The World Bank: looking for a leader, looking for a role in the world

ARTICLE: “The World Bank’s Real Problem: It’s not just the Wolfowitz mess. The bank also needs to figure out why it still exists” by Justin Fox, Time, 14 May 2007, p. 180.

Why not focus on post-conflict and post-disaster recovery?

The bank was lending $10 billion a year back in the late 1990s. Now, it lends less than a billion a year (so much for “Economic Hit Man’s” logic: wouldn’t lending go up with globalization’s advance?).

The problem?

“Now we live in a world where there are huge global capital markets, where, if anything, investors are too willing to invest in developing countries,” says Adam Lerrick, a former investment banker who teaches at Carnegie Mellon University.

So we have the U.S. providing the vast bulk of the bodies and the spending in Iraq.

Meanwhile, we have huge armies (ground forces, that is) in rising New Core powers and a World Bank that’s looking for a job.

But no, let’s all whine on about “reforming the UN” or “making NATO work harder” or some such other fantasy that will never happen. As soon as I hear people pushing that crap I know full well they have no intention of making anything happen. It’s just a polite way to tell me to f--k off with my vision.

Comments

[Michael]

I'm missing something. How often are the people saying such things even aware of your ideas?