The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank will again be under siege this weekend. Thousands of anti-globalisation protesters intend to encircle the organisations' Washington headquarters―where finance ministers and central bankers from 184 countries hold their annual meetings on September 28th and 29th―in order to save the world from the "economic smallpox" inside. After a brief lull in the wake of last year's terrorist attacks, the travelling circus of anarchists, students and activists, who try to wreck international economic meetings with what they call "creative confrontational opposition to capitalism", is back. Though these banner-wavers hog the headlines and disrupt the streets, they pose no serious threat to the two Bretton Woods institutions. Their goals (such as "end capitalism") are too absurd; their arguments too incoherent. But this year, more than most, the IMF faces criticism from a more serious source―those inside rather than outside the barricades. A growing chorus of insiders, from staff members (sotto voce) to Wall Street bankers (more loudly), is asking whether the Fund and the rich countries that largely determine its policies know what they are doing.
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