There has been much discussion of the qualifications and nationality of the next head of the International Monetary Fund. This talk is insufficiently ambitious. The fund’s next head must be a genuine economic architect capable of helping to design an entirely new international monetary framework.
有关国际货币基金组织(IMF)下一任总裁的资质和国籍，已经有了太多讨论了。这样的讨论都不够有远见。IMF下一任总裁必须是一位真正的经济设计师，有能力协助设计一个全新的国际货币框架。
The defining truth of our time is that the US-led international order – the one that gave birth to the IMF – is over. The problems in Greece, Ireland and Portugal are serious, but Europe can largely manage them itself. The IMF’s new leader must be chosen to address longer-term and more complex global challenges.
我们这个时代具有决定性意义的一个事实是：以美国为首的国际秩序——也就是孕育了IMF的秩序——已经瓦解。希腊、爱尔兰和葡萄牙的问题相当严峻，但欧洲基本上还能自救。我们挑选的IMF新总裁必须能够应对更长期、更复杂的全球挑战。
The end of the cold war was widely expected to result in stronger global leadership. Instead the period has been marked by rising financial instability, an explosion of tax evasion and corruption, and a ludicrous breakdown of policymaking in the US – where politicians now spend 90 per cent of their time fundraising and campaigning and only 10 per cent of it governing.
人们曾普遍以为，冷战的终结会促使全球领导力增强。可事实正相反，这一时代被打上了如下的烙印：金融不稳定性日益增强、逃税漏税和腐败行为激增、美国的政策制定无力到了荒唐的地步——现在政客们90%的时间都用来筹款和竞选，只有10%用来做正事。
The IMF is not responsible for this mess, but it has not been effective in fixing it either. It has seen its role as lending to smaller economies. Its advice has been uneven and largely absent on the big issues of global monetary reform, financial regulation and tax policy when capital is highly mobile. The fund’s main task in the coming years should be to create a monetary and financial system that causes fewer international shocks – not to clean up after each debacle.
IMF不应该对当前的乱局负责，但它在解决问题时表现得也并不有力。它认为自己的职责就是向较小的经济体放贷。它的意见总是失之偏颇，在资本高度流动的当下，在全球货币改革、金融监管和税收政策等重大问题上，很少能听到它的声音。IMF未来几年的主要任务应该是创建一个不会引发这么多国际危机的货币和金融体系——而不是在每一次灾难过后收拾残局。