Headline:Opponents of more IMF lending may have blood on their hands
Sub-headline: If that sounds dramatic, it is nothing compared with the death and suffering that can still be avoided
When it come to the manufacture of Economic Metaphysics Mr. Hausmann and his allies have an impressive collection of jargon, that reminds this reader of Heidegger, except that neologisms are avoided at all costs: Hausmann wants to attract readers with his inventive mind’s slight of hand, with stage make-up by Willem de Kooning. While remaining within the bourgeois confines of ‘Economics’: The Invisible Hand, Animal Spirits, Creative Destruction, The Wisdom of the Market, Trickle Down etc. The reader can only marvel at his collection, in its stage-makeup :
Original sin, Self-discovery, Growth diagnostics, Dark matter, The Product Space
The IMF is an NGO:
Promote international monetary co-operation, facilitate international trade, foster sustainable economic growth, make resources available to members experiencing balance of payments difficulties
In sum a collective of Economic Technocrats, and the use of economic institutions to insure the welfare of its members : yet what Mr. Hausmann argues in his essay seems reasonable, if just a matter of self-interest. His last paragraph however doesn’t quite ring true:
Given what is at stake in terms of avoidable death and suffering, such arguments sound like those of a person unwilling to help the victim of a car accident for fear of getting blood on their shirt. But if these arguments are allowed to win the day, we will all have blood on our hands.
Mr. Hausmann’s concern about ‘blood on our hands’ refracted through these two news reports, on his political involvement with America’s Venezuelan appointee Juan Guaido, places his political moralizing into its proper perspective.
Headline:Venezuela’s Guaido pushes to name new representative to regional lender
(Reuters) – Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido named Harvard University economist Ricardo Hausmann as the country’s representative to the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), Guaido’s envoy to the United States said on Monday.
The regional lender confirmed it had received a letter from Guaido naming Hausmann and said it was considering how to proceed.
“We’ve received the letter and are determining next steps,” a bank official told Reuters.
Venezuela poses a tricky problem for the Washington-based lender, whose charter prevents its board from discussing internal political issue of member states. If the board agrees to accept Guaido’s representative, it would be the first financial institution to make such a move.
…
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Headline: Hausmann, Venezuela’s representative to IDB, to step down
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ricardo Hausmann is announcing plans to quit his job as governor of the Inter-American Development Bank, a position he took in March as representative of Venezuela designated by opposition leader Juan Guaidó.
Hausmann wrote Thursday on Twitter that his academic duties at Harvard University are incompatible with the job at the IDB and he suggested he be replaced by Alejandro Plaz, an engineer designated last month by Guaidó as commissioner for economic development.
The IDB is the only international financial organization to recognize Guaidó as the legitimate president of the South American country, a stand taken by the U.S. and about 50 other nations that say Nicolas Maduro’s re-election last year was rigged.
Mr. Hausmann, long ago, spent his political capital!
Political Observer
https://www.ft.com/content/351f5a02-4ba9-454b-ba42-83a6b662c665
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