Chronicle of a death foretold

'There is a reason why the IMF is otherwise known as the "international mother fucker"', as one reader comments below the article in the Guardian. Which was written one year ago, almost to the day, by Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, DC.

Another reader comments 'And in other news: A pigs arse is made of pork.' [sic] Clearly, to that reader, the IMF's role as the nasty witch in Hansel & Grettel, which fattens national economies only to devour them later, was already self-evident, yesterday's news, and taken for granted.

A year on, with Greece trapped like a foolish, imprudent child by the IMF's vicious conditions in exchange for a bail-out, and the country already creaking under the internal pressure of riots and public indignation, it looks like yesterday's news is indeed news to some country leaders. If only the Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou, read the Guardian. And if he only realised that for Hansel & Gretel the story ends happily and they escape the witch just because it's a fairy tale.

Artwork by Sho'nuff Love

 Excerpt from the Guardian article:

The IMF is hurting poor countries

The IMF's conditions on financial aid to poor countries are unnecessary. It can afford to be more generous.
"You don't have to do this." Those are the near-last words of several victims in the Coen brothers' classic film No Country for Old Men, as they try to convince the movie's unrelenting assassin that he should spare them. The assassin, played by Javier Bardem, finds this annoying, because in his mind these murders are pre-determined. So it is with the IMF's continuing confrontations with its borrowers, with one government after another pleading: "You don't have to do this." 

Full article in the Guardian, 13 May 2009

The IMF 'been there, done that' t-shirt.
Image: Stray Snippets