The IMF on Corporate Governance and $75,681,430,091 in Interest + Charges since 1984

[FastTadpole]

The coordinated orchestration of lower wages in developed nations is the mechanism used in tandem with wealth redistribution via global welfare. Unleashing this tactic serves to both validates the existence of and correlates with the stated goals of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Although it is apparent the IMF is a primary executive branch and fills the role as the tip of the spear on this agenda it involves several entities crucial to its delivery. This global institution clearly lays out tactics they are currently employing and dictate their plan of action for global currency and financial centralization. Homogenization of standards and wages is an intermittent step towards this end. I take the approach of keying on a pronounced focus on the increased circulation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), exchange rate stabilization and corporate governance as having the potential effect of implementing a global currency or it's equivalent in the form of normalized global currencies, centrally issued SDRs or backing national currencies with a common par value commodity.

Canada's political and financial representatives have been vocal in their support of many of the IMF club's initiatives.

Please find attached some of the relevant IMF and Canadian Government documents referenced in this article their entirety.

Excerpts From IMF Corporate Governance Overview [2007.05.15]

Quote:ASPECTS OF IMF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

4. The IMF is not the only institution where governance issues have arisen. Stakeholders everywhere have come to demand sounder governance in private, public, and intergovernmental institutions. In the private sector, a broad consensus has emerged in the past two decades about what constitutes good governance, and this consensus is now embodied in a variety of codes and principles.5 Elements of this consensus are seen as applicable to intergovernmental organizations, and several of them, including the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, the Bank for International Settlements, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, have recently taken a close look at their own governance.6 Similarly, this evaluation will assess the degree to which existing governance arrangements at the IMF are consistent with widely accepted principles of good governance, and it will seek to identify areas where they can be strengthened to help it better fulfill its mandate.

13. The IMF’s governance determines how goals are set; how strategies are designed, adopted and implemented; and how results and performance are monitored and evaluated. Good corporate governance should provide a framework and incentives to pursue these activities in an effective and efficient manner, ensuring that organizational units and individuals are held accountable and creating space for stakeholders’ views to be considered.

To assess whether this is the case, the evaluation will attempt to answer the following high level questions:

• Are the responsibilities of the IMFC, the Board, and Management clearly defined? Who sets goals and decides on strategies? [24 People Representing 187 Countries - 5 are appointed, must be 'qualified'] What are the respective roles of the Board and Management in the day-to-day running of the IMF?

• Are governance arrangements conducive to good strategy formulation, implementation, and oversight? Are these activities discharged efficiently in terms of timeliness and financial costs?

• Does the Board operate effectively as a collective? Is there a mechanism to hold it accountable as a collective?

• How are EDs held accountable in their roles as country representatives and as officers of the IMF?

• What instruments does the Board have to monitor and evaluate Management? How are the Board’s strategic and oversight roles complicated by the Board’s executive responsibilities? Do Directors have access to the information and resources they need to perform these functions?

• Are adequate channels open to member states to express their views and to have those views considered, in particular to countries with little voting power but with intensive financial and policy relations with the IMF? Are there channels for other stakeholders, beside the authorities, to have their views and concerns considered?

14. To answer these questions, the evaluation proposes to compare actual governance practices with three standards. First, governance practices will be compared against the arrangements set forth in the Articles of Agreement and other IMF documents. The second comparison will be with the governance structures and practices of other inter-governmental organizations. These are probably the most closely comparable organizations10 to the IMF, but they may not necessarily embody best practice. The third comparison will be against principles of good governance developed in the private and public sectors, which would be adapted to make them relevant to the IMF. Together, these three standards for comparison should provide a robust set of insights, even if each of them on its own might have weaknesses as a benchmark for IMF governance.

21. The fourth building block will develop the third standard for comparison by examining principles of good governance developed in the public and private sectors. The paper will undertake a comprehensive survey of good governance codes from around the world and identify principles that are most relevant and appropriate, given the IMF’s special characteristics. The paper will also provide case studies and examples of how these principles have helped private and public sector bodies deal with governance challenges similar to those currently faced by the IMF. It will also suggest how these principles might be relevant to the IMF.

