What if the IMF Head was a Muslim, such as PIMCO’s El-Erian? alifarabia

The inflation adjusted billion dollar question has become, ‘what nationality should lead the International Monetary Fund (IMF)?’ It used to be the $64,000 question, and then became the million dollar question. This says something about the ‘naked’ dollar or US influence or both.

The tradition has been the Managing Director of the IMF was European. The traditional thinking has gotten us to where we are in today’s inter-connected, borderless, flat-wired world in real time, resulting in credit crisis induced systemic risks, corporate and government bailouts at the expense of hard working tax payers.

The established emerging markets like the BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa have raised valid points, and a recent FT article correctly mentioned, ‘… the IMF executive directors for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa said the “obsolete unwritten convention” of appointing a European as managing director undermined “the legitimacy” of the fund and called for a “truly transparent, merit-based and competitive process”.