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
考研
The World Bank is undeniably in crisis. But not because its president, Paul Wolfowitz, got hisgirlfriend a raise. It is the
The World Bank is undeniably in crisis. But not because its president, Paul Wolfowitz, got hisgirlfriend a raise. It is the
admin
2012-01-05
24
问题
The World Bank is undeniably in crisis. But not because its president, Paul Wolfowitz, got hisgirlfriend 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 runs 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 bank like 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.
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
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/sjua777K
本试题收录于:
翻译硕士(翻译硕士英语)题库专业硕士分类
0
翻译硕士(翻译硕士英语)
专业硕士
相关试题推荐
TheInternetalonedoesnotmakeuptheNewEconomythoughitisanintegralpartofit.A-mericanPresidentBillClintonhasde
prudentmonetarypolicy
“Weareinterestedincontentthatpeoplewanttosharepartlyforpragmaticreasons.”这句话准确的汉语翻译是()。
PopstarstodayenjoyastyleoflivingwhichwasoncetheprerogativeonlyofRoyalty.Wherevertheygo,peopleturnoutinthe
Becausefolkartisneithercompletelyrejectednoracceptedasanartformbyarthistorians,theirfinalevaluationsofitnec
Thosewhosupportviolenceontelevisionclaimthatithelpstheviewerto______steamandtogetridofhisfeelingsinaharm
It’snothingnewthatEnglishuseisontherisearoundtheworld,especiallyinbusinesscircles.ThisalsohappensinFrance,
Theotherdayanacquaintanceofmine,agregariousandcharmingman,toldmehehadfoundhimselfunexpectedlyaloneinNewYor
TheGameoftheNameHerecomesJohnSmithwalkingtowardme.Eventhoughheisbutapassingacquaintance,theAmericangre
TheheadoftheLibraryofCongressistonameDonaldHall,awriterwhosedeceptivelysimplelanguagebuildsonimagesoftheN
随机试题
下列属于会议记录的内容的是()。
下列关于三叉神经的叙述错误的是
飞机库内办公室、资料室、休息室等用房与飞机停放和维修区之间应采用耐火极限不低于()h的不燃烧体隔墙和耐火极限不低于()h的顶板隔开。
A公司发生以下经济业务:(1)购入办公用品250元,以支票支付;(2)以现金支付业务招待费1500元;(3)以支票支付排污费1000元,绿化费500元;(4)支付本季度短期借款利息1500元,其中已预提1000元;(5)以现金支付离退休人员医疗费
下列关于敏感性分析的说法巾,正确的有()
(2005年考试真题)甲股份有限公司(以简称甲公司)2002年至2004年投资业务有关的资料如下:(1)2002年1月1日,甲公司以银行存款3300万元从二级市场购入乙公司股票2000万股,进行长期投资,不考虑相关税费。购入后,甲公司持有乙公司有表决权股
苛勒认为顿悟的出现是无条件的。()
2017年淄博市取得的成就有()。
法的指引作用的对象是()。
多核操作系统的设计方法不同于单核操作系统,一般要突破()等方面的关键技术。
最新回复
(
0
)