Strauss-Kahn Screws Africa

[Oilwellian]

Now that I've dispensed with the obvious and obnoxious teaser headline, let's drop the towel and expose Dominique Strauss-Kahn's history of arrogant abuse. The truth is, the grandee of the IMF has molested Africans for years. On Wednesday, the New York Times ran five - count'em, FIVE - stories on Strauss-Kahn, Director-General of the International Monetary Fund. According to the Paper of Record, the charges against "DSK," as he's known in France, are in "contradiction" to his "charm" and "accomplishments" at the IMF.

Au contraire, mes chers lecteurs.

Director-General DSK's cruelty, arrogance and impunity toward African and other nations as generalissimo of the IMF is right in line with the story told by the poor, African hotel housekeeper in New York City. Let's consider how the housekeeper from Guinea ended up here in New York. In 2002, this single mother was granted asylum. What drove her here? It began with the IMF rape of Guinea.

In 2002, the International Monetary Fund cut off capital inflows to this West African nation. Without the blessing of the International Monetary Fund, Guinea, which has up to half the world's raw material for aluminum, plus oil, uranium, diamonds and gold, could not borrow a dime to develop these resources. The IMF's cut-off was, in effect, a foreclosure, and the nation choked and starved while sitting on its astonishing mineral wealth. As in the sub-prime mortgage foreclosures we see today, the IMF moved quickly to seize Guinea's property.

But the IMF did not seize this nation's riches for itself. Rather, it forced Guinea to sell off its resources to foreign corporations at prices much like the sale of furniture on the lawn of a foreclosed house. The French, Americans, Canadians, Swiss (and lately, the Chinese) came in with spoons out and napkins tucked in under their chins, swallowing the nation's bauxite, gold and more. In the meantime, the IMF ordered the end of trade barriers and thereby ruined local small holders. As a result of the IMF attack, Guineans who could, fled for freedom and food. This week, then, marked the second time this poor African was molested by the IMF.

http://www.gregpalast.com/strauss-kahn-screws-africa/#more-4601

[PDJane]

1. That's been happening for decades........

It's not confined to this man.

[Oilwellian]

3. I realize that

There have been threads quoting the NYT and their praise of Kahn for being a kinder, gentler generalissimo. Palast is refuting that.

[CTyankee]

23. The history of the French in the Mahgreb goes way back...

and the subsequent pillage in the sub-sahara ain't pretty either...

[elleng]

2. 'On 30 September 2007,

Dominique Strauss-Kahn was formally named as the new head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). . .

Strauss-Kahn made comments that could be perceived as critical of global financial actors, in an interview for a documentary about the Late-2000s financial crisis, Inside Job (2010). He said he had attended a dinner organised by former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in which several CEOs of 'the biggest banks in the U.S' had admitted they (or perhaps bankers in general) were 'too greedy' and bore part of the responsibility for the crisis. They said the government " 'should regulate more, because we are too greedy, we can't avoid it.' " Strauss-Kahn said he warned the officials of a number of departments of the U.S. government of an impending crisis. He also said: "At the end of the day, the poorest – as always – pay the most."<28>

Referring to his diplomatic efforts to secure IMF aid for Europe following the 2010 sovereign debt crisis, economist Simon Johnson described Strauss-Kahn as "Metternich with a blackberry".<29><30> In May 2011, referring to the IMF's change of heart in favour of progressive rather than neoliberal values, Joseph Stiglitz wrote that Strauss-Kahn had proved himself to be a "sagacious leader" of the institution.' . . .

Political career timelineManaging Director of the International Monetary Fund, since 2007.

Governmental functions
Minister of Industry and Foreign trade, 1991–1993.
Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry, 1997–1999 (resignation).
Electoral mandates
Member of the National Assembly of France for Val d'Oise, 1986–1991 (becoming minister in 1991). Reelected in 1997, was minister 2001–2007 (resigned on becoming Managing Director of the IMF in 2007). Elected in 1986, reelected in 1988, 1997, 2001, 2002, 2007.
Regional Council
Regional councillor of Ile-de-France, 1998–2001 (resignation).
Municipal Council
Mayor of Sarcelles, 1995–1997 (resignation).
Deputy-mayor of Sarcelles, 1997–2007 (resigned on becoming Managing Director of the IMF in 2007). Reelected in 2001.
Municipal councillor of Sarcelles, 1989–2007 (resigned on becoming Managing Director of the IMF in 2007). Reelected in 1995, 2001.
Agglomeration community Council
President of the Agglomeration community of Val de France, 2002–2007 (resigned on becoming Managing Director of the IMF in 2007).
Member of the Agglomeration community of Val de France, 2002–2007 (resigned on becoming Managing Director of the IMF in 2007).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_Strauss-Kahn

[Oilwellian]

5. Well, there is this. I can't wait to see the documents Palast has collected.

It was DSK who, last year, personally insisted on brutal terms for the so-called bail-out of Greece. "Strong conditionality" is the IMF term. Strauss-Kahn demanded not just a devastating cut in pensions and a deliberate increase in unemployment to 14%, but also the sell-off of 4,000 of 6,000 state-owned services. The DSK IMF plan allowed the financiers who set the financial fires of Greece to pick up the nation's assets at a fire-sale price.

