. economy and ran with The Madness of Ben Bernanke, continue today's story:
"For seven years, US President George W. Bush refused to allow the IMF to conduct its assessment. Even now, he has only given the IMF board his consent under one important condition. The review can begin in Bush's last year in office, but it may not be completed until he has left the White House. This is bad news for the Fed chairman.
"When the final report on the risks of the US financial system is released in 2010 — and it is likely to cause a stir internationally — only one of the people in positions of responsibility today will still be in office: Ben Bernanke."
Der Spiegel | The Shrinking Influence of the US Federal Reserve
That about sums it up. By 2010, the horse will have bolted and the fat will have made the leap to the fire. We will all be Americans then.
Besides, surely no-one in their right mind expects the IMF, which adopts a peculiarly servile and obsequiously beseeching tone when addressing the U.S., to investigate, pronounce, and act on a global Ponzi scheme in which the Fund and its partners knowingly participate?
Eh?
SS Thomas T Tucker [Click pic to enlarge]
As the Roman Empire polarized, the economy and its political wrapping were beyond saving. All that Christianity was able to do was provide charity on an individual basis. It could deal only with symptoms, not root causes. When the point has been reached where you can deal only with people who have slipped through the cracks, the long-term game is lost.
Michael Hudson | We're Entering a Two Economy Society
What is interesting is that until a few weeks ago the United States refused to have the FSAP in their country.
IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn [April 10, 2008]
Zimbabwe's Ruins
Zimbabwe Bateleur — near Soetwater refugee camp, Cape Town
Ramped up pressure from the West, especially the U.S. and Britain, is having a perverse effect on African leaders gathered in Egypt. The harder the West leans, the more they circle the wagons around Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe.
Mugabe feels so comfortable among peers at the African Union summit at Sharm El-Sheikh that his spokesman Monday told critics to "go hang", and his bodyguards shoved a British reporter asking pesky questions to the 84-year-old leader.
Thus far most African heads of state attending the meeting have remained mum, at least in public, about Mugabe's re-election, which Washington calls a "sham" and the AU's own election monitors have criticised sharply.
Inter Press Service | Dim Outlook for Power-Sharing Deal
And so it goes... As noted here on April 1, "Whatever the outcome of this election — and Mugabe will not step down lightly, Zimbabwe and its people face extremely tough times. For South Africans or Americans — or any so-called democratic nation to decry Zanu-PF's electoral chicanery is duplicitous at best and potentially lethal at worst."Indeed. But that did not stop them. Nor did I expect it to. Three months down the road, media pundits, millions of refugees, sundry bloggers, and just about everybody else under the sun continues to put forward their recipe for lasting peace, justice, and harmony in Zimbabwe.
Ho ho ho.
I blame George W Bush, but what would I know? Sadly, Joshua Hammer's The Reign of Thuggery accurately reflects the "logic of pre-emption" employed at every level north of our border.
Those who took flight to land as broken birds in South Africa need our assistance now, more than ever. It's imperative, if we're to avoid further complicity in Mugabe's crimes against humanity, that our government stops deporting refugees immediately.
The international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) today expressed alarm at the deportation of approximately 500 Zimbabweans, including women and children, from a detention centre in Musina, at the border with Zimbabwe. South African authorities in Musina told MSF that they had increased patrols along the border during the run-off period. Zimbabweans arrested during these patrols told MSF teams that they had crossed the border over the past few days, fleeing instability and political violence in their country.
[... ]
The authorities confirmed that all Zimbabweans in the centre had been transported back across the border. Hundreds of people have been sent back into the country from which they fled, without any recognition of their right to seek asylum,” says Rachel Cohen, head of mission for MSF in South Africa. “Deportations happen everyday in South Africa but had apparently been halted yesterday on the occasion of the electoral run-off in Zimbabwe. We are shocked to find that the authorities are resuming this unacceptable practice, in violation of international as well as South African law, which guarantee the right to seek asylum and to access assistance.”
eMzantsi Ubuntu Coalition | MSF Calls Upon South African Authorities to Immediately Stop Deportation of Zimbabweans
Leave the preemptive logic and Bush Doctrine to those who think they can afford them. With petrol now at US$5.12 per US gallon, we certainly can't.
