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
The World Bank’s Real Problem The World Bank is undeniably in crisis. But not because its president, Paul
admin
2021-10-13
40
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 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.
Which of the following can be inferred from the passage about the World Bank?
选项
A、Its anticorruption campaign is still going on.
B、It should readjust its role in combating poverty.
C、It has satisfied its initial job to finance reconstruction in Europe.
D、It is playing a more and more important role in lending to developing countries.
答案
B
解析
本文的主题是世行是否有必要继续存在下去。第六、第七和第八段说明了世行的历史、现状,以及今后的方向。由于马歇尔计划,世行成立之初的目的已成为多余。而近年来,给发展中国家贷款的净额大幅下跌,说明其贷款这一职能越来越不重要。第八段里,专家建议世行应在帮助贫穷国家摆脱贫困方面产生更大的影响。故B为正确答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/xcIK777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
A、Tolookintothementalhealthofoldpeople.B、Toexplainwhypeoplehavenegativeviewsonoldage.C、Tohelpcorrectsomef
StudyActivitiesinUniversityInordertohelpcollegeanduniversitystudentsintheprocessoflearning,fourkeystudyac
StudyActivitiesinUniversityInordertohelpcollegeanduniversitystudentsintheprocessoflearning,fourkeystudyac
(1)In1823,ThomasJeffersonwrote:"IamnotfullyinformedofthepracticesatHarvard,butthereisonefromwhichweshal
A、Trackingontheonlinebanking.B、Trackingwithdebitcardsorcreditcards.C、Trackingthroughcheckingaccount.D、Trackingw
(1)Afterthirtyyearsofmarriedhappiness,hecouldstillremindhimselfthatVictoriawasendowedwitheverycharmexceptthe
(1)Afterthirtyyearsofmarriedhappiness,hecouldstillremindhimselfthatVictoriawasendowedwitheverycharmexceptthe
A、Itintegratesanassortmentofcourses.B、ItincludesEconomicsinthecurriculum.C、Coursesaretaughtindividually.D、Studen
(1)Humansaredamagingtheplanetatanunprecedentedrateandraisingrisksofabruptcollapsesinnaturematcouldspurdiseas
(1)"Britain’sbestexport,"IwastoldbytheheadoftheDepartmentofImmigrationinCanberra,"ispeople."Closeon100,000
随机试题
关于共有,下列表述中错误的是()。
A、Byputtingitintoactualuse.B、Byfocusingontranslation.C、Byemphasizinggrammar.D、Bycorrectingtheirerrors.A选项均为byd
42岁妇女,阴道不规则出血1年,白带有味,妇查:宫颈可见乳头样增生,触及出血,表面多量白色分泌物呈黄绿色,宫旁结节状增厚,未达盆壁,阴道穹隆部硬,可见小溃疡,宫颈活检为鳞状上皮癌,其治疗原则为
客户机/服务器结构模式下,服务器配备大容量存储器并安装数据库管理系统,负责会计数据的()。
根据《行政强制法》的规定,下列选项说法不正确的是()。
两家银行USD/CNY报价分别为:A银行6.1500~6.2100,B银行6.1600~6.2150,小明为出国留学准备购汇2万美元,他至少需要人民币()。
甲与乙通奸,共谋毒杀乙之夫丙。为此,甲弄来一包砒霜交给乙,甲乙伺机下毒,乙后悔,没有下毒且到公安机关自首。对本案的正确处理是()。
人的体温并不是固定不变的,可随性别、年龄、昼夜、运动和情绪的变化等因素而有所波动。对此,下列说法不正确的是()。
经济全球化是指在生产不断发展、科技加速进步、社会分工和国际分工不断深化、生产的社会化和国际化程度不断提高的情况下,世界各国、各地区的经济活动越来越超出某一国家和地区的范围而相互联系、相互依赖的过程。经济全球化的表现有()
丁寧ではないが、ひととおりやるようす。
最新回复
(
0
)