Friday, 11 July 2025
In this inaugural episode of Macro Matters, BWC Members and IMF experts, Mark Sobel and Elizabeth Shortino, sit down with Emily to discuss the current state of the IMF’s role in the global economy and recent reform proposals. Mark Sobel is the U.S. Chair of OMFIF and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Monetary and Financial Policy at the U.S. Treasury. Elizabeth Shortino is the Managing Director of Alvarez and Marsal and the former U.S. Executive Director at the IMF.
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Transcript:
Slater: Well, welcome and thank you both for joining us today and welcome to all of our listeners. Welcome to this latest episode of our new BWC podcast. And the question that we’re answering today on this episode of the podcast is does the IMF have a seat at the big kids table? The IMF as most of us know, was founded post World Wars to really address some of the root causes, monetary and financial causes of the World Wars. And you know, overtime their mission and effectiveness has come under question, has evolved. You know, we had, anti-austerity movements. We had reaction in response to the great financial crisis. We’ve had this sort of kinder, gentler Fund. And now we’re in this moment of real political populism. And it’s a really pivotal moment for the IMF to, I think really, you know, think through how it can operate and be effective and be relevant in this era of really great power competition and economic fragmentation as well as technological disruption.
So, we’re really here today to unpack some of this and to talk to our two experts here from BWC’S own network on really what the future of the Fund should be. So let me quickly just introduce our speakers. We have with us Mark Sobel, who is currently the US Chair of OMFIF, but longtime Treasury veteran, I’m sure most of our membership knows him, served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Monetary and Financial Policy, served on the IMF Executive Board, lead a lot of Treasury’s engagement with G7, G20 post financial crisis. So absolute legend and expert on these issues. So, thank you, Mark, for joining us.
We also have Elizabeth Shortino, who was just the most recent US IMF Executive director. I think we currently have an acting one now, but she has also held senior roles at Treasury, OMB, and across sort of the international policy landscape. She’s now a managing Director at Alvarez and Marsal. So just wonderful to have you both here. And let’s kind of dive into our first question, which really is, you know, clearly the global economy has changed significantly since 1944. So, I want to kind of hear from you both and get your take on sort of what you think the International Monetary Fund should be doing in the 2025 global economy and into the future. So maybe Mark will start with you. What do you think the Fund’s role should be? What’s it doing well? Where can it be better?
Sobel: Great pleasure to be here. When you call me a legend, it makes me sound like an old has been, which I am. But still, I have views on this question. Look, there’s always a need for International Monetary cooperation. The 1930s proved it. So have recent decades, economic stresses, crises, geopolitical shakeups are an inherent feature of the global landscape. And they have severe financial fallout which, if not addressed, is going to make matters worse for country, people, the world economy. In the bigger scheme of things, the Fund has evolved in response to change, but it’s adhered fairly well to its mandate of promoting economic and financial stability. So, we saw that in the 70s when the fund helped overcome the Bretton Woods collapse and recycle oil surpluses. We saw it in the 80s with Latin debt crises. We saw it in the 90s with the Asia financial crisis, the collapse of the Iron Curtain, low-income country problems. We saw it with the global financial crisis and the pandemic. So, the Fund is the world’s first responder. Its teams hit the ground running and fast. They are in the lead in defining stabilization policies and catalyzing and organizing financing to lessen the hit for stressed economies as well as the spillovers to the rest of the world. And that is what the Fund does at its best, and that is the unique strength that the Fund should preserve. They offer technical assistance, very good. They offer surveillance, global public good. There’s countless economists in the U.S. and emerging markets and major advanced economies that can analyze economic developments with the best of them. And sometimes in lower income countries and low-income countries, Fund surveillance is really the only game in town. Now you to allude to something you said, you know, we can debate whether the fund should do X or Y better at all or whether it gets out over its skis. I’ve excoriated the Fund in my lifetime for not doing its job on exchange rate surveillance, lacks work on global imbalances not being rigorous enough on China analysis. And frankly, they should be far more critical of US fiscal policy. But the Fund remains as essential as ever. The world needs a first responder. And let’s be clear, for Americans, the Fund helps protect our national security, our economic security, and it just does so without financial cost.
