RANKINGS GONEWRONG
Commission. If, after her run as World Bank CEO, she’d gone on to take up skydiving or an economics-endowed scholarship in Sofia or wiping the noses of her grandkids, the story of the fiddling of the figures of the 2018 EoDB might have lost its legs. But that she’s at the IMF now makes all the difference... Following the release of the investigation on data irregularities, Georgieva denied that at the World Bank she had “put pressure on staff to manipulate data.” “Let me be clear: The conclusions are wrong. I did not pressure anyone to alter any reports,” she said. Right now, Georgieva is struggling to save her job. Shortly after the publication of the investigation, both Democrats and Republicans sitting on the House of Representatives’ financial services committee questioned whether she was the right person to continue to lead the IMF. The Senate Foreign Relations committee demanded “full accountability.” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen declined to take a call from Georgieva, which is a government way of hanging someone out to dry. The Economist urged her to resign. Why is everyone so upset over a few altered figures? It’s not as if we haven’t all at some point developed a hypothesis – really, a conclusion – and then scurried about to find the data to support it. (And there isn’t a stock analyst on earth who hasn’t tweaked a few figures, thanks to the wonders of Excel, to support a pre-ordained conclusion, especially when called on by the boss to do so.)
fiddling that resulted in China’s improved position. However, Kim – as a private citizen long since divorced from the intricate politics of EoDB – seems to be out of harm’s way. But Georgieva isn’t... She left the World Bank in October 2019 to become the head of Washington, D.C.-based multinational lender International Monetary Fund (“IMF”), which – like the World Bank – was founded in 1944 at the Bretton Woods conference that has since helped define the global financial system. Right now, Georgieva is struggling to save her job. Shortly after the publication of the investigation, both Democrats and Republicans... questioned whether she was the right person to continue to lead the IMF. With money from 190 member countries, the IMF aims to keep the international monetary system on an even keel – through cultivating monetary cooperation, facilitating global trade, promoting sustainable growth, and reducing poverty. The people who work at the IMF, like those at the World Bank, fancy themselves to be among the sharper knives in the drawer, with degrees from the world’s top universities. UNDER FIRE Georgieva, a Bulgarian economist, spent most of her career at the World Bank and the European
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