JOHN CARNEY
The International Monetary Fund chief was picked by European leaders to run the Frankfurt-based central bank, taking over the top role from Mario Draghi. Like Jerome Powell, whom President Donald Trump tapped to run the Fed, Lagarde is a lawyer by training rather than an economist or a central banker.
Once she receives final approval and takes office, two of the world’s most powerful central banks and the two biggest currency zones will be lead by non-economists for the first time in modern history.
Although she has been called an “arch-globalist,” Lagarde is not blind to the costs of global trade on workers in the U.S. and the rest of the developed world. But instead of advocating a Trumpian policy of trade deals that create or protect good jobs, she’s argued for a European-style welfare state, higher minimum wages, and direct financial support to compensate workers displaced by global trade. Instead of economic nationalism, she supports a program she calls “new multilateralism.”
“Tackling inequality requires partnership,” Lagarde said in a speech last year. “It requires governments, the private sector, and civil society working together: to eradicate discrimination against women; design the right labor market reforms; and strengthen education, training, and social protection systems—to include people, not exclude them, and prepare them for the coming technological transformation.”
In other words, the solution to problems created by globalism is to give the people more globalism, good and hard.
Lagarde has also lined up as an opponent of the growing populist wave around the globe, which could limit her ability to repair the battered reputation of the ECB. Just prior to the 2016 Brexit vote, she implied pro-Brexit voters were narrow-minded and called for a “united Europe. Under her leadership, the IMF also called for Spain to admit millions of migrants to bail out its pension system.
No comments:
Post a Comment