Slater: Thanks, Mark. Yeah, first responder role, first and foremost, what the Fund does well, certainly areas it can improve. We’ll get into that in a little bit. But Elizabeth, what are your thoughts? What role does the fund play now and going forward?
Shortino: Thank you, Emily, for having me on this podcast. I always enjoy talking about the IMF because it truly is a unique institution in the global International Monetary and financial landscape. I agree with Mark. It is the first responder. It’s undergone some major transitions as you were saying, going back to 1944, you know, whether that was how it engaged with fixed versus flexible exchange rates. You know, the shift in focus to crisis response. As you said, there’s been various eras of the Fund, what their focus has been. You know, to me, looking forward, I think the question is whether we need another wholesale shift and how the Fund executes its mandate or whether it needs some fine tuning. And I would argue that it is still very relevant. It has demonstrated its relevance, but it could use fine tuning, and we can get into that more as we discuss. But I think here, you know, as we enter this next era of greater complexity around international cooperation, the Fund, I think would really benefit from a more disciplined approach around its surveillance, its lending, even its operations. And that to me is where you would want to see the IMF go to remain very effective and very necessary in this global landscape.
Slater: So yeah, let’s dive into to some of this a little bit more because obviously we just had the IMF and World Bank Spring meetings and about six weeks ago now a lot even has happened since then. But we heard Secretary Bessent as well as House Financial Services Chairman French Hill at BWC’S own event, both speak to a couple of their kind of priorities for the Fund, which I think if you kind of take their comments together, we can start seeing a little bit of an agenda for this current administration in relation to the IMF. So, picking up on a couple of themes that you both have addressed as well as picking up on some of these common themes that that we’ve heard from Secretary Bessent and Chairman Hill. I want to dive in and do a little bit of a lightning round on a couple of issues. I think one is China. I mean you both have sat around the IMF boardroom and have had to call out China for, as Mark said, exchange rate practices, transparency in terms of its growth data, transparency in terms of its lending practices. This is not a new issue. This is not a new priority for the US, right? This has spanned several administrations and likely decades at this point. You know, it seems to be what the current administration is also focused in on a little bit. But I mean, given that we’ve been talking about this for decades, I mean, what can the IMF really do here? Can they do more? Should they be more vocal? And is there really any enforcement mechanism to make China go along and play by the rules?
Shortino: I mean, I think you’re, you hit on a sensitive issue, right? What can they really do. Now, I think the IMF has traditionally taken an approach of trying to keep China kind of in the tent rather than out the tent. So, there’s a little bit of a tough, somewhat tough messaging, but not too tough, right, because we don’t want to alienate China. I personally don’t think this is an approach that works very well. This was very much the Obama administration approach. And I think even some of the most hardline Democrats acknowledge that it was not very effective. So, you know, do they have an enforcement mechanism? Not necessarily. But do they have a very powerful voice? Yes, they do. And I think the IMF needs to be more vocal about calling China out for its unsustainable and distortionary economic policies. But it needs to do the same for the United States. And I think that is one way, you know, if they’re worried about alienating China, well, you know, let’s have equal truth to power on both sides. And I don’t think the IMF has done a good enough job of calling out both China, but US policies. And Mark mentioned this in his introductory remarks, but that, you know, there are on the flip side of Chinese excess capacity is US profligate fiscal policy. So, I’m really hoping that the IMF uses that voice to provide, you know, analytical assessment of both China and US economies. And maybe that will give more, you know, incentive for others to chime in and join them. And if you really do have more of a coalition, if there’s no enforcement mechanism, but you can apply pressure from variety of sources and not just shareholders to get US-China issue. And that was really the issue when I was in the board was constantly, we were trying to steer it away from being a US-China issue and more of a, you know, these are the things that everyone thinks China should do to benefit the global economy.
Slater: Mark, you’ve been pretty vocal about, yes, the Fund should get tougher on China, but also on the US.