22. The final building block will involve a series of in-depth case studies that examine how the IMF’s governance arrangements work in practice. The case studies will be selected to exemplify key governance functions (strategic thinking, policy implementation, and oversight and accountability11). The case studies will also cover specific aspects of the operations of the Executive Board. Each case study will focus on one of these functions, but each is likely to provide information on others. The following studies are being considered:

Strategy formulation and implementation

• Integration of macroeconomic and financial-sector analysis in IMF surveillance

• Design of the Medium-Term Strategy and its monitoring framework

• Different roles of the IMFC vis a vis the Board of Directors and the Board of Governors

Policy implementation and operations

• Design, Approval and Monitoring of IMF Supported Programs (IMF Lending)

• Crisis Management: Decisions on policies, access, and conditionality

• Bilateral and multilateral surveillance (based largely on past IEO evaluations)

• Delivery of Technical Assistance (based largely on past IEO evaluations)

Oversight and accountability

• The selection process of the Managing Director and Deputy Managing Directors

• Management of fiduciary responsibilities, e.g., Audit and Risk Management

• Ethics and Conflict Resolution System. Arrangements for providing oversight over Executive Board and Management compliance with their respective codes of conduct, including roles of Ethics Officer and Ombudsman

10 A tentative list of the organizations to be covered includes the World Bank, the Bank for International Settlements, the Global Environmental Facility, regional development banks (AsDB, IADB, EBRD, AfDB), the United Nations Development Programme, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Trade Organization, the European Investment Bank, the World Health Organization, and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

11 Strategic thinking refers to the setting of goals and the provision of guidance and direction that are most appropriate for the institution given its mandate and external environment. Policy implementation refers to the translation of strategic goals into actionable tasks, as well as to their execution. Oversight involves monitoring the decisions and performance of an agent, and accountability refers here to the act of holding an agent responsible for his or her actions and decisions.

Conclusions

In other words policy the IMF plan for corporate governance is really be normalized, governance will be centralized (under 24 Executive Directors (EDs) 19 elected by constituency. Wages will be normalized (read lowest common denominator as the Lisbon Treaty provided). A main point was to prevent fluctuations in currency exchange (read world currency under SDRs) and stabilize it. Solution - reject the SDR currency - it is blood money with a motive of centrist world dominion of a homogenized global collective serf class.

The IMF has manufactured 43 Trillion SDRs in debt (2009 Figures). That's equivalent to $69 Trillion CAD. They appear to operate on a 10% reserve. IMF reserves are funded by member countries. Canada

Updated for 2010: As of Aug 31st 53,362,396,690 SDRs in loans are outstanding or $85,167,722,902 CAD in debt. Since 1984 The IMF has collected 47,418,697,565 SDRs in interest and charges or $75,681,430,091 Canadian dollars. The IMF was instituted in 1944 after the Second World War and tasked the job of rebuilding national economies.

Source: http://www.imf.org/external/np/fin/tad/e...2010-08-31

   

   

For a more detailed breakdown of currency by country and by economic sector here:

Annex 6: Operational Highlights and Key Financial Indicators of the IMF for Fiscal Year 2009
http://www.fin.gc.ca/bretwood/bretwd09_2-eng.asp#a24

Side note: Interesting case in Seychelles (resort islands off of East African Coast) that they are the only country that has an IMF credit arrangement past Dec 22nd 2012 (It expires on the 23rd). The day after the US Federal Reserve Contract Expires.

Next Global Economic Conference (in France) will be Centered around Larger Implementation of the SDR
http://www.xe.com/news/2010/09/01/1368345.htm

The following are excerpts from Canada IMF Corporate Governance Discussion Paper September 2010 (attached) and This conglomeration of Canadian Government documentation http://www.fin.gc.ca/bretwood/bretwd09-eng.asp

Quote:Canada's Stance on Corporate Governance
On August 21, 2009 Mr. Samy Watson, the Executive Director for Canada, Ireland and the Caribbean, was selected as Chair of COGAM.

Canada will engage actively in the mandate/role discussion, proposing that the IMF focus on its core surveillance, lending and technical assistance functions, including:

On surveillance, the IMF needs to focus on macroeconomic and financial system-wide risks, with appropriate attention to national-level events and cross-border spillovers. The Fund also needs levers to push for action by member governments when threats arise.

