Though be careful with any incest

Sir, in “Such devoted sisters”, March 1, where you discuss the relations between the World Bank and the IMF and sort of imply that it would be good if they spoke with “one voice”, I would like to remind you though about the possibilities of incest. Those two organizations are designed to pursuit very different agendas, which by nature are often in conflict, and so their role is to debate all the issues openly, laying out the pro and cons, instead of shutting them up in the name of any harmonization gospel.

For instance, each credit risk avoided by any commercial bank as a result of the regulations coming out of Basel, something that could be viewed favourably upon by the IMF since it has the avoidance of a bank crisis high up among its objectives, could and should perhaps be regarded with utter suspicion by the World Bank, since it could also have been a splendid development opportunity lost.