The Strauss-Kahn demands were not "tough love" for Greece: The love was reserved solely for the vulture bankers who received the IMF funds but were not required to accept one euro in lost profit in return. DSK, despite the advice of many, refused to ask the banks and speculators to reduce their usurious interest charges that were the root of Greece's woes.

That's some kind of sagacious leader.

[elleng]

7. Yes, is Palast a 'miracle worker,' or DSK, who was not AT the IMF before '07?

[elleng]

31. See this, re: Greece/IMF/DSK:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1145698&mesg_id=1146339

[joshcryer]

9. Stiglitz is anti-IMF, any illusions toward progressivism in the IMF would get praise from him.

DSK's "changes" are still in line with neoliberalism despite what Stiglitz says.

[joshcryer]

4. He was a REFORMER how can Greg Palast say this! He was GOING TO CHANGE THINGS!

Oh, right, he was about to quit the IMF and run for the French presidency.

[elleng]

6. He DID change things; see my earlier post, #2.

This has nothing to do with his despicable recent act. (I am not the court, and I do not think he's innocent, fwiw.)

[Prometheus Bound]

11. He protected the bankers and financiers. That was what they hired him to do.

He said some progressive things (e.g. we must think of the unemployed) but did what the IMF has always done, protect the bankers, increase unemployment, and pave the road for selling off a country's assets.

Can you tell me how he changed anything for the better?

[elleng]

13. 'An architect of France's economic recovery

in the late 1990s, Strauss-Kahn, popularly known in France as "DSK", served in a Socialist government as finance minister between 1997 and 1999. He cut the public deficit to qualify France for the euro and took steps that led to the privatisation of some state firms. . .

Since he took over the IMF, Strauss-Kahn won praise for placing the global body at the centre of global efforts to cope with the financial meltdown of 2007-09, and introduced sweeping changes to help countries in need.

He oversaw changes that have given emerging market countries greater voting power in the institution.'

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2011/05/20115156173137271.html

[Prometheus Bound]

14. Not much there, Ellen, besides privitisation and saving the banks.

[elleng]

16. Right. Things to learn,

among others, about his wife:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/21/world/europe/21sinclair.html?pagewanted=1&hp

[Prometheus Bound]

19. She is more open-minded than I in one sense.

Asked in 2006 by L’Express if she suffered from his reputation as a womanizer, she said: “No! I’m even proud of it. It’s important to seduce, for a politician. As long as he is still attracted to me, and I to him, it is sufficient.”

[elleng]

26. Unusually openminded, and practical I guess.

Maybe Maria S, also?

Many worse things than 'womanizing,' imo, like abuse.

[Oilwellian]

8. LOL, well yes, there is that

I doubt he was a committed reformer. :D

[elleng]

10. Political career/timeline:

Strauss-Kahn was first an activist member of the Union of Communist Students,<13> before joining in the 1970s the Centre d'études, de recherches et d'éducation socialiste (Center on Socialist Education Studies and Research, CERES) led by Jean-Pierre Chevènement, future presidential candidate for the 2002 election.<13> There, he befriended the future Prime Minister of France Lionel Jospin (PS).

After the election of President François Mitterrand (PS) in 1981, he decided to stay out of government. He got involved in the Socialist Party (PS), which was led by Lionel Jospin, and founded Socialisme et judaïsme ("Socialism and Judaism"). The next year, he was appointed to the Commissariat au plan (Planning Commission) as commissaire-adjoint.

In 1986 he was elected deputy for the first time in the Haute-Savoie department, and in 1988 in the Val-d'Oise department. He became chairman of the National Assembly Committee on Finances, famously exchanging heated words with the Finance Minister Pierre Bérégovoy (PS).

In 1991, he was nominated by Mitterrand to be Junior Minister for Industry and Foreign Trade in Édith Cresson's social-democrat government. He kept his position in Pierre Bérégovoy's government until the 1993 general elections.

After the electoral defeat of 1993, Strauss-Kahn was appointed by former Prime Minister Michel Rocard chairman of the groupe des experts du PS ("Group of Experts of the Socialist Party"), created by Claude Allègre.


Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, since 2007.

