Global Finance Quotes
Leaders of nations for years only trusted as truly patriotic those man—usually nobles of the aristocracy—who owned land. If an invader came and seized their land, they would lose their wealth. However money is fungible, and a banker can easily move his money abroad and join another nation or side in a war. If the country is ruined by war, the manufacturer cannot obtain labor or raw materials, The financier depends on none of these and so hs not the vested interest in the welfare of the nation.
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.
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.
When the Meltdown hit America, the crisis drew attention to the fiscal solvency and stability of banks in most of the world. The Irish banks were much more overextended than those of most counties and when that came to light there was a bank panic in Ireland. Ahern and the Irish Dail (parliament) decided to bail out the Irish bank at a very great cost to the rest of the Irish economy and people. He believed if Lehman Brothers had been bailed out, as America did with other institutions, the Irish bank bubble would not have burst. It is not known whether he actually meant to use the word “testicles” or he made a gaff intending to use the word “tentacles”. Both have relevant meaning in the situation with a significant shade of difference in meaning between the two.
