IMF confirms Christine Lagarde as new chief

[Kuros]

Christine Lagarde becomes the first female head of the IMF

The Managing Director is the chief of the IMF’s operating staff and Chairman of the Executive Board. The chief executive is assisted by three Deputy Managing Directors in the operation of the Fund, which serves 187 member countries through about 2,700 staff from more than 140 countries.

Ms Lagarde, 55, a national of France, has been the Minister of Finance of France since June 2007. Prior to that, she served as France’s Minister for Foreign Trade for two years. Ms Lagarde also has had an extensive and noteworthy career as an anti-trust and labor lawyer, serving as a partner with the international law firm of Baker & McKenzie, where the partnership elected her as chairman in October 1999. She held the top post at the firm until June 2005 when she was named to her initial ministerial post in France. Ms Lagarde has degrees from Institute of Political Studies (IEP) and from the Law School of Paris X University, where she also lectured prior to joining Baker & McKenzie in 1981.

I am pleased with this selection.

 

[waltky]

Granny says its dat end time financial collapse when rich folks gonna be throwin' their gold an' silver out inna streets like Rev. Jack van Impe says...

World Entering 'Dangerous New Phase': Lagarde
Friday, 9 Sep 2011 | Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, warned that the global economy is entering a "dangerous new phase" on Friday, ahead of the G7 summit in Marseilles, France.

She warned that both advanced and emerging economies faced key economic challenges, and that governments must "act now" to stop further contagion. "Policymakers should stand ready, as needed, to take more action to support the recovery, including through unconventional measures," Lagarde said. "The world is collectively suffering from a crisis of confidence, in the face of a deteriorating economic outlook and rising concerns about the health of sovereigns and banks." Her speech at Chatham House in London came after a turbulent week for the markets, with the focus on sovereign debt issues in the euro zone and job creation in the US.

She welcomed President Obama's new $450 billion jobs package, announced Thursday, but added "it remains critical for the United States to clarify its medium term plan." he British government, including Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, who also spoke, was warned that "risk levels are rising" in the UK and the government needs to have a "heightened readiness to respond." However, Lagarde conceded that the government's response "remains appropriate."

When Lagarde called for the recapitalization of European banks at the Jackson Hole summit in the United States in August, a flight away from European banks resulted in the markets. Osborne agreed that the situation is "more complex" than in 2008 but described his government's plan as a "rock of stability". "The underlying cause is the same – excessive levels of debt," he said. He backed Tim Geithner, the US Treasury Secretary, who wrote in the Financial Times on Friday that the three most important elements for boosting growth are: strengthening growth in the US, stronger actions in Europe to halt the debt crisis and emerging markets like China allowing their currencies to adjust to market forces.

One of the factors weighing down markets is the perception that the situation is worse than 2008, and that there are fewer policy options available to governments and central banks. Osborne warned that "nothing would be more damaging" to the British economy than an increase in interest rates. The Bank of England Thursday held its interest rate unchanged at 0.5 percent, a historic low, which has now been in place for two and a half years. He also supported greater fiscal and institutional integration in the euro zone.

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[waltky]

The woman who holds the world's purse strings...

Christine Lagarde's mission to save the global economy
29 February 2012 - MF boss Christine Lagarde discusses her campaign to save the global economy with the BBC's Katty Kay

Over the past month the BBC has had rare access to International Monetary Fund boss Christine Lagarde. Now, as European leaders meet in Brussels, she will be at the centre of the fight to avert another financial crisis. The Japanese finance minister checks his watch and smoothes his already immaculate hair. Jun Azumi is a little nervous. In a cramped Mexico City office, he's waiting for a photo call with Christine Lagarde, the 6ft tall, impeccably elegant managing director of the International Monetary Fund who is as close as it gets to a megastar in the world of finance.

For the past month Ms Lagarde has given the BBC unusual behind-the-scenes access as she steers her 187-member organisation to manage the biggest financial crisis of our lifetimes - the fiscal nightmare that is the eurozone. I first caught up with her on a cold January morning in Washington DC as she walked to work. Yes, Ms Lagarde has always been a little unconventional, and ditching the world-leader-limo in favour a brisk stroll fits the pattern. Besides, she needs all the physical activity she can get. "Normally I walk a lot faster," she chides. "I work so hard and so long hours that I don't have time to exercise." She has a way of getting people to do what she wants. I promise to pick up the pace.

Passing the cap

Christine Lagarde first came to Washington to work as an intern on Capitol Hill during the Watergate scandal. Now she's back in a very different role, with a mission to protect the world from the fallout of the euro crisis. "All economies of the world are likely to be affected by what is happening in one key region of the world. Much more so than, say, at the time of the Latin American crisis or the Asian crisis," she insists. Her conviction that the euro crisis leaves no country immune is what is driving Ms Lagarde to ask the world to help pay for a $500bn (£314bn) global firewall. It is a job that keeps her extremely busy and extremely mobile. Last Friday, as we walked together through Dulles airport near Washington, I asked her how many flights she has taken this year. Of all our encounters, this was one of the few times she could not think of an answer.

Luckily a couple of French fans call out gaily in greeting and Ms Lagarde is saved from the airplane maths exam. On that travel occasion she was on her way to Mexico City for a meeting of the G20 Finance Ministers and she invited us to join her. This summit is a chance to pass around the IMF cap for those hundreds of billions of dollars. She uses all her easy charm and lawyer's training to cajole non-eurozone countries to surrender their domestic interests to the greater global good. The trouble is countries like the US, China and the increasingly confident emerging economies don't see why they should pay more until Europe does more to help itself. "Until we see the colour of the eurozone money we're not prepared to put our own money in," Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, tells me.

'No longer French'