He has the power to pump money in or extract it from the economy by pressing a key on a computer keyboard. It seems he might tighten the money supply with unemployment down. It is not good for business. A couple of months ago he said workers would have to suffer for the economic good of the country. Then Rubin demanded high interest rates in poor countries.
Investors make a killing in emerging markets when interest rates go up.
However the poor pay the price this. Children Yearbook 1999. That is equivalent to the combined annual income of more than 18 million American families, or the GNP of more than 100 developing nations or the 1997 budget of 35 states in the United States combined. The policies that Rubin s analysis fueled left so many Americans out. The free-market ideology of the IMF requires countries to cut back on social expenditures.