Top 10 Reasons Why Paul Wolfowitz Would Make a Good World Bank President

Top 10 Reasons Why Paul Wolfowitz Would Make a Good World Bank President
John Cavanagh
TomPaine.com, 16 March 2005

1. He would follow in the great tradition of World Bank president Robert
   McNamara, who also helped kill tens of thousands of people in a poor country
   most Americans couldn’t find on a map before getting the job.
2. It helps to be a good liar when you run an institution with employees
   who earn over $100,000 a year to pretend to help billions of people who live
   on less than $1 a day.
3. With all his experience helping US companies grab Iraq ’s oil
   profits, he's got just the right experience for doling out lucrative World
   Bank contracts to US businesses.
4. After predecessor James Wolfensohn blew millions of dollars on
   "consultations" with citizen groups to give the appearance of openness,
   Wolfowitz's tough-guy style is just what’s needed to rid the World Bank of
   those irritating activists.
5. Unlike former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, another one of the
   four leading candidates, at least Wolfowitz hasn't failed at running a
   Fortune 500 company.
6. Unlike the Treasury Department’s John Taylor, another leading
   candidate, at least Wolfowitz doesn't want to get rid of the institution he
   would head.
7. While earning a University of Chicago Ph.D. , he was exposed to the
   tenets of market fundamentalism that have reigned at the World Bank for
   decades.
8. He has experience in constructing echo chambers where only the advice
   he wants to hear is spoken.
9. He knows some efficient private contractors who build echo chambers
   for only a few hundred billion dollars (cost plus, of course).
10. He can develop a pre-emptive poverty doctrine where the World Bank
    could invade countries that fail to make themselves safe for US business,
    modeled on the US pre-emptive war doctrine he helped craft.