首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
The World Bank’s Real Problem The World Bank is undeniably in crisis. But not because its president, Paul Wolfowitz, got his
The World Bank’s Real Problem The World Bank is undeniably in crisis. But not because its president, Paul Wolfowitz, got his
admin
2011-06-24
33
问题
The World Bank’s Real Problem
The World Bank is undeniably in crisis. But not because its president, Paul Wolfowitz, got his girlfriend a raise.
It is the Wolfowitz saga that has been grabbing all the headlines, of course. The Iraq-war architect was plucked from the Defense Department and deposited by President George W. Bush at the World Bank in 2005 (by tradition, the U.S. President picks the bank’s chief). At the time, Wolfowitz informed the bank’s ethics committee that he was seeing Shaha Riza, a communication adviser at the bank, and the in-house ethicists told him she should be moved to another agency and given a raise for her troubles. But the size of the pay hike (from $133,000 to $180,000, tax free) and other details about Riza’s transfer raised hackles among bank staff and sparked an investigation. The bank’s board will decide any day now whether Wolfowitz stays or goes.
This dragged-out mess, though, is a distraction. The bigger issue is that the Washington-based bank and its sister organization, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), are struggling to justify their continued existence.
The situation is most pressing for the smaller IMF, which pays its bills with the profits it makes by lending money to middle-income countries in financial trouble. With hardly any such countries in trouble these days, the organization is projecting a $224 million deficit for this fiscal year and asking its member nations if they can start selling off some of the gold they deposited with it after World War II (the answer so far: no).
The World Bank isn’t that desperate, but it faces similar pressure. Both organizations were created in 1944 by the soon-to-be-victorious Allied powers. At the time, says Harvard professor and former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff, "global financial markets barely existed, and domestic financial markets barely existed in Europe."
The World Bank’s initial job was to finance reconstruction in Europe. The Marshall Plan rendered that task superfluous, so the bank—in the first of several reinventions—moved on to bankroll development in other countries. The idea was to lend to governments that were creditworthy but had no access to rich-country capital markets. "Now we live in a world where there are huge global capital markets, where, if anything, investors are too willing to invest in developing countries," says Adam Lerrick, a former investment banker who teaches economics at Carnegie Mellon University. The World Bank’s net lending has plummeted over the past few years, even as it keeps shopping loans to the likes of Brazil, Turkey, Russia and China, sometimes on hugely generous terms. This is the work of the biggest part of the World Bank, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Member countries make deposits (the U.S. share is $2 billion down and $30 billion pledged); the bank sells bonds backed by those deposits and pledges, then lends the money out at a small profit. The other main arm of the World Bank, the International Development Association, gets regular infusions of cash from rich countries and lends funds on near giveaway terms to truly poor countries, mostly in Africa (the U.S. contribution is just under $1 billion a year, or 0.04% of federal spending).
Lerrick wants the World Bank to stop lending to middle-income countries and restructure its loans to the poorest nations as outright grants. Nancy Birdsall, a former World Banker who run a Washington think tank called the Center for Global Development, argues that the bank could have more impact on poverty by making better use of its best assets: the expertise of its staff and its ability to coordinate global action. "Lending and grantmaking at the country level should not be the end-all and be-all," she says. "It should be the vehicle for advice and constant rebuilding of the bank’s knowledge." Birdsall is a World Bank fan but agrees with critics like Lerrick that it must become smaller (it has a staff of 10,000) and less banklike to remain relevant.
Wolfowitz’s allies say he is the victim of backlash from entrenched bank staff upset that he is turning up the heat on an anticorruption campaign begun by his predecessor, James Wolfen-sohn. That’s probably overstating things. But the potential backlash against slashing the bank’s staff and getting it out of lending would surely be epic. Which may explain why no World Bank president, Wolfowitz included, has attempted it.
According to the author, the World Bank’s real problem is_____.
选项
A、its corruption
B、its policy on lending
C、its continued existence
D、Wolfowitz’s romantic relationship
答案
C
解析
由第三段可知,关于沃尔福威茨的绯闻只是暂时分散了人们的注意力,而世行所面临的真正问题是该组织是否还有存在的必要性。故C为正确答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/UfYO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Sinceancienttimes,peoplehavedreamedofleavingtheirhomeplanetandexploringotherworlds.Inthelaterhalfofthe20th
A、ManydetaineesinGuantanamoBayhavebeenheldformorethan2yearsB、U.Sgovernmentdoesn’tpermitWilnertodiscusstheir
MoviesarethemostpopularformofentertainmentformillionsofAmericans.Theygotothemovietoescapetheirnormaleveryda
MoviesarethemostpopularformofentertainmentformillionsofAmericans.Theygotothemovietoescapetheirnormaleveryda
MoviesarethemostpopularformofentertainmentformillionsofAmericans.Theygotothemovietoescapetheirnormaleveryda
MoviesarethemostpopularformofentertainmentformillionsofAmericans.Theygotothemovietoescapetheirnormaleveryda
A、federalgovernmentB、thehome-loversC、thepeoplewhokillthewildhorseD、thenativepeopleC
Shoppingforclothesisnotthesameexperienceforamanasitisforawoman.Amangoesshoppingbecauseheneedssomething.
Accordingtothebestevidencegatheredbyspaceprobesandastronomers,Marsisaninhospitableplanet,moresimilartoEarth’s
随机试题
Graham—Steell杂音是指
患者,男性,57岁。发现高血压5年,近1个月出现喘憋,夜间憋醒,下肢水肿,双肺满布湿啰音。心电图提示陈旧性前壁心肌梗死,胸片示心影增大。对此患者预后最有价值的化验
A.酌情停药B.完全消失C.无原发病D.终生E.半年到1年用药继发的巨幼红细胞贫血患者应
A.去枕平卧位B.平卧位C.仰卧中凹位D.半卧位E.高斜坡卧位腰麻术后应采取
下列关于检察院作出批准逮捕决定的期间规定,说法正确的是:()
下列()是租赁土地使用权人在租赁期限内,对承租土地依法享有的权利。
社会服务机构领导为了增加员工对工作的兴趣,降低工作的枯燥度,最常使用的方法是()。
如图所示,直线x=2与双曲线一y2=1的渐近线交于E1,E2两点,记=e2,任取双曲线=ae1+be2(a、b∈R),则a、b满足的一个等式是__________.
如果将一台Catalyst6500交换机的管理地址设置为212.220.8.99/28,缺省路由设置为212.220.8.97,下列对交换机的配置,正确的是()。
•Readthememoandthenotebelow.•Completetheclaimform.•Writeawordorphrase(inCAPITALLETTERS)oranumberonline
最新回复
(
0
)