As the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
and World Bank gathered in Washington for
their annual spring meetings, there was
more talk about how much the IMF changed.
"The outstanding faults of the economic
society in which we live are its failure
to provide for full employment and its
arbitrary and inequitable distribution of
wealth and incomes"..John Maynard Keynes
At the IMF meeting officials discussed
the increase of 35% in the public debt
of the high-income is mostly due to low
growth,to expenditures linked to the
rescue of the financial sector and the
lack of revenue because of the economic
downturn. Only about 1/10 comes directly
from the stimulus.
So the lesson is clear: the biggest threat
to fiscal sustainability is low growth.
Sheila McKinney
