Great Link! Thanks Nathan. Hope you don't mind if I spread this around.

I totally missed this -- thanx! The Mobilization for Global Justice and the Latin American Solidarity Coalition are organizing demonstrations for the spring meetings of the IMF and WB in DC in April. See www.lasolidarity.org

I think this admission is the biggest news this year in terms of its world impact, bigger than Iraq.
You might send this to Matt Yglesias, he's a Democrat who thinks anti-globalization is a joke.

But does it matter?

The Bush Administration pretty much dictates IMF policies in the final instance. And when did evidence, or lack thereof, ever stop the Bush Administration from doing what it wants? Or repeating lies over and over, until they are wholly accepted as the God-given truth.

I'm not sure if there IS such a thing as BIG NEWS anymore. There's just what the Bush Administration does and says. Who really thinks these revelations matter to the people in charge? Did it matter when nuclear documents were faked, when Blair's dossier was the product of plagiarism, when respected UN inspectors found no evidence of a nuclear program? Did any revelation, which in any rational-thinking world would have undermined the Bush case for war, in any way derail Bush from his ideological drive?

We have entered a realm of purely ideological governing. "Evidence" is so pre-Bush. Don't expect this admission from the intellectually-honest IMF to change a damn thing in global trade policies. Power is the only thing that matters.

In a way, you'd think that the Bushistas would realize how dangerous the world will become for themselves, once everyone realizes, as they are now, that trying to engage this Administration in dialogue is a futile exercise.

You are at best a focus group, but, in any event, you are irrelevant. So they say.

Actually, the IMF is only talking about "financial integration," which involves capital flows, not trade in goods and services. Do not conflate the two.

Hmm...I'm not "conflating" the two. Capital flow and trade are already inter-related. Ultimately, how capital flows in and out of a country (and between countries) is just one term of trade. The more financial integration, the easier it is to move capital around the globe. The easier it is to move capital around, the more the terms of trade will be tilted in capital's favor. (Lesser tariffs, cheaper labor, etc., etc.)

Do not conflate the two, indeed. Who thinks that "financial integration" has nothing to do with international trade? I view the lowering of barriers to movement of capital (reducing the transaction costs, so to speak) as part and parcel of the dominant "global trade policy" of the moment.

In any event, yes, the IMF doesn't deal so much in the trade of goods and services. Its policies are geared toward attracting capital to a particular country. But why doesn't this affect global trade policy? The entire point is that the flow of capital will have an effect on trade in general. (You increase the flow of capital to your country and increase the number of exports, for instance.)

But Joshua, the IMF often conflates the two. IMF "structural adjustment" programs have often required the dismantling of trade barriers, the end of subsidies for domestic industries and a range of trade-related "reforms" such as slashing health care and education budgets.

Full Disclosure: My sister works for the World Bank. She is a good person, I think you would like her very much yourself.

I may be shouting in the wilderness here, but hopefully someone will listen. The IMF and the World Bank are two very different institutions. The IMF is the lender of last resort, when countries cannot make their debt payments. The World Bank is trying to end poverty through sound economic principles, such as foreign investment and education. True, the Bank has made mistakes. But do not confuse them with the IMF, which uses more of cookie cutter approach to solving financial crises, and the World Bank, which is trying to do some good for the poor of the world. The IMF is not a poverty ending institution, the Bank is.

The IMF report can be found at
http://www.imf.org/external/np/vc/2003/022503.htm

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