elbows
Well-Known Member
IMF chief really put her foot in it. The backlash is interesting.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/af...ocId=CNG.39a29b0b75cb3cf2b5d20b95c5423cb8.201
Some interesting quotes.
And more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/27/imf-boss-in-no-position-to-preach?newsfeed=true
http://www.google.com/hostednews/af...ocId=CNG.39a29b0b75cb3cf2b5d20b95c5423cb8.201
Some interesting quotes.
Lagarde told Britain's Guardian newspaper in an interview published Friday that Greeks must "help themselves" by all paying taxes, saying she was more concerned about Africans in poverty than Greeks in the economic crisis.
"You should say that to the relatives of the 3,000 Greeks that have committed suicide, to the one million unemployed," wrote a Facebook user under the nickname Ntavos Paok.
"You should tell your countrymen, who were many years in colonial Africa enriching themselves by stealing from the grandparents of the children you so hypocritically think of by comparing them with Greeks."
One Facebook user, Litsa Sterp, resorted to ancient Greek wisdom, quoting the first-century scholar Plutarch: "Flee the hostile and tyrannous money-lender who interferes in your freedom and attaches conditions."
And more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/27/imf-boss-in-no-position-to-preach?newsfeed=true
The moral weight of Christine Lagarde's matronising of the Greeks to pay their taxes is not strengthened by the fact that, as director of the IMF, she is in receipt of a tax-free annual salary of $468,000 (£298,000, plus perks).
John Weeks
Professor emeritus, University of London