World Bank not worth saving now that Wolfie's out-- AEI Columnist

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_hassett&sid=autJzT35pLS0

Is It Time for the U.S. to Bolt From World Bank?

By Kevin Hassett

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Now that World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz has resigned, the Bush administration has two options: It can appoint a new bank president who will continue the tough work Wolfowitz began of reforming the bank. Or it can refuse to name a president and withdraw U.S. support for the institution.

Before he can decide which path to take, President George W. Bush must decide whether the World Bank is worth saving. On the face of it, the answer seems to be a clear "no." The bank has deviated so far from its original, worthy mission that its founders would hardly recognize it. It has become a generous welfare program for bureaucrats that finances itself by drawing money away from the world's poorest and neediest people.

When the bank was founded in 1944 it was intended to fill a gap caused by a market imperfection. Developing countries often had little access to capital, so they couldn't borrow the money they needed to pursue key economic projects. It was a worthy endeavor for developed countries to pool their resources and lend money to them.

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It would be a lot easier, however, to take the money now devoted by the U.S. to the World Bank -- roughly $1.5 billion a year -- and use it to start a new aid organization from the ground up.

(Kevin Hassett, director of economic-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, is a Bloomberg News columnist. He was chief economic adviser to Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona during the 2000 primaries. The opinions expressed are his own.)

his girlfriend? I wonder if the AEI realizes we are the only country on this rock?

Bank has done needs to contract an incurable and long-drawn out disease for the harmful, hurtful lies. The friggin' World Bank has done nothing, nothing, nothing for the poorest inhabitants of the earth. They original intent, and the intent of that piss-poor organization was to control loans to third world countries and ensure that the have tight tight tight control of where the money is spent, who spends it, AND WHO BENEFITS.

THE ACCIDENTAL CANDIDATE
by Gail Sheehy

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Even if he loses, his friends say, he doesn't lose. He'll just change the score, or change the rules, or make his opponent play until he can beat him. "If you were playing basketball and you were playing to 11 and he was down, you went to 15," says Hannah, now a Dallas insurance executive. "If he wasn't winning, he would quit. He would just walk off.... It's what we called Bush Effort: If I don't like the game, I take my ball and go home. Very few people can get away with that." So why could George get away with it? "He was just too easygoing and too pleasant."

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http://gailsheehy.com/Politics/polimain_bush3.html

I predict that George Bush will stubbornly insist on keeping it alive. After all, it's one more conduit for the Bushbots to strip assets from other people and give it to themselves. We can't have that go away, now, can we?

as better than partial influence over the entire World Bank budget.

Bird in the hand, you know.

These jerks really have a death wish. The Bank isn't sufficiently in their pocket to have one of their corrupt idols siplhoning off funds for his girlfriend, so they want to wind it up.

The Bush Administration should "start a new aid organization from the ground up". I wonder what it'll be? Halliburton International Lending? It'll want more than $1.5bn. And the developing world won't see a cent.