Sobel: Yeah, absolutely. I think Elizabeth pretty much said what I would have to say, I guess. So, I do want to make one point that in my era in the Fund, I always work pretty well with the Chinese central bank. The Chinese central bank likes the IMF. They’re about as good of an ally as the fund can have in Beijing and they’re representatives, especially their people in Beijing. I mean, in addition to the board can be pretty sophisticated and, whatnot. I, guess I’d agree with Elizabeth. Like China’s sovereign country, it’s going to have to change itself. And the question is how can the IMF help persuade China to change? That’s not an easy question. China’s a complicated place politically and economically. I agree with Elizabeth. The Fund needs to be a very frank. Being a trusted advisor doesn’t mean you bury the lead. So I think the Chinese should be called out more by the fund for what Elizabeth said, unsustainable. I would say it’s broken growth model, the global spillovers, the debt problems, the overcapacity, the accuracy of data. And, you know, I jotted down some notes for this and 1000% consistent with Elizabeth I wrote if the United States wants to call out China and the G7, recent G7 finance ministers communique, call China out for global imbalances. Well, the US had better be ready for the IMF to call the US out on fiscal policy. And it’ll be interesting to see if the Fund does that. And it’ll be interesting to see if the US that wants the Fund to call out, the Chinese doesn’t get overly sensitive about the US getting called out. That’s something I’m going to be watching this year.
Slater: But of course the fund always says what we call China out in private. We just don’t do it publicly, right. So you know, I think there’s a little bit of a somebody’s got to actually do something here. We’re all just pointing fingers in different directions, right? OK, let’s, let’s keep moving on in in our lightning round here. Another easy one. Serial borrowers. We’ve heard a lot about this recently, right? The sort of repeated countries who are repeatedly going back to the Fund over and over again for assistance. Argentina, Pakistan, Egypt, right? Mark, I know this is something that you have cared about for, for a long time and thought a lot about. But again, you know, what can the Fund really do here to put them on, put these countries on more sustainable footing? I mean, they can’t really say no to them when they come and ask for support, right?
Sobel: I wouldn’t go that far. Look, it’s an important issue. And when a country has had program after program and it’s barely holding its fiscal position together so as not to burst out into high inflation and it’s not tackling its fundamental woes, look, the IMF needs to get tougher, in my view, and they should do so through stepped up prior actions and tougher prior actions. And I think, frankly, they even need to consider calling vocally a time out. Now, having said that and having heard tough talk about this for years, especially from some in Congress, in my experience, what happens is that when Republicans or Democrats are actually in power and they realize or believe that they’re tough love might mean stopping help for countries that are allies or countries that are helping out the United States and key international issues, or that the action could generate geopolitical tensions or severe turmoil in the country. The officials tend to quickly change their minds.
Slater: We just saw another Argentina package, right?
Sobel: Yeah. Well, let’s not get into Argentina. Argentina has been a thorn in my side my entire career. But I think what the Argentines have done lately in terms of adjustment, in terms of the massive fiscal adjustment, monetary policy adjustment, they’re trying to liberalize economy. They should be building up reserves or not. They need more exchange rate flexibility. But this Argentina team so far has actually done really big things. It’s not like am I allowed to offend people by saying Pakistan, which year after year after year just slices and dices on fiscal policy and whatnot and doesn’t really tackle its underlying energy or woes or its inability to tackle taxation for, you know, the land and Gentry and not there’s a distinction. I think Argentina right now deserves very good support.
Slater: Yeah, they’re actually doing stuff this time around. So, we’ll cut them a break, I guess. Give them a little slack. Elizabeth, do you want to weigh in on the serial borrower issue?
Shortino: Yeah. And I, mean, I agree with Mark on the Argentina case, but the it’s exactly the right question because the whole goal of fund engagement, especially for these, you know, emerging market economies is to resolve the balance of payments issue by the end of the program. And yet we see repeated borrowing. So that’s clearly not happening. What has always surprised me is why there isn’t a clear policy by the IMF around this. And it would have to be, it would be a difficult policy to come up. But even just some sort of greater level of scrutiny. Some of these countries, these repeat borrowers have very, very low revenue to GDP ratios. Yet the Fund continues to lend even when those don’t improve. You know, why aren’t there metrics that we’re looking at that would help these countries get off of Fund assistance and, and donor assistance more generally? So I think that is something I, think the fund should look to explore because we have enough repeat borrowers now that you’re in in a scenario where countries, if they don’t borrow from the IMF, and this isn’t just referring to Argentina, by the way, if they don’t get another program, they will default on the IMF. That’s a big problem. And this and this applies to a number of African countries. So, I think there needs to be a combination of how do we get countries off of this serial assistance and get them to stand on their own feet, but also how can we be tougher in terms of the conditionality. And as Mark said, occasionally take a time out. And, you know, while it should be a last resort, the IMF has preferred creditor status and a strong balance sheet and defaults may need to happen in certain isolated cases, and the Fund may need to get a greater acceptance around that. Again, it should be a last resort, but it shouldn’t be something that’s completely taken off the table, which it was for some of these countries we’re talking about.