Governmental functions
Minister of Industry and Foreign trade, 1991–1993.
Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry, 1997–1999 (resignation).
Electoral mandates
Member of the National Assembly of France for Val d'Oise, 1986–1991 (becoming minister in 1991). Reelected in 1997, was minister 2001–2007 (resigned on becoming Managing Director of the IMF in 2007). Elected in 1986, reelected in 1988, 1997, 2001, 2002, 2007.
Regional Council
Regional councillor of Ile-de-France, 1998–2001 (resignation).
Municipal Council
Mayor of Sarcelles, 1995–1997 (resignation).
Deputy-mayor of Sarcelles, 1997–2007 (resigned on becoming Managing Director of the IMF in 2007). Reelected in 2001.
Municipal councillor of Sarcelles, 1989–2007 (resigned on becoming Managing Director of the IMF in 2007). Reelected in 1995, 2001.
Agglomeration community Council
President of the Agglomeration community of Val de France, 2002–2007 (resigned on becoming Managing Director of the IMF in 2007).
Member of the Agglomeration community of Val de France, 2002–2007 (resigned on becoming Managing Director of the IMF in 2007).

[leftstreet]

12. The IMF eventually screws everyone

IMF approves 26 billion euro loan for Portugal

20 May 2011 (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund on Friday approved a 26 billion euro ($37 billion) loan for Portugal to help the country recover from a debilitating sovereign debt crisis, saying it would immediately disburse 6.1 billion euros to ease investor concerns over the euro zone member's debts.

The IMF said in a statement that total financing to Portugal in 2011 will include about 12.6 billion euros from the IMF and another 25.2 billion euros from the European Union. The funding is part of a joint IMF/EU 78 billion euro ($110 billion) bailout package.

"The financing package is designed to allow Portugal some breathing space from borrowing in the markets while it demonstrates implementation of the policy steps needed to get the economy back on track," the IMF said in a statement.
....

Under the agreement, Lisbon will have to carry out steep spending cuts, raise taxes, reform its labor and justice systems, and embark on an ambitious privatization scheme.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/20/us-imf-portugal-idUSTRE74J6OF20110520

:-(

[Distant Observer]

15. You Cite IMF 2002 Standard Operating Proceedure. DSK was hated for REVERSING some of those policies

The main OP is sadly misleading in that it uses the very policies that DSK battled ideologically in the IMF as a reason to lambast him. Rather dishonest, it seems.

There has been such opposition from moguls of global finance to DSK reforms in the IMF that some suspect that there have been persistent efforts to undermine him from these shadowing figures.

[elleng]

17. Good one. Thanks

[Oilwellian]

18. Please, direct us to concrete changes he has made

Show us which countries have benefited from these reforms, and exactly how they have benefited. I will check back tomorrow for your response. I doubt very seriously the people of Greece agree with what you're trying to sell.

[Distant Observer]

21. don't care. do google. Policy shift well known internationally.

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. Financial Times: Strauss-Kahn’s arrest costs Greece an ally

Greece has lost an important political ally with the sidelining of Dominique Strauss-Kahn as it pleads for more financial assistance from European partners to avoid an early restructuring of its debt.

The arrest on Sunday of the International Monetary Fund managing director, who backed Greece’s request earlier this year for an extension of its €110bn bail-out loan, “removes some lingering Greek hopes of favourable treatment”, said one analyst in Athens.
...
Athens has benefited from Mr Strauss-Kahn’s support in the past, for example, when the government came under pressure from German officials over the terms of its bail-out last year by eurozone partners and the IMF, said a Greek official.

Jan Randolph, head of sovereign risk analysis at HIS Global Insight, said: “He often used his personal stature and rapport with key players – including for example, coaxing the Greek prime minister to keep on the reform track and influencing Angela Merkel over the design of bail-out packages, their terms and a more general permanent solution to the wider eurozone crisis.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ec6e9cd6-7fc0-11e0-b9b0-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1Myt6GGzn

Mr. Strauss-Kahn was known to be a powerful voice arguing that continuing austerity measures in Greece would only make the situation worse. The Greek economy has shrunk by as much as 4 percent this year from a year ago, after the international community laid out guidelines for reducing its debt, raising taxes and reining in spending.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s view contrasts with a harder line in northern Europe, where voters are opposed to another bailout package for Greece. Northern politicians, as a result, have pushed to exact a higher price from Greece if more money were extended.

“The Greek government is concerned that a headless I.M.F. translates into a diminished bargaining power for the Greek side,” said Yanis Varoufakis, an economics professor and blogger at the University of Athens. “Despite the official unity between the I.M.F. and the E.U. on the Greek crisis, Dominique Strauss-Kahn has consistently showed greater sympathy for the plight of George Papandreou and a better grasp than the E.U. of the importance of not putting more pressure on Greece than the country can bear.”
...
Simon Johnson, the former chief economist of the I.M.F., who is now a professor at M.I.T., said Mr. Strauss-Kahn had been revived by the global financial crisis. “The Europeans had been late in waking up to the economic problems,” he said. “But he coaxed rather than bullied them into action. In so doing, he used the crisis as an opportunity to rehabilitate the I.M.F.’s reputation, and put it front and center in a way that it had not been before.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/business/16fund.html

[elleng]

30. Excellent post. Thanks for the info.

[blindpig]

28. oh please

Can you not tell the difference between the dog and the tail? The most powerful people in the world reined in by a bureaucrat? Fat chance. He might address some 'image problems' for the IMF but change it's stripes?

