December 04, 2012

But IMF never said a word against the mother of all capital controls.

Although I have been a long opponent on capital controls for outgoing flows, I am a great believer in capital controls on inflows, the Chilean type, which helps small economies in their small bathtubs not being drowned by global financial tsunamis. And so of course I welcome the International Monetary Fund´s less dogmatic standing in respect to this sort of “Capital controls” December 4. 

But to say “As far as intellectual shifts go, the turn by the IMF on capital controls is remarkable” is in truth a big exaggeration. 

I say this because with respect to the greatest and most subtle and harmful capital controls ever, namely that of capital requirement for banks based on perceived risks, I have never heard one iota from IMF opposing it. That control helped to channel trillions of dollars to “The Infallible”, most especially the “infallible sovereigns”, and away from “The Risky”, like small businesses and entrepreneurs. And the saddest part is that the overwhelming capital in the world is not even aware of that control.