The outdated IMF kept in pocket by the BRICs and PIGs

As the former Citibank head once declared, countries don’t go bust

THE International Monetary Fund’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, has inherited an organisation that has outlived its purpose. It takes just a bit of history to explain why.

The IMF was created under the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement, a plan to promote open markets through exchange rates tied to the US dollar. If a country couldn’t cover its trade deficits, the IMF was to step in and lend it the needed dollars — on certain conditions.