Slater: Yeah. And it seems like the Fund’s signalled a little bit of willingness to tackle this. I think we’re seeing some signs that maybe they’re starting to realize that, Elizabeth, as you said, there does need to be clear policy around this. All right, let’s keep going. Climate, you know, a lot of criticism about the fund and how the fund has been dealing with climate issues. You know, has it strayed from its mission? How can it actually ignore climate risks if its whole job is to help countries manage external shocks? So maybe, Elizabeth, you know, kind of sticking with you. You know, how do you think the Fund should be addressing climate change and climate risks? Should it just be monitoring and doing surveillance and offering sort of policy guidance and technical assistance or should it be doing some of this long-term financing that it’s been doing through the Resilience and Sustainability Facility and Trust? What are your thoughts?
Shortino: Yeah, And I’m going to go out of the mold a little bit here. I mean, I think more generally on climate, I don’t think the Fund should entirely step away. I know there’s a bit of a temptation to do that so that it doesn’t, you know, go isn’t at odds with the current administration, Trump administration. But climate is an important issue and it’s very macro critical for a number of countries. So, I think the fund needs to keep it on its agenda. It needs to follow the climate strategy that was agreed by the board. And I was sitting on the board when we agreed that and we pushed back quite hard about mission creep, you know, and really encourage the Fund to coordinate with other institutions like the World Bank and others and not overstep their bounds. There’s still some work they need to do on that. But I think if they follow the strategy, they should, you know, that’s the right rule for them. The RST. Here’s where I’ll step out of bounds a bit. Is it the right tool? I’m not totally persuaded that it is. I think it came about in an era of large amounts of SDRs. How do we repurpose those? How do we address a climate challenge if the World Bank isn’t doing so as effectively as we would like? Has it been effective? I think there are some cases in isolated cases where maybe it has, but for many of them, these countries are moving forward with reforms they might have done anyways. It’s hard to measure whether the RST is really having an impact. This is not the Fund’s kind of bread and butter this longer-term lending. So, I think there’s another relook that could be done. Is this really the right lending tool for the IMF to pursue if it’s going to support countries with climate needs?
Slater: Mark, want to respond to that.
Sobel: Well, as always, I’m in 100% agreement with Elizabeth. Look, climate change raises obvious macroeconomic issues, for example, on taxation and pricing, this is standard 101 econ on externalities and the challenge for the Fund is described or to define properly the scope for its engagement. So look, there’s obviously a role with respect to macro critical surveillance, you know, what’s the budgetary implications of a country’s energy subsidies might be fair game. Whether the US should use nuclear energy or coal is not for the Fund. Now for programs, it gets more complicated, but let’s take the Maldives, my favorite example. That means being threatened with getting submerged. So, it needs to budget for adaptation resources. That budgeting process is fair game for the Fund. That doesn’t mean the Fund should say, well, you have to choose this kind of project or, or what not to adapt. Now I believe the Fund has got too far out in front on climate issues and but again, it needs to define the scope properly. And I’m going to say, like Elizabeth, I am not a fan of the RST. The Fund’s supposed to be a short-term lender. If you look at all the programs it has that goes means the maximum maturity of 10 years, along comes the RST 10 to 20 year maturities overlaps with what the bank does or should do. So, if a country legitimately needs help on climate in a program, then that should be built into the financing for the standby, the extended arrangement of the PRGT program. You can augment the program, but it should be macro critical and be folded into the program in my view.
