The International Monetary Fund has amassed an unenviable record: subsidizing virtually every collectivist and authoritarian regime around the world while greatly increasing international indebtedness. Third World states got hooked on IMF money and spent years on Fund programs, hopeless financial dependents rather like the proverbial heroin addict. But now the IMF is supposed to save the world from the international recession.
How? By lending even more money. And where will that money come from? Us! Reports the Associated Press:
As protesters clashed with police on Washington’s streets, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged world finance officials meeting near the White House on Saturday to ante up more to help countries wrung by the recession.
Geithner said major progress toward bolstering the International Monetary Fund “must be an important outcome of these meetings. The international community should act quickly.”
More than 100 demonstrators angered by how world leaders have handled the economic crisis took on police outside the headquarters of the IMF and World Bank, which are holding their spring meetings this weekend.
Authorities used batons and pepper spray when activists tried to march onto a prohibited street, and several people were pushed to the ground by police. The protesters swarmed officers unexpectedly, and police had to respond, said D.C. police Capt. Jeffrey Harold.
In early April, leaders from the Group of 20 developed and emerging nations pledged to provide $1.1 trillion in new resources to international lending institutions, including $500 billion for the IMF. President Barack Obama is seeking congressional approval for up to $100 billion, matching commitments for the same amount made by Japan and the European Union. But the full $500 billion hasn’t yet been pledged.
Where, pray tell, will the U.S. get $100 billion? Don’t ask! It will be magic money–more U.S. borrowing, more IMF borrowing, more pledges of even more U.S. borrowing to back IMF borrowing, Other countries will do the same. Governments borrowing from the Fund will use this money better than they’ve used it in the past, resulting in endless growth and prosperity. And American taxpayers will live happily ever after.
Skeptical? Just close your eyes, click your heels together three times, and say “I believe!” You will feel a lot better. I promise.