On lending, the IMF needs the tools to provide liquidity (along with central banks and private markets) for the types of situations that this recent crisis presented. The IMF must also have a robust framework to determine when a crisis is one of solvency (and thus when lending should be minimal and conditionality should be greater) to be ready for future crises that may arise due to government debt levels.

On technical assistance, the IMF needs to provide targeted services to members focused on macroeconomic, fiscal, monetary and financial sector management, to help members reap the benefits of globalization through stronger national policy and regulatory frameworks.

This must be supported by an appropriate corporate governance framework.

Quote:Canada IMF Corporate Governance Discussion Paper September 2010

More ministerial involvement could potentially bolster the effectiveness of surveillance in several other ways. First, it could increase the commitment of countries to collaborate in the surveillance process, an aspect that the SSP presently underplays. Co-operation with the IMF would become more valued by countries, because direct involvement by policy-makers would enhance the legitimacy of the organization, lending more weight and prestige to the Fund’s activities. Second, greater ministerial involvement could strengthen the traction of the Fund’s surveillance on country policies. If the IMFC/council is transformed into a forum for frank discussion among policy-makers, it would be an ideal venue at which to present the Fund’s multilateral surveillance, as well as an opportunity to gain greater leverage from ministerial peer pressure. (p.20)

The IMF’s “2007 Decision on Bilateral Surveillance Over Members’ Policies” and the “Statement of Surveillance Priorities” are complementary reforms that, provided they are implemented properly, have the potential to strengthen the effectiveness of IMF surveillance. ...The effectiveness of these reforms would be enhanced if the implementation of the Decision were refined (i.e., refocusing on real exchange rate adjustment and policy frameworks) and some evolutionary adjustment to the SSP were to occur (i.e., strengthening member responsibilities and the link to the 2007 Decision). Moreover, the surveillance reforms would be significantly bolstered if they were supplemented by changes to the surveillance review process as well as by corporate governance reforms aimed at enhancing the IMF’s accountability framework. (p.21)

(attached PDF)

Quote:IMF Executive Board Adopts New Decision on Bilateral Surveillance Over Members' Policies

• The new Decision provides more complete guidance to members for the conduct of their exchange rate policies, so as to cover all major causes of external instability rooted in these policies. The 1977 Decision enjoined members to avoid exchange rate manipulation for specific purposes, in particular to gain an unfair competitive advantage over other Fund members. The new Decision adds a principle recommending that members avoid exchange rate policies that result in external instability, regardless of their purpose, thereby capturing exchange rate policies that have proven to be a major source of instability over the past decades.

5. In its bilateral surveillance, the Fund will focus on those policies of members that can significantly influence present or prospective external stability. The Fund will assess whether these policies are promoting external stability and advise the member on policy adjustments necessary for this purpose. Accordingly, exchange rate policies will always be the subject of the Fund's bilateral surveillance with respect to each member, as will monetary, fiscal, and financial sector policies (both their macroeconomic aspects and macroeconomically relevant structural aspects). Other policies will be examined in the context of surveillance only to the extent that they significantly influence present or prospective external stability.

6. In the conduct of their domestic economic and financial policies, members are considered by the Fund to be promoting external stability when they are promoting domestic stability—that is, when they (i) endeavor to direct their domestic economic and financial policies toward the objective of fostering orderly economic growth [socialism] with reasonable price stability, with due regard to their circumstances, and (ii) seek to promote stability by fostering orderly underlying economic and financial conditions and a monetary system that does not tend to produce erratic disruptions. The Fund in its surveillance will assess whether a member's domestic policies are directed toward the promotion of domestic stability. While the Fund will always examine whether a member's domestic policies are directed toward keeping the member's economy operating broadly at capacity, the Fund will examine whether domestic policies are directed toward fostering a high rate of potential growth only in those cases where such high potential growth significantly influences prospects for domestic, and thereby external, stability. However, the Fund will not require a member that is complying with Article IV, Sections 1(i) and (ii) to change its domestic policies in the interests of external stability. (moot**)

http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pn/20...m#decision

Expanding on the Exchange Rate Provision

Quote:Article IV: Obligations Regarding Exchange Arrangements

Section I

each member undertakes to collaborate with the Fund and other members to assure orderly exchange arrangements and to promote a stable system of exchange rates.

