19th Apr 2011 - Gordon Brown – Head of IMF – I’m confused!
Much to my surprise I read an article this morning which stated that Gordon Brown was being considered for the appointment as head of the IMF. Naturally I had to take another look as I thought this can’t be true; this can’t possibly be true. In the back of my mind I had held this belief that such a venerable organisation would be run by a well qualified individual with sound economic judgement.
Does anyone have a memory? Didn’t Gordon Brown reign over our finances for nearly ten years? I’m confused. Yes, the recent recession was in big way ratcheted up by worldwide events but by Gordon’s own admission last week, he never truly understood the complexity and interconnectivity of the financial system. How long has the Financial Services sector been global Gordon? It’s a no brainer that the system would have been tangled. My point here is that the IMF oversees the global financial system by adopting policies with a particular focus on the balance of payments. Yes, global financial system and balance of payments. Gordon this is a truly global organisation in which you will need to understand how financial systems are connected and the fact that they are indeed connected; a lack of good judgment does make one question your suitability for this post. To add to this we all know what happened to balance of payments under Gordon’s tenure. When David Laws picked up Liam Bryne’s (Treasury Chief Secretary) note ‘the cupboards bare’, this is a memory we should never forget. This is by no means a political statement, as that would not be appropriate for this site. I am merely stating a hard economic fact, which is the IMF plays an important role in creating stability between member states. Let’s have someone run it who is a safe pair of hands.
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