An IMF Report Card

It has been six years since the east asian crisis began — a sudden collapse of the currencies followed by recession and depression. From East Asia, it spread around the world until some feared the global economy itself might be approaching collapse. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) came charging to the rescue, but its programs did little to fix the problem. In fact, critics such as myself argued that IMF policies — particularly its insistence on premature "liberalization," or forcing recipient nations to...