Update – Go Lean Commentary
There are many female political leaders; think Prime Ministers, Presidents and of course Monarchs, i.e. Queen Elizabeth II.
Who, among them, wields the most power? Neither!
[Introducing] ”The most powerful woman in the world: Christine Lagarde” – 60 Minutes October 20, 2019 story.
The correct answer is Christine Lagarde, the former Minister of Finance (2007–2011) for France, who then led the International Monetary Fund for 8 years (2011–2019) and who now will assume the role of President of the European Central Bank (ECB) starting November 1, 2019. See this related news article here:
Title – What to expect from ECB’s new President Christine Lagarde?
By: Giles Coghlan
On November the first Christine Lagarde will take over the Presidency of the European Central Bank. She inherits an ECB in 2019 in a very similar position to Mario Draghi had in 2011 which is a climate of global uncertainty and political instability. Draghi started his time at the ECB vowing to do ‘whatever it takes’. His last hurrah last month can be summarised as him being willing to stick the course for ‘as long as it takes’ in terms of using easier policy to support the economy. He also looked outside of the bank for Fiscal policy stimulus as a necessary future assistance.So what will Lagarde do? Current expectations are that she will carry on where Draghi left off. Bloomberg reported that in terms of Governing Council politics she will have an ally with Germany’s nomination of Isabel Schnable. Schnable is an academic economist with a track record of defending monetary stimulus against attacks from fellow Germans. With her on the council Lagarde will have an ally making her job much easier in leading the ECB.
So, in a nutshell, expectations are for more of the same from Lagarde as we had from Draghi.
Source: Posted by Bloomberg.com October 25, 2019 from: https://www.forexlive.com/news/!/what-to-expect-from-ecbs-new-president-christina-lagarde-20191025
Christine Lagarde’s authority is not a vesting of political power; she has only been appointed to these roles, due to her core competence with monetary policies and controls, but yet she has exceeded the terms of all of those who appointed her.
Madame Lagarde wields economic power …
… this could be more impactful than anything political or military. The IMF holds a treasure chess of $1 Trillion and her new jobs as President of the ECB puts her in charge of the 2nd largest money supply in the world. See this depicted in the VIDEO here, based on the TV News Magazine 60 Minutes:
VIDEO – Christine Lagarde on the global economy: We are all in this together – https://cbsn.ws/35LGjmC
Published on October 20, 2019 – As she leaves her position as head of the International Monetary Fund to run the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde tells John Dickerson about the possible signs of a global recession.
Christine Lagarde has been discussed before in a Go Lean commentary. See this previous blog-commentary from January 17, 2019:
… the overt favoritism of economic bailouts toward White Westerners was exposed and commiserated. This reflects the need for reconciliation. For the Caribbean, considering our European history, presence and future, we need to participate in this reconciliation. See this article here addressing the flawed favoritism of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), (the intergovernmental financial institution composed of 189 countries working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world”). It appears that the ‘International’ in the brand IMF has not been as global as they claimed.
… the lacerating verdict of the IMF’s top watchdog on the fund’s tangled political role in the eurozone debt crisis, the most damaging episode in the history of the Bretton Woods institutions.
It describes a “culture of complacency”, prone to “superficial and mechanistic” analysis, and traces a shocking breakdown in the governance of the IMF, leaving it unclear who is ultimately in charge of this extremely powerful organisation.
The report by the IMF’s Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) goes above the head of the managing director, Christine Lagarde. It answers solely to the board of executive directors, and those from Asia and Latin America are clearly incensed at the way European Union insiders used the fund to rescue their own rich currency union and banking system.
The European Central Bank has also been discussed in many Go Lean commentaries before. See this list of sample previous blog-commentaries:
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13744 | Failure to Launch – Economics: The Quest for a ‘Single Currency’ ECB and the Eurosystem to take care of the “Euro” currency; their roles and tasks to monitor-manage inflation and price stability. |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3858 | ECB unveils 1 trillion Euro stimulus program This commentary reports on the Stimulus move by the European Central Bank (ECB) to mitigate falling aggregate demand in their regional economy. It explains that economic news from Europe is germane for Caribbean consideration as that region is our largest trading partner after North America; plus the Dutch and French Caribbean member-states are directly impacted. Lastly, the Go Lean roadmap is modeled after the structures of the EU and the ECB. |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=833 | One currency, divergent economies Europe has the safety net of the economies-of-scale of 508 million people and a GDP of $15 Trillion in 28 member-states in the EU; (the Eurozone subset is 18 states, 333 million people and $13.1 Trillion GDP). The US has 50 states and 320 million people. Shocks and dips can therefore be absorbed and leveraged across the entire region. The EU is still the #1 economy in the world; the US is #2. The Go Lean roadmap calls for the establishment of the allied Caribbean Central Bank (CCB) to manage the monetary affairs of this region. The book describes the breath-and-width of the CCB, modeled in many ways after the ECB. |
| http://www.goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=360 | How to Create Money from Thin Air The system of Central Bank Reserves and the commercial banks facilitating deposits and loans in a continuous cycle, allows money to be “created from thin air”. The Caribbean Central Bank is modeled after the European Union and the European Central Bank (ECB). The CCB leaders will be schooled in the arts and sciences of monetary affairs by the ECB. |
A discussion of Christine Lagarde is more than just a discussion of monetary policy; no, it is also a consideration of “Women in Power”. As detailed in a previous blog-commentary by the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean, “there is no doubt that more and more women need to be engaged in societal leadership” – men have often ruled with disregard for the needs of women – so there should be more female participation in economic policy-making and optimization. For this, Christine Lagarde is a role model. That previous blog-commentary stated:
The Go Lean movement advocates for more women in position of authority and decision-making in the new Caribbean. Why is this necessary?
Simple: With 50% of the population, there is the need for 50% of the representation; (this is the target). …
Among the crises that the region contends with is human flight, the brain drain or abandonment of the highly educated citizenry. Why do they leave? For “push-and-pull” reasons!“Push” refers to deficient conditions at home that makes people want to flee. “Pull” refers to better conditions abroad that appeals to Caribbean residents. They want that better life.
We want that better life right here in the Caribbean. We want skilled, empowered professional women to feel welcome and to be invited to execute their core-competence right here in our homeland. That previous blog-commentary continues:
Consider the example of Rwanda. … This country has endured a lot (Genocide in the 1990’s between Hutu and Tutsi tribes). Now, despite being a poorer African country, they have healed a lot of social issues. They now have many women in policy-making roles; and they have transformed their society and now feature a great turn-around story.
Change has come to the Caribbean. As the Go Lean roadmap depicts, there is the need to foster more collaboration and optimization in the region’s economic and governing eco-system. This must include all ready, willing and able-minded stakeholders, men or women.
Let’s get started! Let get more able-minded people in economic, fiscal and monetary governance. Let’s lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap and make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂
About the Book
The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) and the Caribbean Central Bank (CCB), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:
- Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
- Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
- Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.
The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society.
Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!
Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):
xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.
xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.
xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.
xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.
Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.