De VS en het IMF

De Los Angeles Times bericht: 'IMF Sees US Budget, Trade Deficits as Risk Factors. Bush officials are less than pleased with the global organization's economic outlook. Washington - Clearly irritating U.S. economic officials, the International Monetary Fund faulted the United States on Wednesday for its budget and trade deficits and its failure to provide universal health insurance, predicting that the dollar would inevitably decline in value against the world's other currencies. In its semiannual report on the world economic outlook, the IMF painted a generally rosy picture, with the global economy growing by 4.9% in 2006. But the IMF, which was established in 1944 to come to the aid of distressed national economies, said "global imbalances" loomed as risks to that scenario. Among the imbalances, it singled out U.S. budget and trade deficits. U.S. officials generally declined to get into an argument with the IMF. But Timothy D. Adams, undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs, defended the administration's budget policy, saying it was in line with the rest of the world's, and he blamed other countries, particularly China, for America's large - and growing - trade deficit. The IMF forecast a considerably more robust global economy than it did six months ago, with global economic growth running 0.6 percentage points ahead of the 4.3% it estimated in September. China, with projected growth of 9.5%, and India, with 7.3%, led the way. Almost uniformly, the IMF forecast above-average growth for developing economies and below-average growth for the industrial world. The United States, with a projected 3.4% growth, was the leader among the seven largest industrial economies. Raghuram G. Rajan, the IMF's economic counselor, said the bright outlook provided ideal conditions for addressing the world's looming economic risks. Instead, he said, political leaders were taking the easy way out by putting off dealing with economic problems that, if allowed to fester, would become more acute. "If progress cannot be made now," the IMF said in its economic outlook, "it will surely be even more difficult later on."
The world's greatest economic imbalance is in trade. The current U.S. account deficit, which measures the flow of goods, services and investments, has grown in nine of the last 10 years - from $114 billion in 1995 to $805 billion last year. Other countries, notably China, have developed gigantic surpluses, and their economies depend on the U.S. market to buy what they produce.' Lees verder:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-imf20apr20,1,7331134.story?coll=la-headlines-nation Of
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042006M.shtml