Global capital turns nasty Too many risks, too few rewards Capitalism and serfdom The spectre of intervention Can the IMF play supercop? A breathing space for the IMF Banks and bad policies must share more of the pain
The IMF treatment isn't working. As Ricardo Hausmann, chief economist at the Inter-American Development Bank, points out. "Tranched, conditioned IMF support simply doesn't do the trick of calming markets down." The IADB thinks that Argentina has something to offer. Argentina's instrument of better market discipline is a corset and safety-harness rolled into one. It consists of a contingent repo which allows the country to borrow up to $7.3 billion from 13 private lenders at Libor plus 205 basis points. The daily valuation of the collateral, mostly Argentina's own dollar bonds, is a way of telling the country's finance officials, and president Menem, how they are doing. Argentina posts collateral set at 125% of the...
