Who Are These People?

This From Floyd Norris Blog -- please follow link to original.
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Who Are These People?

Can you identify any of these people?

A. H. Johannes Witteveen
B. Pierre-Paul Schweitzer
C. Rodrigo de Rato
D. Horst Köhler
E. Michel Camdessus
F. Ivar Rooth
G. Per Jacobsson
H. Camille Gutt
I. Jacques de Larosière

Had someone given me this quiz a week ago, I would have gotten two of them right. (E. and I.) Can you do better now?

Here’s a hint: Those are nine of the 10 men who have held a certain job. The 10th one was reasonably well known in financial circles a week ago, but now is world famous, with his picture on the front of every newspaper.

Still need another hint? In the front-page photos, he was wearing handcuffs and accompanied by New York City police officers.

Answer: They are the first nine managing directors of the International Monetary Fund.

The I.M.F. is an institution that is normally ignored by most people — until it is their country that is pleading for help. Then the head of the fund can become a target of anger as the one forcing austerity measures. Most important policy decisions are made by the fund’s board, whose members represent governments.

Aside from the reasons he became infamous, Dominique Strauss-Kahn will be remembered for his decision to get the I.M.F. involved in the Greek bailout. There was initially resistance from Europe to such involvement, which did not want outsiders involved, and the fact he knew everybody that mattered helped to ease the way.

At the moment, that decision is not looking good.

“Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s decision to treat the crisis as a matter of liquidity rather than solvency led the I.M.F. to eschew any notion of debt restructuring, or exiting from the euro, as a solution to the periphery’s public sector and external imbalance problems,” wrote Desmond Lachmann, a resident fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, in The Financial Times on Thursday. “Rather, he opted for draconian fiscal tightening and radical structural reform as a cure-all.”

That has not worked. Greece must default at some point, and the extra year has only served to leave a lot of Greek debt in the hands of the European Central Bank while deepening the Greek recession.

His successor will have to decide if, or how, to change a failed policy.