My thoughts on Wolfowitz

Now would be a good time to just shut the whole thing down. The bank serves no meaningful purpose other than to provide jobs to a bunch of recalcitrant economists; who only brought this back room deal to light when one of them got pissed that Riza was to skip to the head of the gravy train, not for reasons of good public stewardship and governance.

This is Brad DeLong’s inner two-year-old:

‘I don’t know but I think I can guess what the story Paul Wolfowitz tells himself is, and it goes like this:…’

I don’t know, but I’m going to slander someone I don’t like.

What a waste of a good economist.

Regarding the WB and the IMF, the latter really is about to go out of business. Its major client these
days is Turkey. If Turkey were to go off the IMF dole, the place would be nearly bankrupt for a lack of
interest income on outstanding loans. However, the WB continues to make plenty of loans, although one
can argue that they are misguided in terms of countries or projects or badly spent due to corruption or
a variety of other matters.

I agree with the both Tyler and Brad. A major bottom line is that if you are going to go around
campaigning against corruption, then you had better avoid even the appearance of it yourself. It is
not just PW himself who has failed so to avoid it, but his aide Robin Cleveland as well. Just being
cynical that “everybody does it at the WB” will not cut it.

BTW, I have known Paul Wolfowitz for nearly a half a century. He is an absolutely brilliant man, if
misguided. But he has really fallen into a deep swamp of his own making. He should resign. Anyone
curious about my more at length discussion of all this, including much background on PW, go check
the posting and comments in “Paul D. Wolfowitz Must Go,” by me, now in the archives of maxspeak.

Let us keep the eyes on the ball!

If we want good government results that have a chance of doing what is humanly good for humanity, in a shrinking world, that could only happen through more credible and better governed multinational institutions. But in this case, while rolling up or shirtsleeves to get going at it, we must also learn about how to prioritize our efforts.

Instead of beating the good guy on the head, just because he is more amenable to being beaten on the head, and start with a World Bank and that no matter Wolfowitz and some others, in relative terms, still stands out as a shining example of relative good governance in the world, we should all concentrate more on where good governance is much more lacking and much more needed, namely the United Nations.

May I humbly suggest we keep our eyes on the ball!

Per Kurowski
Chairman
The Voice and Noise Foundation for International Development and Global Strategic Action

http://perkurowski.blogspot.com/
http://teawithft.blogspot.com/