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
2013-05-20
93
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 grant making 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 Wolfensohn. 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.
Which of the following is NOT true according to Nancy Birdsall?
选项
A、The World Bank should reduce its staff.
B、The World Bank should coordinate global action.
C、The World Bank should offer advice to poor countries.
D、The World Bank should limit its work to lending and grant makin
答案
D
解析
由第八段可知,伯兹奥尔希望世行能够给贫穷的国家提供专业建议(C),协调全球经济运作(B),以及减员(A),而不是仅仅从事贷款业务。故D为正确答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/dx4O777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
WhichofthefollowingisNOTwrittenbyRobertLouisStevenson?
WhichofthefollowingnovelsisNOTwrittenbyJaneAusten?
Adelaide,thecapitalofSouthAustralia,isinternationallyknownforits______.
WhichofthefollowingUSpresidentsheldthelongestpresidentialterminAmericanhistory?
Accordingtothenewresearch,theoddshapemoundswereformedby______.
AccordingtoEllen,theincreasingdemandforhiringisdueto
Itisatruthuniversallyacknowledged,thatasinglemaninpossessionofagoodfortune,mustbeinwantofawife.Howeve
CriticalThinking&InnovativeWritingI.Heateddiscussionaboutthe(1)_____ofEng-lishteachingandlearning.1)bottle-nec
中国人饮茶,注重一个“品”字。“品茶”不但是鉴别茶的优劣,也带有神思遐想和领略饮茶情趣之意。在百忙之中泡上一壶浓茶,择雅静之处,自斟自饮,可以消除疲劳、涤烦益思、振奋精神,也可以细啜慢饮,达到美的享受,使精神世界升华到高尚的艺术境界。品茶的环境一般由建筑物
AccordingtoJanet,thefactorthatwouldmostaffectnegotiationsis
随机试题
按生产要素密集程度划分,投资大、技术装备程度较高、劳动力比重小的企业属于()。
函数f(x)=是连续函数,则a=。()
Residentswerecuttingtheirlawns,washingtheircarsandotherwise______apleasant,sunnyday.
下列软膏基质中,较适用于有大量渗出液患处使用的软膏基质是
患者女,64岁。冠心病病史15年,突发脑出血,2个月前入院,现患者病情稳定,送入康复科进行进一步诊治,现患者左上肢能进行屈伸共同运动,但肘屈曲位不能旋前、旋后,坐位时,患者足能接地,足能背屈,患者定向、注意力、记忆力有不能程度的障碍。患者左上肢Brun
患者,女,50岁,初诊为高血压,目前血压维持在145/85mmHg。护士在评估中发现患者喜好下列食物。护士应指出,其中最不利于控制高血压的食物是()
某基层法院就郭某敲诈勒索案一审适用简易程序,判处郭某有期徒刑4年。对于一审中的下列哪些情形,二审法院应以程序违法为由,撤销原判发回重审?(2016年卷二73题,多选)
两个以上法院都有管辖权的诉讼,原告可以向其中一个法院起诉(选择管辖);原告向两个以上有管辖权的法院起诉的,由最先立案的法院管辖。()
老年期的记忆特点有()
Thereareagrowingnumberofpetownerswhofeedpetsonraw,whichmeans,"uncooked"meatandbones.WilliamBurk,apetfood
最新回复
(
0
)