经济学人下载:国际货币基金变革时机

Ms Lagarde has many strengths. She has been a steady and successful finance minister, no mean feat with a boss as mercurial as Nicolas Sarkozy. A lawyer by profession, she lacks the technical background that the IMF’s best bosses have had, but she is a superb communicator, a good negotiator and, by all accounts, an excellent manager. Given the circumstances of Mr Strauss-Kahn’s departure, the fact that she is a woman is a bonus. It is not hard to see why even Western finance ministers with a low opinion of Mr Sarkozy have rushed to anoint her.

拉加德女士（Lagarde）有许多优势。她行事风格稳健，是位成功的财长，并且与善变的萨科齐相处融洽。出身律师的她虽然缺乏IMF顶级总裁应该具备技术背景，但是她是口才精湛的交际官，出色的谈判家，据说还是优秀的经理人。鉴于卡恩离职的背景原因，女性的身份也让拉加德有所加分。不难看出为什么西方国家的财长们尽管都对萨科齐颇有微辞，但却都愿意指定她担任IMF总裁。

But it is still wrong. To begin with, the stitch-up, whereby the head of the IMF is a European and the head of the World Bank is an American, is a disgrace. International posts should be filled according to merit. And the growth of emerging economies makes it even less defensible.

但事情还是有点不对劲。首先，欧洲人和美国人分别担任IMF和世界银行的总裁的内部操纵，本身就不光彩。其次, 国际职位本应按才录用。同时, 新兴经济国家的发展也让这样的操纵安排毫无立足之地。

Not exactly Europe’s moment
时刻未必属于欧洲

Moreover, the case against appointing a euro-zone finance minister as head of the IMF now is overwhelming. The main issue facing the fund is the euro zone. The fund is supposed to be an impartial arbiter of good economic policy. It is the only organisation likely to force a rethink of the euro zone’s failed strategy towards Greece, Ireland and Portugal. There were already fears that Mr Strauss-Kahn’s presidential ambitions led the fund to be too soft on Europe. Ms Lagarde has played a central role in forming the euro zone’s response to its debt crisis, and whatever her private views, she has a public record of defending the indefensible. Staggeringly, some Europeans have tried to argue that only one of their own can understand their continent’s complex politics; imagine the laughter if somebody had made the same argument for Argentina’s finance minister in the 1980s or Thailand’s in 1997.

而且，现在反对欧洲财长担任IMF总裁的呼声已喧嚣尘上。基金组织面临的最主要问题就是欧元区。该组织应该是良好经济政策的公正仲裁者。只有这个组织可能促使人们重新审视欧元区对希腊，爱尔兰和葡萄牙的失败策略。之前已有人担心总裁卡恩的总统野心会造成基金组织在欧洲政策上的软弱无为。拉加德在应对欧元区的债务危机过程中扮演了重要的角色，无论她的个人观点如何，她还是对占不住脚的事情进行了辩护。让人惊奇的是，一些欧洲人认为只有欧洲人能够理解欧洲大陆复杂的政治环境，想下阿根廷财长在20世纪80年代或泰国财长在1997年做出的言论，要是现在还有人与他们的言论同出一辙，那该是件多么可笑的事。