Questão número 636522

INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF)

In recent weeks, critics from the right and from the left have launched strident attacks on International Monetary Fund efforts to stem the financial crisis that has swept through Asia like a typhoon. Critics on the right oppose using taxpayers'money to prop up foreign economies that compete with the U.S. They believe that government intervention will mess up the workings of the global financial markets ( although the Asian experience reveals that private actors can create quite a mess themselves). Critics on the left see the IMF as the agent of international capitalists, seeking protection from heavy losses caused by their greed and stupidity. They are also outraged by assistance to governments that violate the U.S. norms of human rights.

These questions will be hotly debated as Congress considers the Clinton Administration's request for $18 billion in additional resources for the IMF. But as usual, the political debate threatens to shed more heat than light on the real policy issues. Although the IMF has made mistakes as it struggles with a crisis whose causes and remedies are not fully understood by anyone, it has played a responsible role in bringing Asia, and the world, back from the brink of a full-fledged financial collapse.

According to the text, the IMF efforts to restrain the Asian financial crisis

• A.

  have resulted in criticisms both from the right and left wings.

• B.

  have produced massive approval in political terms.

• C.

  would have to be examined by political parties in the long run.

• D.

  have been fully supported by the right and left critics.

• E.

  will soon be carefully looked into by political authorities.