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To: lorne who wrote (65203)	3/9/2001 7:53:29 AM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 116786

We must really start audits of the IMF if we are expected to fund them. Thursday March 8 6:35 PM ET Critics: IMF Reforms Lacking By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Conservative critics of the International Monetary Fund (news - web sites) and the World Bank (news - web sites) told Congress on Thursday that reforms begun by the institutions do not go far enough in improving how the global financial system works. Allan H. Meltzer, chairman of an advisory panel that delivered a highly critical report on the two Washington-based lending agencies last year, said that recent bailouts of Turkey and Argentina showed that much needs to be done. He testified before a hearing of Congress' Joint Economic Committee, whose chairman, Rep. Jim Saxton (news - bio - voting record), said his panel would try to keep up pressure for a significant overhaul at the institutions. The United States is their largest shareholder. The Clinton administration said the recommendations of the Meltzer Commission were too radical, and decided to pursue more modest changes. Saxton, R-N.J., said Bush administration officials have ``shown an appreciation'' for the commission's work. The 183-nation IMF played an important role during recent financial crises, such as the 1997-98 global currency crisis that swept Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, Russia and Brazil. The IMF assembled $166 billion in bailout packages for those nations and more recently put together emergency packages for Argentina and Turkey. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has said the new administration will soon put forward its own set of reforms for the IMF and World Bank. The administration has said it will nominate John Taylor, a Stanford economist, for the top international job at the Treasury Department (news - web sites), the undersecretary for international affairs. Some have viewed that nomination as a signal that the administration plans to push a conservative agenda to reduce the size of future IMF rescue packages and scale back operations at both institutions. Taylor said in a television interview in 1998 that he believed the IMF should be abolished. When confronted with the financial crisis in Turkey last month, the administration followed the pattern set under former President Clinton (news - web sites), endorsing an IMF loan program and the country's decision to allow the value of its currency to be set by market forces. C. Fred Bergsten, the head of the Institute for International Economics, said he believed that the Bush administration was likely to pursue a more moderate reform path than the one advocated by Republican conservatives in Congress. As evidence, he pointed to other nominations being made to fill Treasury posts. The White House announced Thursday that President Bush (news - web sites) will nominate Peter Fisher, a top official at the New York Federal Reserve (news - web sites), to become the Treasury official overseeing banking and financial markets as undersecretary for domestic finance. Fisher played a crucial role in the buying and selling of Treasury securities and the intervention in currency markets, tasks performed by the New York Fed. In that position, he has gained wide respect on Wall Street for his knowledge of how markets operate. O'Neill has said in interviews that he supports the more moderate recommendations for reform at the IMF and World Bank made by the Council on Foreign Relations in a 1999 study. Kenneth Dam, a member of the council's study group that developed the recommendations, has been nominated as deputy treasury secretary. Bergsten, a member of the Meltzer panel who dissented from the majority recommendations, said he believed a number of reforms have been made in response to the widespread criticism of the handling of the Asian crisis. As a result of IMF pressure and market forces, he said fewer countries were trying to manage the level of their currencies. - On the Net: Treasury Department: ustreas.gov Joint Economic Committee: house.gov dailynews.yahoo.com