Columns

Hoping for the Best From the IMF

OK, so it's Christine Lagarde at the International Monetary Fund. I wish her luck. And I wish we had any idea how well she'll do the job.

It's not as if she's especially enigmatic: In addition to being smart, by all accounts she's serious, responsible and judicious. But that, of course, is what worries me.

For we're living in an era in which, for the time being, conventional prudence is folly, conventional virtue is vice. The things Very Serious People want to do ? slash deficits right away, "normalize" interest rates, worry about inflation ? are exactly the kinds of things that could turn the slump that started in 2008 into decades of stagnation.

Under Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the I.M.F. was staking out a position as the least dogmatic, most open-minded of the major international organizations. That's not saying too much, but it was much better than that of the madmen in authority at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development or the Bank for International Settlements, who seem determined to find reasons to tighten monetary policy in the face of a continuing slump.

So the question is, will the I.M.F. become more sensible under Ms. Lagarde? For the sake of the world economy, let's hope not.

Fischer Rejected

A quick, belated note on the I.M.F.'s decision to ban Stan Fischer, the governor of the Bank of Israel, from contending because he's over the age of 65: how cheesy.

There is a case against Mr. Fischer. But the debate should have been based on that case. Yes, letting him contend would have required modifying the rules ? but we're in the midst of an ongoing crisis, with a desperate need for good leadership, and using technicalities to limit the field suggests that the leading candidates weren't good enough on their merits.