France has given the world much to be ashamed of this year, from Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s amorality to a pointless war in Libya, and now the appointment of yet another IMF Director whose economic record is, to put it kindly, nothing to brag about.
The Eurozone and IMF have been playing extend and pretend, without any success, when it comes to dealing with a serious sovereign debt crisis. An insistence on austerity has produced precisely the opposite of what the ECB and IMF thought it would: grinding deflation, elevated unemployment, negative GDP growth, and contagion. The confidence fairies have yet to arrive.
All of this failure has been in the service of German, French, and Dutch bankers, who foolishly lent Greece, Ireland, and the other peripheral Eurozoners more money than they could possible repay. Defaults are now inevitable, to be accompanied by substantial haircuts for bondholders and the very real possibility that the Eurozone will be broken up.
For this, you can say Merci to Merkel, Sarkozy, and mediocre minions like Lagarde.
Gorilla says: “Failure apparently remains the only criterion for a successful politician!!!”
