[Post Summary]I opened for my beloved, but he had turned away.
—Song of Solomon
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The element of the American press I call "Tory Left" is notorious for its skillful capacity for putting lipstick on a pig. This week's Bill Moyers Journal interview with former IMF chief economist, Simon Johnson, is a troubling case in point.
Red flags immediately go up whenever anyone with experience at the International Monetary Fund is assumed an "expert." The question immediately becomes, "Expert at what?" The answer, of course, unavoidably must consider the agency's decades-long record of nation wrecking. The IMF is notorious for being the global financial institution used to impose the most vile material conditionalities on dozens of sovereign nations which over the past 30 years have found themselves in difficult straights largely as a consequence of both internal corruption and external manipulation. Conditionalities the IMF imposes essentially amount to enslavement of entire nations. The IMF, indeed, is the very institution deployed by the same oligarchs whose stranglehold over the U.S. financial system Mr. Johnson says we need to break. The IMF is at the core of the wretched system of globalization that has turned the U.S. economy into a debt-riddled scrap heap. Apparently, the backers of this agency now see our present financial crisis as opportunity to move in for the kill. It might be like Mr. Johnson says. However, what he fails to mention is the fact he is working for the enemy.
The thing I found most offensive was Simon Johnson's suggestion that the U.S. Treasury might not be the place from which a solution to our current financial crisis should originate. Rather, he says, we should listen to the IMF. If this man is a U.S. citizen, his command over constitutional principles making the United States unique among nations is abysmal. Indeed, calling for the lesser role of the U.S. Treasury and a greater role for the IMF borders on treason.
Also offensive was the manner in which the integrity of Congress was impugned. Although not explicitly stated, the suggestion was that members are entirely subject to conflict-of-interest as a result of millions of dollars in campaign contributions many receive from the financial industry. Any clear-thinking citizen rather looks with hope at this past week's House Financial Services hearings, before which appeared CEOs from Wall Street firms that have received TARP funds. It should come as no surprise that this senior fellow at the Peterson Institute would feed into public distrust for Congress. The IMF and Pete Peterson are a match made in fascist heaven.
Now, if you have any sense at all about potential the United States uniquely possesses to reverse this financial crisis in the bat of an eye, then you should appreciate how steering the debate toward the issue of executive compensation, rather than promoting constructive dialog, is meant to foment rage and division, incapacitating those authorities possessing power to declare bankruptcy and reorganize the financial system, and contrarily creating such additional chaos as allows the very oligarchs Mr. Johnson indeed serves to pick up the pieces of what's left of the U.S. economy for pennies on the dollar. The same goes for issues surrounding concerns over institutions having become "too big to fail." The real oligarchs (the likes of which Mr. Johnson pretends to fear) have been after Citigroup's leading commercial position worldwide for some time now (Citi is the target of these "too big to fail" detractors). Proof lies in the fact JP Morgan Chase is no less leveraged than Citigroup (indeed, it is more so), and yet oligarchically well-connected Morgan is hailed as some kind of brilliantly managed company whereas Citi, it is widely claimed, has been brought down by bad counsel coming from the likes of Robert Rubin and others.
What we are seeing before our very eyes is the same type of financial manipulation the IMF oligarchs are famous for, having pulled these sorts of swindles in emerging nations many times over recent decades. On this count Simon Johnson's observation is instructive, despite the fact he conveniently leaves out any mention of roles he may have played in perpetrating the IMF's crimes against humanity during his time with the agency.
—Tom Chechatka
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