Section III. Surveillance over exchange arrangements

(a) The Fund shall oversee the international monetary system in order to ensure its effective operation, and shall oversee the compliance of each member with its obligations under Section 1 of this Article.

(b) In order to fulfill its functions under (a) above, the Fund shall exercise firm surveillance over the exchange rate policies of members, and shall adopt specific principles for the guidance of all members with respect to those policies. Each member shall provide the Fund with the information necessary for such surveillance, and, when requested by the Fund, shall consult with it on the member's exchange rate policies. The principles adopted by the Fund shall be consistent with cooperative arrangements by which members maintain the value of their currencies in relation to the value of the currency or currencies of other members, as well as with other exchange arrangements of a member's choice consistent with the purposes of the Fund and Section 1** of this Article. These principles shall respect the domestic social and political policies of members, and in applying these principles the Fund shall pay due regard to the circumstances of members.

Section IV

The Fund may determine, by an eighty-five percent majority of the total voting power, that international economic conditions permit the introduction of a widespread system of exchange arrangements based on stable but adjustable par values. The Fund shall make the determination on the basis of the underlying stability of the world economy, and for this purpose shall take into account price movements and rates of expansion in the economies of members. The determination shall be made in light of the evolution of the international monetary system, with particular reference to sources of liquidity, and, in order to ensure the effective operation of a system of par values, to arrangements under which both members in surplus and members in deficit in their balances of payments take prompt, effective, and symmetrical action to achieve adjustment, as well as to arrangements for intervention and the treatment of imbalances. Upon making such determination, the Fund shall notify members that the provisions of Schedule C apply.

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/aa/aa04.htm

According to Schedule C

Once par value has been set. It is activated by The Fund (Group of 24 @ 85% agreement) but only when currencies are close in value which the member nations are supposed to work towards as a primary goal for stability. Par value could be denoted as water, energy, human servitude, collateralized land, resources, carbon credits or the SDR itself (gold is excluded) or any combination thereof. Everything I have seen to date is geared towards the equalization of currencies by establishing accountable "guidelines" (read: law) for the 187 member nations. Transactions are supposed to be under close surveillance, that points towards digital currency. Canadian bill C-36 has a provision to account and document all imports if it is passed.

Various international trade agreements and WTO/WIPO membership conditions break down sovereign trade protectionism, levy fines for non-compliance and allows foreign bids on public projects (CETA being the latest). US immigration policy compounds the flood of workers to the labour market and skews demand for human labour and can potentially bust any remaining union. UN Agenda 21, biodiversity and sustainability projects strike a blow to private utilization of the means of production. Rising energy prices US Health Care forces purchase of health insurance by entrepreneurs and business making human labour less profitable. Taxes are up and loans are down with a retraction of the real money supply. Interest rates have nowhere to go but up. Green retrofits, select subsidized corporations, higher concentration of wealth, corporate mergers, crony cartel capitalism, automation, war security costs, higher debt servicing costs, sellout of public infrastructure to foreign entities, imbalanced climate obligations, global welfare with the few and this IMF corporate governance + exchange rate equalization all hurt the bottom line for business and thus workers in 'developed' nations will bear the brunt of this avenue for global concentration of finance, law, taxation, wealth redistribution, policy, standards and accountability enforcement.

Sometimes it seems like government is doing everything possible to keep the populace down and the people subservient.

Quote:5. Each member that has a par value for its currency undertakes to apply appropriate measures consistent with this Agreement in order to ensure that the maximum and the minimum rates for spot exchange transactions taking place within its territories between its currency and the currencies of other members maintaining par values shall not differ from parity by more than four and one-half

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/aa/sched_c.htm

We could go deeper but I'm up to my neck in it. Time to withdraw from this rabbit hole. This truly disgusts me.

[dicktater]

Excellent! Thanks FT. Here's something coming up too soon. Watch this closely:

The off-shoring of all sovereign nations' financial regulatory controls. For the power at the top of the international financial regulatory system to be strengthened, the bottom must be weakened.

