The Chastening

by Blustein, Paul

• ISBN13: 9781903985250
• ISBN10: 1903985250
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-03-06
• Publisher: Public Affairs

Summary

In The Chastening, Paul Blustein examines the role of the International Monetary Fund in the series of economic crises that hit Asia, Russia, and Latin America in the late 1990s and continue to reverberate today. His behind-the-scenes look dispels the illusion that the IMF and its overseers in Washington are economic masterminds coolly dispensing effective remedies. The reality is that as markets were sinking and defaults looming, the guardians of global financial stability were often scrambling, floundering, improvising, feuding among themselves, and striking messy compromises. Blustein shows that the IMF is woefully ill-equipped to combat the new strains of investor panics plaguing national economies in the era of globalization.

Author Biography

Paul Blustein, a staff writer at The Washington Post, has covered business and economic issues for more than twenty years and served as a Post correspondent in Asia from 1990 to 1995. His work has won several prizes, including business journalism's most prestigious, the Gerald Loeb Award

Table of Contents

Author's Note and Acknowledgments	p. vi
The Committee to Save the World	p. 1
Opening the Spigot	p. 19
Winnie the Pooh and the Big Secret	p. 51
Malignancy	p. 85
Sleepless in Seoul	p. 117
The Naysayers	p. 151
The Bosun's Mate	p. 175
Down the Tubes	p. 207
Getting to Nyet	p. 235
The Balance of Risks	p. 279
Plumbing the Depths	p. 305
Stumbling Out	p. 337
Cooling Off	p. 371
Notes	p. 393
Index	p. 426
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