A shocking report, produced by the IMF itself regarding its “love affair” with the Euro and how it behaved towards Greece:

Clicky

“The report said the whole approach to the eurozone was characterised by “groupthink” and intellectual capture. They had no fall-back plans on how to tackle a systemic crisis in the eurozone – or how to deal with the politics of a multinational currency union – because they had ruled out any possibility that it could happen.

“Before the launch of the euro, the IMF’s public statements tended to emphasize the advantages of the common currency, “ it said. Some staff members warned that the design of the euro was fundamentally flawed but they were overruled.”

Indeed, I have been banging about what a political organisation the IMF is for years. We shouldn’t be surpirsed at its one-eyedness with the last two heads being DSK and Lagarde, French politicians fully signed up to the euro and political union project. Some of the rule bending to allow flagrant breaches of their own lending limits comes right out of the EU playbook.

I have made a couple of posts on the report in other threads.

It will be interesting to see the fallout. Any rational IMF member should vote against any further loans to eurozone countries until the currency is radically reformed. I can’t imagine this report has gone down too well in the US, if Trump does win he’s going to have a field day with the IMF as there is a lot of US taxpayers money at risk.

Bankers ruling out any possibility of a crisis. Really? It is nigh on incomprehensible that such intelligent people could be involved in such blinkered planning unless of course there are other factors at play…..

Whilst we were in a constant game of hokey cokey with Europe generally, I’m inclined to take heart that everything non Euro doesn’t have to be a disaster.

the EZ is political and economical in nature

The reality is if the political will – whether democratic or “enforced” remains and they bank roll it then it will survive

I doubt very much the UK has a plan for if our currency fails

The IMF remained upbeat about the soundness of the European banking system and the quality of banking supervision in euro-area countries until after the start of the global financial crisis in mid-2007.

To be fair they got everything wrong during this period as very few folk saw waht was coming

I think its odd to blame anyone for failing to predict when the capitalist confidence bubble bursts – its like earthquakes we know its coming but we cannot say when.

While the fund’s actions were understandable in the white heat of the [eu]crisis, the harsh truth is that the bailout sacrificed Greece in a “holding action” to save the euro and north European banks. Greece endured the traditional IMF shock of austerity, without the offsetting IMF cure of debt relief and devaluation to restore viability

I suspect we would be criticising them whatever they had done ans neither options was that good.

That said its pretty damning

To me this isn’t about being for or against the EU. It’s about the lack of capability and integrity in our finance, banking and wider-economic systems. A lot of dogmatic adherence to unproven approaches and a wholesale failure to mitigate risks.

Yup, it’s not an EU or euro or even just IMF thing- it doesn’t come as a shock to anyone paying attention the sort of organisation that the IMF are. They shouldn’t be left in charge of their own chequebooks.

But it does make still more obvious something that, well, should have been obvious already- the people in charge of the money, know **** all at best and at worst are actively part of the problem. Watching the troika each demand different things from Greece then blaming the Greeks for not satisfying their contradictory, irrational demands was another perfect example but they seemed to get away with that one just by going “those lazy greeks eh?”

Credit agencies are another pillar of failure for this- we still grovel to them, “please let us keep our AAA rating” but they were complicit in the financial crash with their rating of dodgy financial instruments, and then the crash revealed how meaningless their ratings are. Or should be at least- but inexplicably we still take them seriously. Moody’s rated Greece an A or higher risk til 2010.

@deepredave – a point I would make is that the IMF are not bankers, they are primarily politicians supported by a group of economists

The whole report is here Linky

Only read the executive summary but since it missed out the basic reason why the € is flawed it made little sense to continue,

Ssshhh the brexit lot will look intelligent and right.

@jambalaya – semantics really given their responsibilities. They’re all financial gamblers but just motivated and rewarded differently.

Only read the executive summary but since it missed out the basic reason why the € is flawed it made little sense to continue,

Because maybe it is flawed, or or have you not worked that out yet?