|
Rato on target
For months, AdTI's International Monetary Fund Assessment Project has encouraged the Fund's Rodrigo de Rato to do the right thing — and make clear that Argentina must pay its sovereign creditors before being treated as a sovereign nation. After much contradiction from staff, serial clarifications, and just plain waffling, Rato appears to have taken that position in an April 14 interview with Bloomberg television.
(IMFAP tips its hat to Bloomberg, by the way, for outstanding coverage of Argentina's de facto $70 billion taking: The news service has run rings around Dow-Jones, Reuters, and other competitors. You can do some great journalism, it turns out, just by covering the news. Honorary mention to the Financial Times.)
On April 15, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow promised to "engage" Argentina over its debt taking, suggesting he too may be ending months of feckless acquiescence. His fellow G7 finance ministers signed on the next day. Had these gentlemen and Mr. Rato acted six months ago, such a process would have gone much more smoothly. Still: Better late than never.
A further ruling in one of several dozen lawsuits is expected in late April from a federal appeals court. Follow the zigs and zags, past and future, here.
| 