IMF warns on U.S. debt, World Bank sympathizes with Putin's moves
Tuesday, September 21, 2004 at 6:19PM ■"I.M.F. Chiefs Sees Potential Hazard in U.S. Fiscal Policies," by Elizabeth Becker, New York Times, 21 September 2004, p. W1.
■"World Bank Chief Backs Putin Moves: Wolfensohn Links Proposal To Tighten Kremlin's Grip With Recent Terror Attacks," by Alan Friedman, Wall Street Journal, 21 September 2004, p. W1.
The IMF worries over the combo of our rising public deficit and our ballooning trade deficit, saying that the combo "could set off a sudden fall in the dollar and reverse the global economy." That means we're playing with fire when we dramatically plus up our deficit to wage a global war on terrorism and pretend that development doesn't somehow put globalization's advance at riskóagain, my accusation that this administration has a tendency to wage war strictly within the context of war, without considering the everything else.
Meanwhile, I do applaud the World Bank's Wolfensohn when he cautions global markets to avoid rushing to negative judgments about Putin's recent moves in Russia to recentralize political control. The World Bank has loaned Russia a lot of money, and doesn't want to see all those efforts at energy and infrastructure development go down the drain. Modernizing Russia's economy comes before liberalizing its political system, and if hardening the latter is the price for firewalling the former from the destructive grip of anarchic terrorism, then so be it. Political freedom is useless without economic development.
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