Flanders: Jeffrey Sachs’ Grab for the World Bank
Flanders: Jeffrey Sachs Grab for the World Bank
Znet Article, March, 23 2012 Laura Flanders
http://www.zcommunications.org/jeffrey-sachs-grab-for-the-world-bank-by-laura-flanders
Running as the candidate of change, Jeffrey Sachs is clearly hoping no one looks too closely at his record as an economic hit-man
The fact that hes campaigning for the World Bank job as the candidate of the new regime makes all this particularly hard to take. Since Paul Wolfowitz resigned under a cloud in 2007, new rules at the World Bank are finally permitting countries than the US and Europe to determine who heads the worlds financial institutions (since world war two its been the World Bank for the US, and a European at the IMF). Europe nominated Christine Lagarde for IMF president last year. She won over other candidates. For the World Bank post, the U.S. has quietly floated names like Susan Rice, John Kerry and Larry Summers to replace Robert Zoellick when he steps down June 30. Predicting he wont be the USs official pick, Sachs has gotten seven countries to endorse him, including Haiti, Jordan, Kenya, Malaysia and east Timor.
By March 23, well know how all this plays out. Meanwhile, according to the open-source website, WorldBankPresident.org which is tracking these developments, a slate of countries with new financial capacity to compete with the US are taking steps to form a World Bank alternative. Quite possibly, at a meeting in India later this month, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa may set up their own development bank with the goal, they say, to escape the dollar and the euro hegemonies and, if Chinese plans go well, making the yuan a global currency. Well see what Sachs has to say about that adaptive initiative.