Richard Quest Quotes
Never let it be said that the world of international economics isn't exciting or adventurous. OK, I exaggerate, because not even the most imaginative mind could construe the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to be a nail-biting barn burner.
Quest, Richard. Quest Means Business. CNN, Cable News Network.
This objective finally reached its peak in the Nixon administration when the U. S. went off the gold standard. 75 Years after FDR tried to make the U. S. dollar more resilient, America had been so successful that many foreign governments having the same problem of little or no control over their currency, have pegged their currency to the U. S. dollar, thus gaining our stability.
Roosevelt saw to it that the contents of the telegram was shown to the press. Then this statement was seen by the foreign delegates who viewed themselves as ‘international bankers”. They were outraged and the conference blew up with no significant action taken. Roosevelt was desperately trying to lead America out of the Great Depression which Herbert Hoover had left him with. The dollar had been falling in value since the 1929 crash and one of the likely outcomes of the conference was European and other nations putting a plan together to stop the fall of the dollar. FDR however, wanted the dollar to continue to fall. This would make it harder for Americans by buy imported products, but easier to employ more Americans making products for export. The people hurt most by The Depression did not buy any imported products, and what they needed was food, housing, clothing, education and medical care, none of which would be affected by a weaker dollar and more expensive imports. However, he did not want a political argument with the wealthy and upper middle class who wanted cheaper imports, so some people believe that he made it seem that he had committed a diplomatic blunder and that caused the conference to collapse.
Criticism of the World Bank and the IMF was not limited to the turn of the century fights over development and globalization. The difficulty for the word financial institutions was and is that they believe that they have to work with whatever government is in power regardless of the legitimacy of that government or what kinds of anti-democratic methods they used to come to power and hold it. In this particular case, democracy had been displaced and right wing death squads were operating with impunity. For many, the World Bank and IMF are equally guilty for helping to prop these governments up and ignoring the gross Human Rights Violation which they failed to condemn.
Richard Austin Quest is a British journalist and non-practicing barrister working as a news anchor for CNN International. He is also an editor-at-large of CNN Business.
