At I.M.F., Men on Prowl and Women on Guard

[groovedaddy]

WASHINGTON — It is an international island in the midst of the American capital, a sharp-elbowed place ruled by alpha male economists. The days are long, and employees are regularly pressed together for weeks on end during overseas “missions.” It is a climate in which romances often flourish — and lines are sometimes crossed.

Some women avoid wearing skirts for fear of attracting unwanted attention. Others trade whispered tips about overly forward bosses. A 2008 internal review found few restraints on the conduct of senior managers, concluding that “the absence of public ethics scandals seems to be more a consequence of luck than good planning and action.”

This is life at the International Monetary Fund, the lender of last resort for governments that need money and, under the leadership of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, an emerging force in the regulation of the global economy.

But with Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s arrest earlier this week and indictment on Thursday on charges that he tried to rape a New York hotel housekeeper, a spotlight has been cast on the culture of the institution. And questions have been revived about a 2008 episode in which the I.M.F. decided that Mr. Strauss-Kahn had not broken any rules in sleeping with a female employee.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/business/20fund.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23

[girl gone mad]

1. The IMF must be destroyed, not reformed.

Obama recently gave them $140 billion, this on top of the 20% funding American taxpayers provide.

Enough is enough. Working people are being forced to fund their own financial destruction, when it is obvious that only the Icelandic solution can provide long term economic and political stability. If the financial oligarchs want to rule the world by vast debt enslavement, let them fund this financial terrorism themselves. We are all suffering for their greed and short sightedness, but what have they been asked to sacrifice?