The IMF in Asia acted like the Fed in the '30s

I have been staying out of most of the A16 discussion, since I tend to lump together opposition to free trade, global finance and genetic engineering into an gnarly mass of neo-Luddism that inspires no enthusiasm on my part.

But even pro-capitalist, pro-industrialization folks like me (that is to say, left-leaning ones) noticed that the IMF made an extraordinary cockup of the Asian and Russian monetary crises.

Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist for the World Bank, says the tight-money, free-market-is-magic voices at the IMF and U.S. Treasury won out over the folks there and at the World Bank who wanted more nuanced handling of various economic problems around the world.

Stiglitz's point that microeconomics should influence individual countries' relations with the IMF is well taken. I think the IMF's mistake is being repeated by some of its critics. Proposing a one-size-fits-all solution to debt in the "Third World" isn't particularly helpful, since the former Soviet bloc (which needs legal infrastructure more than money) makes up a big chunk of the impoverished world today, while former Third World countries like Brazil and Mexico are well on the way to fixing their debt problems through increased exports.

Good background on what was done wrong in Russia and Southeast Asia, even if you don't agree with his overall point of view.