G20 - November 2010 Summit
http://www.seoulsummit.kr/eng/

Agenda:
* Ensuring global economic recovery
* Framework for strong, sustainable, and balanced global growth
* Strengthening the international financial regulatory system
* Modernizing the international financial institutions
* Global financial safety nets
* Development issues
http://solari.com/blog/?p=9149 (The Catherine Austin Fitts Blog)

Also on the watchlist:

G30 (or Group of Thirty)
Financial Reform: A Framework for Financial Stability
http://www.group30.org/pubs/reformreport.pdf

On January 15, 2009, The Group of Thirty released its latest report: Financial Reform: A Framework for Financial Stability. The report addresses flaws in the global financial system and provides 18 specific recommendations to: improve supervisory systems by redefining the scope, boundaries, and structure of prudential regulation; enhance the role of the central banks; improve governance practices and risk management; address pro-cyclicality via capital and liquidity standards; enhance accounting practices; strengthen the financial infrastructure; and increase coordination internationally. The project was led by Paul Volcker, Chairman, and Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa and Arminio Fraga Neto, Vice Chairmen.

If you're up late-ish, check out Chris Hinkley's show, Road Warrior Radio, on RBN weeknights at 11PM CST. He stays on top of these creatures.

[FastTadpole]

The IMF plan for world economic harmonization (centralized control) does not have gold involved. In fact it exclusively says that the par value medium of exchange cannot be gold. I mentioned it before but here's the detail.

IMF Section 4: Articles of Agreement (excerpt):

Quote:(b) Under an international monetary system of the kind prevailing on January 1, 1976, exchange arrangements may include (i) the maintenance by a member of a value for its currency in terms of the special drawing right or another denominator, other than gold, selected by the member, or (ii) cooperative arrangements by which members maintain the value of their currencies in relation to the value of the currency or currencies of other members, or (iii) other exchange arrangements of a member's choice.

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/aa/aa04.htm

It's states that caveat a few more times in the document.

[FastTadpole]

Haven't updated this in awhile here is the hub for documents pertaining to how they will deal with the current crisis as disclosed from their March 2011 meeting.


http://www.imsreform.org/

Quote:Globalization: IMF Key Issues
http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/key/global.htm

Statement by Stauss Kahn:

Nanjing and the New International Monetary System
Posted on March 31, 2011 by iMFdirect
By Dominique Strauss-Kahn

(Version in 中文)

I am delighted to be back in China this week for a high-level seminar in Nanjing on the international monetary system. Every time I come to this part of the world, I am impressed by the dynamism of the economies and the optimism of the people. The future is here.

The region’s economic performance over the past few decades has been nothing short of remarkable. Asia now accounts for about a third of the global economy, up from under just a fifth in 1980. This trend has been reinforced by the crisis, with the emerging market powerhouses leading the global recovery.

...

I see four pressing issues:

* Imbalances across and within countries. We need stronger cooperation to promote effective global adjustment and discourage countries from running policies that lead to global imbalances. The G20 Mutual Assessment Process and the IMF’s “spillover reports” for the five most important systemic economies—which look at the effects of country policies across their borders—are steps in the right direction. More ambitious ideas, including a strengthening of countries’ multilateral obligations and of accountability mechanisms for these, are also worth discussing.

* No framework to oversee capital flows. Everybody knows that capital flows can sometimes be destabilizing. This is something many countries worry about. But we do not have globally agreed “rules of the road” on what they should do. Sometimes we need to look at old ideas with a fresh perspective, and we are developing more of a consensus view. In the past, capital controls were not in our toolkit. Today, we see them more as part of the toolkit, although only in specific circumstances and not, of course, as a substitute for good macroeconomic policies.

* Inadequate global liquidity. We need to strengthen the global financial safety net, to reduce the need to “self-insure” by building up costly reserves buffers. There are a number of options here. One possibility is to strengthen partnerships with regional financing arrangements. Another is to improve the predictability of systemic liquidity provision more generally.

* Too few options for safe global assets to meet the demand. The question here is how to diversify reserve assets. One option is to encourage greater international use of currencies other than the four currently in the SDR basket, including those of large dynamic emerging markets. Over the longer term, the SDR itself could play a greater role.

...

