The chart is from Bloomberg so we can presume it’s reasonably accurate. I put it up since the outcome is exactly what I had expected. What more interesting is the alarmist title of the article: “Existential Threat to World Order Confronts Elite at IMF Meeting”. They really don’t have a clue, do they? Here’s one more example that they don’t see the order of cause and effect nor their own role in it:
Fed by stagnant wages and diminishing job security, the populist uprising threatens to depress a world economy that International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde says is already “weak and fragile.”
If things were strong and robust, no one would be saying a thing. The populist uprising is because these people are so incompetent, and the rest of us find it nerve wracking to watch them in action. I particular liked this:
Lagarde said last week that policy makers attending the Oct. 7-9 annual meeting of the IMF and World Bank have two tasks. First, do no harm, which above all means resisting the temptation to throw up protectionist barriers to trade. And second, take action to boost lackluster global growth and make it more inclusive.
They wish to do no harm wish to but take action to boost global growth. And I like the implied definition of free trade found here:
Perhaps the biggest beneficiary of free trade over the past generation, China, still restricts access to many of its key industries, with economists worried about increasingly mercantilist policies. . . .
“The consensus in policy-making circles was that more trade meant better economic growth,” said Standard Chartered head of Greater China economic research Ding Shuang, who worked at the IMF from 1997 to 2010. “But the benefits weren’t shared equitably, so now we see a round of anti-globalization, anti-free trade.
The article didn’t say the form on which these economic leaders intend to “take action to boost lackluster global growth and make it more inclusive” but my guess is they will try the same old tired nonsense that has done so well so far, as the data above can attest.
Law of Markets 