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congressional hearings on
steroids in baseball made was
quite enlightening. Mark Mcguire
all but admitted he took steroids.
Sammy Sosa evaded as many
questions as he answered and
Barry Bonds wasn't even required
to attend. With the taint now on
these players careers we really
have to look at the records that
they have set.
Doing so I have come to the
conclusion that:
Roger Maris is the homerun
champ with 61 in a season;
Babe Ruth with 60 is in second
and the last "clean" team to win
the world series was in 2000.
Now if you don't mind this Yankee
fan is going to get a green beer.
Look for a complete update of
MQAblog Friday afternoon!
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to kidnap David Letterman's
child and nanny
despite U.S. opposition
| COUNTDOWN TO OPENING DAY |
| Top Picks |
|
K
G
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Ugly American Bank
By PAUL KRUGMAN
You can say this about Paul Wolfowitz's
qualifications to lead the World Bank: He
has been closely associated with
America's largest foreign aid and
economic development project since the
Marshall Plan.
I'm talking, of course, about
reconstruction in Iraq. Unfortunately,
what happened there is likely to make
countries distrust any economic advice
Mr. Wolfowitz might give.
Let's not focus on mismanagement.
Instead, let's talk about ideology.
Before the Iraq war, Pentagon hawks
shut the State Department out of
planning. This excluded anyone with
development experience. As a result, the
administration went into Iraq determined
to demonstrate the virtues of radical
free-market economics, with nobody
warning about the likely problems.
Journalists who spoke to Paul Bremer
when he was running Iraq remarked on
his passion when he spoke about
privatizing state enterprises. They didn't
note a comparable passion for a rapid
democratization.
In fact, economic ideology may explain
why U.S. officials didn't move quickly
after the fall of Baghdad to hold
elections - even though assuring Iraqis
that we didn't intend to install a puppet
regime might have headed off the
insurgency. Jay Garner, the first Iraq
administrator, wanted elections as
quickly as possible, but the White House
wanted to put a "template" in place by
privatizing oil and other industries before
handing over control.
The oil fields never did get privatized.
Nonetheless, the attempt to turn Iraq into
a laissez-faire showpiece was, in its own
way, as much an in-your-face rejection
of world opinion as the decision to go to
war. Dogmatic views about the universal
superiority of free markets have been
losing ground around the world.
Latin Americans are the most
disillusioned. Through much of the
1990's, they bought into the
"Washington consensus" - which we
should note came from Clinton
administration officials as well as from
Wall Street economists and conservative
think tanks - which said that privatization,
deregulation and free trade would lead
to economic takeoff. Instead, growth
remained sluggish, inequality increased,
and the region was struck by a series of
economic crises.
The result has been the rise of
governments that, to varying degrees,
reject policies they perceive as made in
America. Venezuela's leader is the most
obstreperous. But the most dramatic
example of the backlash is Argentina,
once the darling of Wall Street and the
think tanks. Today, after a devastating
recession, the country is run by a
populist who often blames foreigners for
the country's economic problems, and
has forced Argentina's foreign creditors
to accept a settlement that gives them
only 32 cents on the dollar.
And the backlash has reached our
closest neighbor. Mexico's current
president, Vicente Fox, a former
Coca-Cola executive, is a firm believer in
free markets. But his administration is
widely considered a failure. Meanwhile,
Mexico City's leftist mayor, Manuel López
Obrador, has become immensely
popular. And his populist rhetoric has
raised fears that if he becomes president
he will roll back the free-market and
free-trade policies of the past two
decades.
Mr. Fox is trying to use a minor violation
of the law to keep Mr. López off the
presidential ballot. If he succeeds, many
Mexicans will believe that democracy was
sacrificed on the altar of foreign capital.
Not long ago, the growing alienation of
Latin America from the United States
would have been considered a major
foreign policy setback. So much has
gone wrong lately that we've defined
disaster down, but it's still not a good
thing.
Where does Mr. Wolfowitz fit into all this?
The advice that the World Bank gives is
as important as the money it lends - but
only if governments take that advice.
And given the ideological rigidity the
Pentagon showed in Iraq, they probably
won't. If Mr. Wolfowitz says that some
free-market policy will help economic
growth, he'll be greeted with as much
skepticism as if he declared that some
country has weapons of mass
destruction.
Moisés Naím, editor of Foreign Policy,
says that the Wolfowitz nomination turns
the World Bank into the American Bank.
Make that ugly American bank: rightly or
not, developing countries will see Mr.
Wolfowitz's selection as a sign that we're
still trying to impose policies they believe
have failed.
E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com
