The problem with Christine Lagarde

[dkwrkm]

by Simon Johnson

Ms. Christine Lagarde, French finance minister, is the nominee of the European Union for the recently vacant position of managing director at the International Monetary Fund. The EU has just over 30 percent of the votes in this quasi-election; the US has another 16.8 percent and seems willing to keep a European at the fund if an

Comments

[dkwrkm]

I'm hoping it'll be just a matter of time before the "European at IMF, USian at World Bank" thing changes. Maybe within our lifetimes. :) I like to think they'll get away with it this time around just because the IMF is so mired in Europe right now. Though it probably still comes down to shares...

I wish we could directly vote for these guys.

Do they mean that countries where people like to pay taxes (which is nonsense, but ok) should pay for the stuff of the poorer countries, like a big europearn welfare system, instead of a national level?The EU has centralized monetary policy (the European Central Bank determines how many euros are floating out in the economy) but decentralized fiscal policy (each country handles its own taxing and spending) when what they really needed was all or nothing: centralized monetary AND fiscal policies, or both decentralized (ie, no euro). The US has both centralized, which is how you have the situation of rich states like New York and Washington paying for poorer states in the south