I’d love to be a fly on the wall there
Winston Churchill, dining out with his accustomed wit, once famously sent back a dessert, telling the waiter that “this pudding has no theme”.
Much the same could be said of the IMF/World Bank’s annual meetings in Washington.
There is no formal “agenda”, though the big issues are clear n the credit squeeze, the dollar’s chronic weakness, rocketing oil prices (in real terms almost beating the 1979/80 all-time high), the odds of recession, the World Bank’s Sisyphean work on poverty in Africa.
Reform of the IMF to break the EU/US stranglehold is also grinding along as is a debate on whether the World Bank should continue to aid China and India.
So perhaps it’s understandable that’s there’s no theme.
