Ebenezer Scrooge: The Ideal IMF Successor

Dominique Strauss-Kahn's forced resignation from the International Monetary Fund - and the search for an IMF successor - is a blessing in disguise. Strauss-Kahn's term in office saw a vast expansion of the IMF's activities, a fact often used to praise his tenure. But a close examination yields a very different picture. Under Strauss-Kahn, who took over as the IMF managing director in September 2007, nearly every intervention has resulted in failure: The IMF allocated capital to places it shouldn't have allocated capital to, and propped up governments that shouldn't have been propped up. The ideal IMF successor to Strauss-Kahn would be Ebenezer Scrooge - as a prelude to closing the institution down altogether. That's because the IMF is a waste of money ... your money. To understand why, let's take a look at what the IMF is, and see how it works.