Apr 22, 2009
(GMT-5)
Host:
CEPR
Media Briefing:
As the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank prepare for their Spring Meetings in Washington, D.C. April 25-26th, the IMF has been calling for a global fiscal stimulus to counteract the world recession. But its actions tell a different story: in the loans it has made since October 2008 - when the crisis saved the IMF from near-irrelevance - the conditions continue to require contractionary measures that will intensify the impact of the recession on the most vulnerable people. Deficit reduction, interest rate hikes, and cuts in government spending are common to most of the programs - precisely the opposite of what the U.S. and other industrialized countries are doing to minimize the pain.
CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot joined Peter Bujari, executive director of the Human Development Trust in Tanzania and Inga Paparde, Latvian AIDS activist and journalist. The call was moderated by Joanne Carter, executive director RESULTS Educational Fund.
Transcript
A transcript is available on the RESULTS site.
