Comments on: Meanwhile, in a galaxy far, far away …

By: Leeds9

Leeds9 — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 06:56:49 +0000

Nope. It doesn’t signify Mr Ash’s preferred holiday destination, rather it signifies that nothing much has changed. The rules haven’t changed, the players haven’t changed and the game hasn’t changed. So rather than get an apology from RBS, we get clarification that their beliefs and understandings haven’t changed one jot. Surely we can’t be surprised.

By: Hugh Stimson

Hugh Stimson — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:22:03 +0000

I’m encouraged by your collective optimism, but all snarkiness aside, I’m expecting to see both austerity measures and deregulation tied to IMF actions over the next weeks and months. Faith in free-market elegance runs deep in the international quasi-governmental financial crowd.

By: blah

blah — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 02:54:26 +0000

Mr. Ash does not speak for the IMF. Whatever conditions Mr. Ash might hope the IMF imposes on Ukraine, those are not necessarily the actual conditions agreed by the parties.

By: Rich Puchalsky

Rich Puchalsky — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 02:10:54 +0000

It’s always been this way, and will continue to be this way. Capitalism for the rubes; state socialism for the important people.

By: lisa

lisa — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 02:05:11 +0000

I was hoping, for my Icelandic friends, that Iceland would be able to dodge the IMF lasso.

It’s so nice of the IMF to step in and ‘help’ Ukraine in this way, isn’t it? And a few conditions are all they ask.

By: DC

DC — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:19:01 +0000

Nice chutzpah.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:18:55 +0000

So a government that was going bankrupt paying off its debt wanted another government that owed them money to pay it? How hypocritical of them.

By: peter

peter — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 23:30:51 +0000

Surely, as an Australian, you realize that advising one set of policies to your debtors while seeking enactment of a different set of policies from your creditors is in keeping with a long-standing British colonial tradition: Sir Otto Niemeyer was busy advising Australasian Governments to maintain debt repayments to Britain during the Great Depression at the same time as the British Government itself was seeking payment relief from their creditors in the USA.

By: Ginger Yellow

Ginger Yellow — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:39:45 +0000

Nice post. It’s one of the things that struck me – how strangely familiar the IMF prescriptions were to the last wave of interventions, despite all that we have learned since 1997. It’s not very encouraging.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:33:31 +0000

I wonder how much less of a bailout they would have needed if they stopped sending me (and all the rest of their customers) so much spam, and calling me up regularly to try and get me to buy yet another form of insurance I don’t want.