8•/Waxing lyrical. IMF managing director Christine Lagarde eloquently attacked the Icarus-like financial sector, which yet again threatened to fly “too close to the sun”. The great helmswoman also suggested in opening remarks to the annual meetings that investors and lenders were engaged in “too little economic risk taking, and too much financial risk taking”. Recent history, she concluded, taught us that the “bigger the boom, the bigger the bust”. Icarus’ father, Daedalus, was a talented Athenian craftsman. The subtext: more engineering; less financial engineering.
•/Wallet open, chill out. Meditation is supposed to be smoother than a Barry White groove. Not so when it comes to the World Bank/IMF’s local meditation club, which seems as zen as a hungover hippo. Where to start? The meet-time and place: a dreary hotel in Foggy Bottom before the clock hits nine on a Saturday morning? The fact that it’s less a ‘club’ than an actual press conference overseen by an anti-corruption guru? No, we think the true zinger is the price: a cool $80, just to learn how to unwind. It’s enough to turn one to yoga.
•/Just not cricket. Back in the pre-millennial days of wonder when Out Of The Woods was a cub reporter covering these meetings, angry demonstrations by the anti-globalisation brigade were ten-a-penny. Yet while the world has moved on to fret about organised terrorism, ballooning debt and job disruption, street protestors can still have their day. Spotted outside the IMF building: Bill Talen, aka “Reverend Billy”, an anti-consumer activist with a nice line in street preaching, who loudly compared the formation of the World Bank more than a half-century ago with the birth of Rosemary’s Baby. Whatever would Harry Dexter White say?
•/La Dolce Vita. While print media devours itself, shrinking and discarding paid journalists like a dog sheds its winter coat, at least one country
is sitting pretty. While even hallowed Anglophone and Francophone titles send one writer (if that) to cover these meetings, Italy continue to flood the halls with chatty hacks. The winner of this particular award: the Milanese daily Il Sole 24 Ore, represented by no fewer than five members of the Fourth Estate, including a dapper chap with a crisp tie called “Signore Numero Uno” by his co-hacks. At least one slice of the Italian economy is doing well.
•/Quelle horreur! Quelle erreur? Out Of The Woods fielded a polite call from BNP Paribas’ press office, informing us that chairman Baudoin Prot and CEO Laurent Bonnafé had not flown to Washington by private jet, as we had alleged, but on Air France. Excusez-nous! We didn’t dare to ask if they went the whole hog and flew economy.