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Throwing the World Bank to the Wolfs

Rich Galen

Monday March 21, 2005



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  • President George W. Bush has nominated Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz to be the next president of the World Bank. Not everyone is happy with this choice.

  • The current president of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, is a man who brought significant international and investment banking experience, having been a senior executive in financial institutions in Australia, Great Britain and, as executive partner at Salomon Brothers, in the US.

  • Mr. Wolfensohn was appointed to his position in 1995 which would mean he was nominated by President Bill Clinton.

  • At the time, people with international banking and investment experience were held in generally high regard. But that was before WorldCom, Enron, Tyco and the rest of the darlings of Wall Street went on their cheating sprees during the mid to late 90's.

  • As an example, the WorldCom collapse (which resulted in the conviction of its chief executive Bernie Ebbers last week) has led to a galaxy of high-flying financial instituions paying billions of dollars in damages for underwriting and promoting WorldCom offerings which lead to huge losses by downstream investors.

  • J.P. Morgan has had to pay about $2 billion; Citigroup about $2.5 billion; Bank of America has to kick in about a half billion, and other headliners like Lehman Brother, Credit Suisse Group, and UBS have had to pony up millions each.

  • I only raise this because how popular do you think the choice of Wolfenson would be in the current climate?

  • Because Wolfenson had worked for - indeed led - some of the largest investment banking houses in the world, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the circumstances surrounding every deal he did, every recommendation he made, every share of stock he bought or sold; would have been put under a microscope to see whether any of the frauds had splashed up on him or landed in his bank account.

  • A Google search of Wolfenson, by the way, leads to thousands of websites who oppose him and the World Bank. This, from Friends of the Earth, is typical:
    The World Bank is set to unleash destruction on the forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Africa's last rainforest frontier.

    By rushing through new laws in Congo and pushing for virgin areas of forest to be opened to exploitation, the World Bank will hugely increase logging.

    [Emphasis theirs]

  • Now comes Mr. Wolfowitz and there are those who are opposed to him. Here are some of the high points of his career in reverse order:
  • Deputy Secretary of Defense (number two under Secretary Donald Rumsfeld)
  • Undersecretary of Defense for Policy during the George H.W. Bush administration (third-ranking post)
  • Ambassador to Indonesia (appointed by Ronald Reagan)
  • Head of the State Department's Policy Planning Office
  • Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
  • Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Regional Programs
  • Dean and Professor of International Relations at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University
  • Taught political science at Yale University
  • Earned a degree in mathematics from Cornell University in 1965 and a PhD in political science from the University of Chicago in 1972.

  • The other day on Fox I was asked about the nomination of Wolfowitz. I said that he was one of the most powerful intellects in Washington - in or out of government.

  • Further, if President Bush wants to use all the resources at his command to promote democracy and freedom around the world, having a person running the World Bank who understands how to use the power of the bank to advance freedom seems to be a good idea.

  • And here's a money-saver right off the bat: Because of the similarity of their names, we don't have to change the stitching - "Wolfie" - on the towels in the executive bathroom.

  • On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to Wolfowitz' bio; a link to the Friends of the Earth page; a terrific First-Day-of-Spring Mullfoto and a fairly silly Catchy Caption of the Day.

    --END --
    Copyright © 2005 Richard A. Galen

                                                                       

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