UPDATE: Dominique Strauss-Kahn is "not in a position to run" the International Monetary Fund after his arrest over an alleged sexual assault, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said. May we remind Mr. Geithner that he was guilty of tax evasion, yet he runs the US Treasury, responsible for collecting taxes. What was good for the goose is not good for the gander. But some have no shame.
Meanwhile, IMF deputy director John Lipsky will run the IMF. Lipsky is formerly of the US Treasury and of JP Morgan. No doubt more predictable, especially after viewing the lesson provided to DSK.
Let me make clear, I do not condone rape. This case interests me simply because it was handled so differently from the usual case of diplomats gone wrong, such as in a vehicular homicide, or the aforementioned incident in Pakistan. Who denied Strauss-Kahn the niceties that normally accompany his position, and why? That is the interesting question here, and media have failed to ask it.
The April 11, 2011 Washington Post had an interesting piece about new directions at the IMF, led by DSK. One has to wonder if this helped lead to the crisis in which DSK now finds himself, entirely stripped of dignity, being tortured (a la Bradley Manning, who was put on suicide watch as a way to enhance his psychological torture--with clothes and personal items removed, lights on 24/7) and pilloried around the world. Read the following and see the threat he posed to the banks that now own and run our little planet.
Meanwhile, IMF deputy director John Lipsky will run the IMF. Lipsky is formerly of the US Treasury and of JP Morgan. No doubt more predictable, especially after viewing the lesson provided to DSK.
Let me make clear, I do not condone rape. This case interests me simply because it was handled so differently from the usual case of diplomats gone wrong, such as in a vehicular homicide, or the aforementioned incident in Pakistan. Who denied Strauss-Kahn the niceties that normally accompany his position, and why? That is the interesting question here, and media have failed to ask it.
The April 11, 2011 Washington Post had an interesting piece about new directions at the IMF, led by DSK. One has to wonder if this helped lead to the crisis in which DSK now finds himself, entirely stripped of dignity, being tortured (a la Bradley Manning, who was put on suicide watch as a way to enhance his psychological torture--with clothes and personal items removed, lights on 24/7) and pilloried around the world. Read the following and see the threat he posed to the banks that now own and run our little planet.
Since the Wall Street bank Lehman Brothers failed more than two years ago, bringing the global economy to the brink of collapse, countries have spent hundreds of billions of dollars to prop up their markets, intensified regulation of financial companies and deepened government involvement in the economy.
For International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the job is only half done, as he has been leading the fund through a fundamental rethinking of its economic theory. In recent remarks, he has provided a broad summary of the conclusions: State regulation of markets needs to be more extensive; global policies need to create a more even distribution of income; central banks need to do more to prevent lending and asset prices from expanding too fast.
“The pendulum will swing from the market to the state,” Strauss-Kahn said in an address at George Washington University last week. “Globalization has delivered a lot . . . but it also has a dark side, a large and growing chasm between the rich and the poor. Clearly we need a new form of globalization” to prevent the “invisible hand” of loosely regulated markets from becoming “an invisible fist.”
The effort to recast global economics will be a focus of IMF meetings this week...
The growing income gap between the rich and poor is no longer seen by many inside the IMF as a by-product of economic boom times but a cause of crisis, as poor and middle-income families turn to borrowed money to make up for stagnant incomes.
Strauss-Kahn continues to push for major new financial sector taxes, although that issue has never gained broad support. He has been frustrated as well in advocating an international program to ensure that the most globally connected financial firms can be put out of business if needed without costing taxpayers. That would require a deeper level of cooperation among nations than exists...
The IMF has also revised its long-standing opposition to “capital controls“ and researching ways that nations could control risky behavior by financial firms.
Strauss-Kahn — who is in the fourth year of a five-year term at the IMF and is being mentioned as a possible Socialist Party candidate in upcoming French presidential elections — said any suggestion that the fund is pushing for too much government is off the mark. The financial crisis is evidence, he said.
“There is a long way to go before all that has been badly done by the lack of supervision of the market will be overcome,” he said. “The whole public sphere has to do more.”
Dirty tricks are part of the Fund. The Ph.D. staff of the Fund is primarily from US schools. US econ profs also play a large role there. Some do their 18 month tours there.
ReplyDeleteThey also play an important role in the US government to supervise the Fund. The Undersecretary for International Affairs at the Treasury is a position often held by an econ Ph.D. or econ prof.
Foreign countries get embarrassing information on the academic history of the American profs and the econ departments. This includes Russia, China, India and Pakistan playing that game.
The treatment of the biology Ph.D.'s and M.D.'s in the anthrax case, Thomas C. Butler, Steven Kurtz, etc. has been noticed as what can happen.
The econ profs also play an important role at the DOJ. The Economic Analysis Group of the antitrust division of DOJ has 50 econ Ph.D.'s headed by an econ prof for 18 month tours.
Russia got over 20 billion dollars in IMF loans in the 1990's and those were all controlled at IMF and US Treasury by American econ profs on loan from US universities.
DSK is an econ prof from France. The econ profs in France are aware of much of this.
The US v. Microsoft case had involvement of such econ profs as DAAG, expert witnesses on both sides. In Europe, they kept on with the antitrust action against Microsoft unlike the US where it was dropped.
Econ profs and law profs are very close. J.D. econ Ph.D.'s have clerked for several judges especially ones with antitrust expertise. 4 have been at the Supreme Court.
The universities involved in this have little overlap with the biology Ph.D.'s and M.D.'s messed over by DOJ/FBI. Thomas C. Butler was Texas Tech. Steven Kurtz was SUNY Buffalo. These biology or art profs at low ranked schools have no way of finding out the inside gossip on econ profs at IMF, US Treasury, Fed, CEA, FTC or Antitrust Division of DOJ.
Joel Brenner was an antitrust trial lawyer at DOJ who was promoted to head of counter intelligence. He then said Russia was working at cold war levels to spy on America but on personal information not technical information.
US v. Harvard, Shleifer and Hay is an interesting case in this regard.
Ed Lake and the FBI have both said that their case against Ivins is primarily based on his behavior towards women.
ReplyDeleteWhatever the case of the charges against DSK, it is now established that DSK's behavior towards women was worse than Ivins.
So the FBI and Ed should be willing to switch to saying DSK did the anthrax attacks.
Some of the attacks were in NYC so they can just tack on the charges. This also gives them a fall back in case the current charges don't pan out. That way they avoid embarrassment, which is the primary basis of guilt of any suspect.