Apparently the IMF is positioning to step in to *manage* the financial fallout:

[Hannah Bell]

The poster from Iceland mentioned this in relation to the crisis there, & then there's this, from Baker & Weisbrot - two economists who didn't support the useless *bailout*.


>>Global Financial Stability: What Role for the IMF?

The recent crisis in global financial markets can largely be attributed to a lack of appropriate oversight and regulation, including in the U.S. the accumulation of a more than $8 trillion housing bubble. The bailout for Wall Street approved last week in Congress does not include remedies for preventing another similar crisis. Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund has offered "to coordinate the global reform process, which could begin next month when finance ministers and central bankers convene in Washington for the annual IMF/World Bank meetings on October 11-13." This is because, according to IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, "The IMF is the right place to organize a global response to weaknesses in the global financial system."

...The IMF's failure to provide advance warning of most of the major financial crises of the last 15 years and its record of suggesting inappropriate remedies after the fact raise serious questions about its ability to perform this function.

Dean Baker was one of the first economists in the United States to warn about the dangers of the $8 trillion housing bubble, and he urged the Federal Reserve Board to take steps to rein in the bubble before it grew to such dangerous proportions... He has also been a prominent critic of the bailout package recently passed by the U.S. Congress. He is the author of numerous research papers and articles on the housing bubble and the credit crisis, including, most recently, his “Statement on Congressional Approval of Bailout.”

Mark Weisbrot has written... on the International Monetary Fund's recommended macroeconomic policies .... His criticisms of the Fund’s policy advice have been joined increasingly by world leaders, most recently at the United Nation’s 63rd General Assembly meetings in September, where this policy advice was contrasted with the massive provision of liquidity and record-breaking nationalizations taken by the U.S. government in recent months.<<

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/event:-global-financial-stability:-what-role-for-the-imf/


I don't think we'll like their (the IMF) *solutions*.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

1. It appears Naomi Klein is right

This is Shock Doctrine on overdrive.

Does anyone see a way to stop them?

[malaise]

2. I posted a thread here on Sunday September 28th

Read carefully - the Washington Consensus has now been imposed on the US

All the language of the Bailout bill - stabilization, etc. is IMF language.
The Washington consensus model is about to be buried. Western Europe, China and Russia will not take orders from discredited men.

[nichomachus]

3. So, Greg Palast was right all along

He predicted this in "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" -- word for freaking word.

[Hubert Flottz]

4. One World Bullshit!

A thousand points of misery.

[Theres-a]

5. Damn. nt

[lostnfound]

6. Hence there may be riots hence they need crowd control. This is why I posted a poll

about whether or not the neocons planned for this crisis to happen now (while they are still in power) or whether it is happening earlier than they planned.
I tend to think that they wanted it to collapse while they still are in control and can hand over a disabled, indebted, indentured and hollowed-out government, just as the right wing did in South Africa prior to handing the reins of government over to Mandela.

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. This is not the branch of the IMF where the SOB was serving as CEO?

A little poetic license there with the ABCs, I admit. Though, I think the NEO con was pushed out, eventually.

[HamdenRice]

8. The IMF is too small to have any role. It's mainly a bully that beats up little countries

Remember, the IMF is a creature of the central banks of the US and Europe. They capitalize it. It's not the other way around.

It is a sock puppet of the major central banks that is used or (used to be used) to beat up small economies in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and larger economies that were emerging from communism, like Russia and Poland.

The central banks and Fed are trying to deal with this directly, and are not able yet to get their arms around it. Moreover they are doing exactly what the IMF always says don't do -- direct intervention and nationalization.

The IMF is just blowing hot air at this point, trying to get a piece of the action. It might have a role in Iceland, but I can't see what role it could play in the US or any big western European economy.