u.s. subject to imf?

the article linked in this header is by xiang songzuo, a professor at central china university of science and technology. songzuo is suggesting the u.s. should be subject to the same policies it imposes by the proxy that is the imf, (international monetary fund,) on many other nations around the world.

you've seen these policies in little glimpses of riots maybe when you were accidentally tuned into the bbc news on pbs for a few minutes. remember? they were reporting from some south american country? or maybe you somehow ended up on the british newspaper the guardian's website? or maybe you saw police beating a bunch of tree-hugging kids with billy clubs in the "battle of seattle" protest, on mainstream america's news, (but of course they avoided the issue and just focused on the "civil unrest.")

the u.s. has a 17% vote, (by far the largest,) on all imf decisions and our representative therein, (governor,) is henry paulson. (his alternate is bernanke and you don't have to be in denmark to smell how rotten this is.) if you scroll down the wikipedia page, you can see a list of all the dictators, (u.s. backed and otherwise,) the imf has supported with loans.

as americans we generally do not delve into or research things like the imf and the world bank for good reasons. it is hard to get the info, for one. you gotta go to the guardian or al jazeera in many cases to get the story. recently there has been a slight resurgence of real news media in the united states as evidenced by talkingpointsmemo.com, air america radio, msnbc's employment of keith olbermann and rachel maddow, and a few other events and entities. if and when you can get to the info, it is difficult to digest. you kind of have to develop an intellectual curiosity that does not come easy. i mean, it is easier to just go about one's life of making house and doing all the things we do.

so what songzuo suggests in his article is not going to happen but it is worth reading to get a sense of how one of the millions upon millions of people around the planet who would like to see us get a dose of our own medicine feel about americans.

and we are going to get a dose of that med. as it becomes increasingly evident that the bailout was a bad joke and paulson was lying to the american public about all of the important aspects of it, as it becomes ever more clear that the bailout and subsequent actions are meant to help american financial institutions with no regard whatsoever for the american people. paulson can ask banks to negotiate and be nice to americans suffering from the strain of impending foreclosures all he wants but no policies are being imposed on these banks and so, banks will act as banks do. (if you are in a situation with your mortgage, please visit this site.)

i am hopeful we, as americans, will not have to endure what songzuo is suggesting. at the same time, i know our economic crisis is going to get worse before it improves. in so many ways what we have sown is coming to harvest and this idea that we should follow the policies we disseminate through the imf to so many other countries should be eye opening for many of us.