The Nanjing meeting was a useful step toward the international monetary system of the future. And speaking as the head of the IMF, it was also a useful step in advancing the partnership between Asia and the Fund. A partnership that I firmly believe will continue to strengthen in the future.

Over time, there may also be a role for the SDR to contribute to a more stable international monetary system. As a first step, adding emerging market currencies to the SDR basket could help internationalize these currencies.

Over the long term, the scope for the SDR to strengthen the international monetary system would depend on its playing a greater role. We recently presented a range of ideas on this topic. They include:

• Increasing the global stock of SDRs to help meet demand for precautionary reserves.

• Using the SDR to price global trade and denominate financial assets, thereby helping cope with exchange rate volatility.

• Issuance of SDR-denominated bonds by sovereigns and international financial institutions.

IMF surveillance more generally should, as a matter of principle, be a key instrument in promoting effective global adjustment, or reducing the need for it by discouraging countries from running policies that lead to global imbalances. In practice, it has not always been successful in this endeavor. We must think of ways to remedy this.

Clearly, the design of the international monetary system is not the sole culprit for this state of affairs. But it is limiting in one important way, namely that—except in the case of exchange rate policies—countries have no obligation to run their policies in ways consistent with systemic stability. This hardly seems sensible in our interdependent world.

Full Statement: http://blog-imfdirect.imf.org/2011/03/31...ry-system/
http://www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2011/033111.htm

An few excerpts from the PALAIS-ROYAL INITIATIVE (PDF) drafted on February 8th, 2011

Quote:The capacity of individual countries or international institutions to cope with a future systemic liquidity crisis is not assured. In dealing with sudden shifts in international liquidity, unlike at the national level, there is no global lender of last resort. In the recent crisis, effective cooperative measures were taken at the peak of the crisis.

These included swaps and liquidity lines extended by a number of central banks to counterparts, including in some emerging markets; tripling of the IMF’s resources and revamping its lending facilities to allow for large scale precautionary and liquidity support; and a $250 billion SDR allocation**. But these measures were ad hoc.

...

The peer review over the policies of member countries to be exercised by the IMF (“surveillance”) has often been ineffective in bringing about policy adjustment on the part of countries with internal and external imbalances, especially when they have no need to borrow from the Fund. This reflects, among other issues, the lack of teeth of IMF procedures.

...

Stronger surveillance. Strengthened IMF surveillance over its member's policies is therefore required. .. by the following key elements:

a) stronger multilateral obligations, backed by clear, objective norms or quantitative benchmarks on economic and financial policies and performance to function as alarm signals with appropriate thresholds;

b) assessment procedures that permit judgment about the causes and implications of any deviation from those policy norms; and

c) consequences, including the possibility of both incentives and sanctions. While all countries should be subject to the same obligations and assessment procedures, particular attention should be directed to countries whose policies have a larger potential impact (China, Euro Area, Japan, UK, and US.) on the stability of the international monetary system. This new surveillance process should also aim at eliciting a supportive response from financial markets, helping to orient market sentiment towards stability objectives that have been agreed at a multilateral level.

+++

Full report here (26 pages): http://global-currencies.org/smi/gb/tele...tegral.pdf

** 1.00 XDR = 1.60213 USD 250 Billion SDR = $400 Billion USD.

+++ Argh .. I was almost down and my computer rebooted unexpectedly (Windows Update). I'll have to update this more later. Until then lots of resources on recent developments on the IMF Reform website.

It should be noted that this system of IMF Corporate Governance and globalization is working in tandem with Know Your Customer (KYC) which was introduced through the US Patriot Act and augmented by the Bank Secrecy Act revisions. KYC is been installed en masse on all 1.2 Billion Indian Citizens to monitor all programs and provide as the key to social programs, employment and, of course, banking.

[rsol]

we are moving into the credit scheme.

The problem with the gold standard is as the population grows, more gold has to be accumulated to cover the extra money printed in order for money to be available.

having no value except the good word of the debter means inflation can solve this dilema without having to bring in more wealth to cover. its sound economic sense as long as everyone plays by the rules. however that would mean you have to take people completly out of the equation. As money has people at its heart is a bit of a catch 22.

My main worry is about the IMF dictating how the money they loan is spent and can withold loans if a country doesnt do what is asked of them. sounds like a global superpower to me.