In Madrid on Monday I moderated a discussion on global finance organized by the Aspen Institute Espana. The speakers were Paul Volcker, Agustin Carstens (head of the central bank of Mexico, and a candidate to succeed Strauss-Kahn at the IMF), and Henrique Meirelles (until recently head of the central bank of Brazil, now in charge of preparations for the Rio Olympics). In due course I might be able to post a link to a recording. Meanwhile, three things struck me as notable.

First, none of the speakers had much time for the idea that Greece’s debt would have to be restructured. Paul Volcker’s impatience with this idea especially surprised me. He is usually willing to be outspoken and has no particular reason (unlike Carstens, for instance, a serving rather than former central bank chief) to avoid controversy and choose his words carefully. He usually says what he means. His point was that a modest restructuring would make no great difference to Greece’s fiscal problem–it has to get to a primary budget surplus regardless–and so was probably not worth the risk. Yes, I suggested, but who said anything about a modest restructuring? An immodest restructuring, together with “internal devaluation” (lower wages) and further fiscal tightening, still seems to me the least bad of the terrible alternatives that Greece and the EU are now contemplating. The central bankers weren’t having it.

The next head of the IMF is expected to be Christine Lagarde. Europe’s leaders are converging on this appointment and if the US goes along the deal will be as good as done. Lagarde is a reasonably well-qualified candidate but this choice, guided by the desire to perpetuate the arrangement under which a European heads the Fund and an American the World Bank, is a mistake.

Moises Naim powerfully makes the case against an outrageous dispensation. He detects the stench of colonialism and I agree.

Even the leaders of the Group of 20, the assembly of nations that accounts for more than 80 percent of the world’s economy and two-thirds of its population, recognize that leadership selection at these institutions must change. When they met in early 2009 in London on the heels of the financial crisis, the G-20 leaders asserted that “the heads and senior leadership of the international financial institutions should be appointed through an open, transparent and merit-based selection process.”

That this is not already the standard is outrageous. No more outrageous, of course, than how European countries are offering countless excuses for why Strauss-Kahn’s replacement must carry a European passport.

Continue reading: “Who should lead the IMF?”