Wanna buy a bridge?

[Hannah Bell]

20. The US holds 17% of IMF votes & is the only country that can unilaterally block a policy decision.

The country with the next-highest share of votes = Japan with 6%.

France has 4.85%, 5th in line after US, Japan, Germany, UK.

China has 3.65%.



A member’s quota in the IMF determines the amount of its subscription, its voting weight, its access to IMF financing, and its allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs)....

Since the United States has by far the largest share of votes (approx. 17 percent) amongst IMF members (see table below), it has little to lose relative to European nations. At the 2009 G-20 Pittsburgh summit, the U.S. raised the possibility that some European countries would reduce their votes in favour of increasing the votes for emerging economies. However, both France and Britain were particularly reluctant as an increase in China’s votes would mean China now has more votes than the UK and France. At a subsequent IMF meeting in Istanbul, the same month as the Pittsburgh Summit, IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn then highlighted that “If we don’t correct them, we’ll have the recipe for the next major crisis...."

Major decisions require an 85 percent supermajority.<23> The United States has always been the only country able to block a supermajority on its own. The following table shows the top 20 member states in terms of voting power (2,220,817 votes in total). The 27 member states of the European Union have a combined vote of 710,786 (32.07 percent).<24>

On October 23, 2010, the ministers of finance of G-20, governing most of the IMF member quotas, agreed to reform IMF and shift about 6 percent of the voting shares to major developing nations and countries with emerging markets....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Monetary_Fund


So if Strauss-Kahn "screwed Guinea" it was with the full approval of the US contingent. And that goes for any other policy choices the IMF makes.

I personally think that Mike Whitney's article was inaccurate. I haven't been able to find much evidence of the things he wrote of except for the shift in vote quotas toward the BRIC countries.

But Palast's article has its own problems. Fact is, the US dominates the IMF. DSK doesn't make IMF decisions on his lonesome; no IMF head does.

[joshcryer]

24. Uh, the board of governers is not as powerful as the executive as far as policy decisions.

While the http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/govern.htm">Board of Governors has delegated most of its powers to the IMF’s Executive Board, it retains the right to approve quota increases, special drawing right (SDR) allocations, the admittance of new members, compulsory withdrawal of members, and amendments to the Articles of Agreement and By-Laws.

By your logic the US should be credited with the approved quota increases and improved SDR allocations (which DSK is getting all the credit for). Frankly I doubt the US wanted it to happen, along with many other western states. It is likely (and I admit I don't know this for sure, but it just makes sense going by IMF neoliberalism) that that the other 50% of SDR states finally got fed up with it and decided to fix it themselves. If true it only means DSK followed the wind of change, along with all the other states that allowed it.

The Board discusses all aspects of the Fund’s work, from the IMF staff's annual health checks of member countries' economies to policy issues relevant to the global economy. The board normally makes decisions based on consensus, but sometimes formal votes are taken. At the end of most formal discussions, the Board issues what is known as a Summing Up, which summarizes its views. Informal discussions may be held to discuss complex policy issues at a preliminary stage.

DSK's "progressive policies" (the improved quota system, the improved SDR allocations) may or may not go into effect. In 2014. Meanwhile he could've easily changed internal policy right away and, you know, not fucked Greece, as Greg Palast notes.

[Hannah Bell]

32. the composition of the exec co reflects the composition of the bog.

the bog is dominated by the us. the head of the imf can't "change internal policy" unilaterally. nor was he responsible for "fucking greece" unilaterally. nor is he responsible unilaterally for the allocation changes, which were under discussion before his 2007 accession.

and as you apparently didn't notice, my post explicitly stated:

I personally think that Mike Whitney's article (about dsk's supposedly progressive policies) was inaccurate. I haven't been able to find much evidence of the things he wrote of except for the shift in vote quotas toward the BRIC countries.

i.e. i don't believe that dsk is some "progressive" knight.

but the fact is, the us dominates the imf. it dominates the bog, it dominates the exec committee. so the fucking going on can be laid mainly at its door.

[malaise]

25. Excellent post

They've been raping Jamaica since 1978

[Armstead]

27. I don 't have anything to add, except this is a high level of discussion

Glad to see it on DU. Informative (if confusing) debate and thought-provoking about an issue that is really important.

[elleng]

29. Thanks, Arm. I agree. It evolved nicely, imo.

Was concerned, last night, when emotions vs. DSK seemed to take over reasoned discussion.