Now, the authorizing legislation governing the ESF assumes that it is for short-term exchange market interventions to stabilize the dollar's value in terms of other major international reserve currencies. It had never entered anyone's mind that the Executive Branch had the power to use the ESF to stabilize the peso against the dollar. What seemed to excite rage was that the U.S. government wanted to do something nice for Mexico . And, even worse, to do something nice for investors in Mexico. But the support package did not make investors richer by making anyone else poorer.
Workers keep their jobs and small businesses avoid bankruptcy.
These benefits probably add more to the sum of human welfare than do the higher asset values created. That financiers and investors gain along with everyone else is no argument against acting as a lender of last resort. Germany and Britain abstained from the IMF executive board meeting that authorized the IMF's contribution to the support package. Ultimately the IMF did step up to the plate. The IMF executive did win support for its decisions from its directors.