The Money Tree

A Five Part Series: Part Two The IMF

by J. Walter Diamond

As we stoop to look in the shuttered window of the International Monetary Fund we must be willing, each of us, to auction off our political party affiliation. Democratic or Republican, it doesn't matter. Greed and privilege cobble this private highway lined with the richest gold.

The IMF was created as an international baby- Frankenstein, designed to bring order out of chaos, a necessary bandage to stop severe hemorrhaging of the many failing world economies of the 1929-1932 world depression. At the center of the creation of this worldwide economic monster (IMF) moved with necessity to quickly establish a dependable global system to evaluate and govern international exchange rates of money while establishing acceptable parities.

Countries began to develop crude economic measures to beat fellow countries in the international trade wars. Total international trade plummeted by 63% during the end of the great Depression. The times cried out for additional meaningful ways to value and sort out growing international commerce. Merging economies and vastly divergent cultures needed to find a level playing field, where currency exchange would promote fair and impartial international trade. The price of goods fell 48%. The world population plummeted headlong into a deep, dark psychological and financial crises. The paucity and looming poverty made a compelling argument for Western nations to take meaningful action.

Remember that people were jumping out of 10 story buildings in New York City as the great financial earthquake of 1929 on Wall Street, shook the foundations of America and gutted all hope of prosperity around the world. Materialism was a new but damaged god. The prevailing emptiness was the ultimate price one paid, when it came to loving objects that promised comfort. When your assets go up in smoke in a moment of time, for many, life was no longer worth the effort.

Yet the greatest teacher, Christ, who owned nothing more than one silk -robe, was pushed away for what would be a tidal wave of desire for material things. Where is value in a system where anything and everything is okay? Did someone send our national values out for pizza and diet coke? Hey, if you see that fat yellow checker cab, flag it down and send it home, we need a national system of heart felt values that is greater than the sum of its banausic parts. Without a reliable system of values that we can always call upon, which by definition must include a good smattering of spiritual values, we will, like so many other cultures that have gone before us, be lost. If we settle for groping toward Gomorrah as the clear and brighter path, we will have all but given into our over-sexed depravity, where hustling a buck moves all the rules, in a very dark and distant maelstrom called our collective soul. What lantern do we choose then to hold near as we walk quietly upon these unsettled notions?

The IMF was birthed in these turbulent times, as some great and noble thing. Heroes of the past celebrate the possibilities of developing deep meaningful trade among the nation-states then and now. But all too often when men seek to create their own salvation, a swampy rat infested soulless monster rises up out of good intentions, where anything goes and grabs our trembling throat.

It was, to be sure, an electrifying time. The war to end all other wars was over in Europe. GI's were busy procreating the future baby boom. Hope and optimism were the order of the day. It is to this fabric that two bright economists projected the need for something like the International Monetary Fund.

Harry Dexter White, daring economists, residing in the U.S. and John Maynard Keynes, eminent British economists would arrive at the same intersection on the New World monetary highway at the same moment in time. Thus when 44 growing Nations attended the now famous Bretton Woods G-7 conference in New Hampshire in July of 1944, a new global institution was born.

The IFM galloped into the family of growing nations, across the planet's landscape, desiring to touch the illusive golden-ring of opportunity, a International steed with a headless conquering master: A Money Tree decorated with many a splendor thing, like greed. The desires were slowly and carefully plotted. Seductive and far-reaching plans were conscientiously crafted for the fledgling monetary counsel. Desiring to create an equal playing field in the money exchange game, they rolled up their tattered shirt selves and went to work. By developing international hitching posts and making far reaching agreements regarding the art of money valuation, the fund worked hard to save the day.

The early mission was effective and efficient and worked well by diminishing the frequent cases of competitive devaluation, a widely practiced last ditch effort where a county would freely buy and sell its own currency. The end result would give the false pretense that would seem to make any country's exports to appear cheaper in world markets. However, there wasn't enough gold to shore up the rapid expanding world trade markets. Often countries would hoard their gold. Other countries would retaliate making the easy flow of daily commerce difficult at best.

It was in this confusing environment that the lofty idealism of the International Monetary Fund was born. It seemed like a great and wonderful way to solve growing global problems of currency evaluation and bulk up serious needs to elevate new tidal-waves of materialism pouring out of the west toward free markets all over the world.

Hatched in this embryo was a canker worm, which would over time grow into a hungry tiger, a 300 -pound butterfly with .50 caliber machine guns hiding beneath its multi-colored wings.

Clearly the need, in the early days, to encourage unrestricted conversion of one currency to another was paramount. For a while, eliminating competitive devaluation seemed like a perfect answer to a long over due prayer to protect a fragile, but growing world economy.

Throngs of optimistic enthusiasm greeted small beginnings. From humble beginnings the lamb grew and grew to over 182 member nations. But like many well -meaning international institutions, somewhere along the winding road, the mission changed. With failing economies on the rise, and seldom on the mend, the IMF was there to assure governments all over the planet that nothing like the 1929 world recession would ever happen again. In doing so, they made a play for more power and influence.

With quiet but firm reassurance, the leadership now proclaim, wide paternal statements like; "formerly planned economies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have become members and are at various stages of completing their transition to market economies." What does this mean? The drumbeat that echoed out of so much gobble-gook and the sweet sounding rhetoric made any rational ear drum bleed. Sound like someone has been doing long range global planning? Maybe their press clippings have hypnotized the current leadership of the IFM. Because there is way more than " something rotten in Denmark." A proper headline for this story could have been " Sick cash cow, looking for more grass to eat."

Recently, with the planned departure of veteran Director Michael Camdessus, the shake up at the IMF is looking like the organization is trying to change its failed policies by changing the man at the top. I wonder if this change had anything to do with the recent theft of $12 Billion American dollars ear marked for mother Russia? We also report and ask you to decide.

Stranger yet, is way this story has gone so unreported. A few weeks ago the Los Angeles Times did do a small piece referring to a $7 million dollar money-laundering problem, linked to the Bank of New York and the Russian Mob.

The Sunday Times ace reporters, James Bone and David Listner presented a brief story August 24 of this year; " Suggestions that the Bank of New York may have been used to transfer money received from the IMF comes as an additional blow for one of Wall Street's oldest and most respected financial institutions. It will fuel growing controversy over the misuse of $20 billion that the IMF has lent to Russia since 1992. Only last month, the IMF approved a new loan of $4.5 billion to Russia."

It is strange to me that when these kinds of stories break against a number of world organizations they're either swept under the rug with great speed or spun in a dishonest way to cover up the truth behind the crime or not mentioned at all.

Thanks to a growing number of internet- based news groups, like Web Today and a number of hard hitting no nonsense radio talk shows; Rush Limbaugh, G. Gordon Liddy and others, at least those who desire to receive truth in the media can tune in, and tell a friend. Hard hitting protest letters directed toward the Congress and our political leaders will at least make the case for corrective action. The shinning hope is that the white light of truth will expose the shabbiness and hidden agendas of these run away One World government sponsored highwaymen.

In our next commentary we will discuss the role of the IMF's twin sister, the World Bank in this latest colossal un-American sham against the American tax -payers. We encourage all of you to write strong letters to your local Congressmen voicing your disgust with their looting of our national treasury by these organizations. You would be very surprised to know what a small amount of bright light will do to a heard of marauding roaches in your national bank account.

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