Posted on 05/30/2016 8:55:46 AM PDT by Lorianne
In a stunning reversal for an organization that rests at the bedrock of the modern "neoliberal" (a term the IMF itself uses generously), aka capitalist system, overnight IMF authors Jonathan D. Ostry, Prakash Loungani, and Davide Furceri issued a research paper titled "Neoliberalism: Oversold?" whose theme is a stunning one: it accuses neoliberalism, and its immediate offshoot, globalization and "financial openness", for causing not only inequality, but also making capital markets unstable.
To wit: There are aspects of the neoliberal agenda that have not delivered as expected. Our assessment of the agenda is confined to the effects of two policies: removing restrictions on the movement of capital across a country’s borders (so-called capital account liberalization); and fiscal consolidation, sometimes called “austerity,” which is shorthand for policies to reduce fiscal deficits and debt levels. An assessment of these specific policies (rather than the broad neoliberal agenda) reaches three disquieting conclusions:
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
Throw in excessive debt, public and private, and you’ve got the ingredients of the recipe.
Welcome to the party, IMF-pals.
Viva la Nation State. Nwo sucks. Exile the Fabians.
To us "neoliberal" points to people like Lester Thurow (who wrote The Zero Sum Society), i.e. liberal supporters of capitalism who believe it needs to be more highly regulated and augmented by large safety nets for those who don't fare well in a capitalist economy.
Internationally "neoliberal" means the economics of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, i.e. relatively unconstrained free markets with less regulation and smaller safety nets.
There will be confusion. Freepers will hate anything with the word "liberal" in it, but how can we hate something associated with Thatcher and Reagan?
There are those conservatives who lean neocon and/or libertarian who are very supportive of everything that Reagan tried to accomplish and only wish that he could have gone further in deregulating the economy, lowering taxes, etc. However, there are those of us who lean more to paleoconservatism that are skeptical of the supposed benefits or even possibility of a totally free market.
So Freepers who are happy to be called neocon or libertarian on FR should be happy to be called neoliberal in the international context.
Those of us who are more skeptical won't want to associate ourselves with any "neo" philosophy even if it was pushed by a Reagan administration infested by neocons or a Thatcher administration that accepted atrocities such as the NHS as a given.
Good points.
M. Friedman argued that floating exchange rates were preferable to fixed as floating allowed another way for imbalances to be balanced. As it is, Greece, Puerto Rico, etc., would have to actually fix the underlying problems with their economy, which they’re not going to do. With floating exchange rates, they could inflate away their debts, and those who foolishly bought their bonds would suffer.
The bailout solution didn’t work, as it hasn’t in the past. The bailout solution is for the IMF or some other such lenders to provide loans conditioned on reforms sufficient, in a few years, to bring the debtor country’s budget into balance. That is, loans plus austerity. But, it is a phony austerity. The debtor countries go on for years with little or even no progress toward balance. The deficit disease spreads from basket-case countries to marginal countries.
The “capital controls” solution is to restrict financial flows. Supposedly, Greece and Germany will share the same currency, as will the U.S. and P.R., but there will be controls on the financial transactions between Greece and Germany, and the U.S. and P.R.
Capital controls are part of the “policy options” of countries like communist China. Not open and democratic countries. We are sliding into serfdom, so the crony capitalists as our masters.
Thank you for your post. I have been saying for years that Consevatism has been hijacked by most Republicans, but that true Conservatism does not support Globalism.
Viva America. A sovereign nation again under Trump.
May the heyday of Mexican and American politicians destroying both nations with globalism be sent to the dustbin.
Nationalism is the cornerstone of Conservatism.
And nationalism is one level of that ultimate paradigm of true Conservatism; Subsidiarity.
The smallest social unit capable of handling its affairs should be left alone.
The hierarchy is first individual,second family, then church and other local communities, states or counties in America, fdeteal government in America (all under God remember) After that FAIR TRADE treaties etc. with each aiming for win/win pacts. Self dealing should be dealt with by prohibitive laws and term limits.
A notch above the Gulag, a few notches above Dachau.
That’s the world big business, big banks and big government are creating for us.
“I rejected NAFTA and GATT as bad before the election, but embraced them as good after the election.”
-Hillary Clinton’s husband
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