Slater: So, if we all agree the RST is maybe not the best fit for the Fund, what should the Fund do with it? Can it unwind it? Can some of those SDRS go to the PRGT instead? What does it do from here?
Shortino: I think you let it wind down. Unlike the PRGT, my understanding is it’s not a revolving tool. So, you would need to raise more funds. So, more money, yeah. I mean, the other option is to consider, do you change the scope of the RST and what it finances? I think that gets very complicated and it doesn’t resolve the issue that the fund is not really the long-term lender. So, you know, I think you unwind it and then I think you re-look at the climate strategy and the lending portion of that to say are the are programs adequately taking into account climate needs? There was work all done about a year ago also updating the debt and the low income, the lick debt sustainability framework to adjust it to assess for climate impacts.
I think as you really look at that broader framework around debt sustainability, climate will be a big part of that. So, I think that’s the route you go as opposed to trying to salvage. The salvage is maybe a harsh word but salvage the RST.
Slater: Mark, we’re going to I think go to your favorite topic. Elizabeth mentioned it, but the RST came about in this era of sort of SDR issuance. And how do we re channel those and get those to the countries that that need them? So let’s talk about SDRs. What are they? How have they been used? What should they be used for? What are your thoughts on them, Mark?
Sobel: Oh wow. First of all, I’m going to get myself in trouble with any progressive friends I have. So the SDR special drawing right, something that the IMF can allocate, it’s a reserve asset on countries books and it can be mobilized within official channels, IMF channels to act as a source of financing. It came about in the late 60s and there were after some initial allocations, nothing happened until the global financial crisis and then the pandemic. And so basically what is it, an SDR allocation according to the IMF articles should meet a long term global need to supplement existing reserve assets. So those are the words of the IMF and the articles. So, there’s nothing in there about development finance or generating resources that can’t be mobilized through domestic budgetary process and there’s nothing in there about re-channeling them. Now a specific country may have liquidity needs perhaps because it’s not adjusting. But given the presence of large private capital markets and other financing flows, it’s hard in normal times to argue that there can be a long-term global need for more reserve assets, especially given all the excess reserve accumulation we saw a decade ago. Now the case can be made in severe shocks such as the global financial crisis or the pandemic, that there’s a liquidity need at that time. I would say that by the time the allocations in those cases was decided and made, liquidity crisis no longer existed. SDRs are an awkward instrument. They’re allocated according to quota shares, which they should be, and the vast bulk go to countries with little use for them. And because of that little use, people strain their brains to come up with these re-channeling mechanisms. And because they’re unconditional, some countries may use them to avoid necessary adjustment. They’re assessed a market interest rate, so they add to country debt, countries debt loads. I want to say my lack of love for the SDR has nothing to do with the Republican arguments that Iran or Venezuela might get unconditional money. The U.S. would never trade with Iran or Venezuela. And I’m not going to go on and on, but I’m just going to say I don’t see much of a role for the special drawing right in the International Monetary system.
Slater: Elizabeth, I mean, you were, you know, at the Fund, obviously, when the whole discussion about the re-channeling and yeah, what do we do with these things and where do they go was occurring. So it kind of give us your take, your experience. I mean, what, what did you learn?
Shortino: Yeah, I mean, I think Mark makes a lot of good points. We agree quite a bit on this, on this topic as well as many. And the problem is SDRs are not so easy to re-channel. You know, they’re considered a reserve asset and the Europeans simply don’t for most of them don’t have the scope, the legal scope to re-channel them. Yeah, they’re so small. They sound great, right. It’s oh, we have this free money, we just need countries to use it. I mean, it just appeared out of nowhere with an allocation. That’s not how it works. And we spent quite a lot of time following that SDR allocation talking to variety of different countries around how you would re-channel them. It’s very difficult to do and it really isn’t actually that much money. There was the, I think the one thing that maybe had potential was allowing MDBs to leverage some SDRs. So, if you had countries with SDRs, channel them over to MDBS and then they could leverage that. But that even that was quite complicated and never took off.
Slater: Ran into some roadblocks.
Shortino: Right, so I agree with Mark on the principle of the fact that I don’t think SDRSsare all that useful. I actually don’t even think an SDR allocation is all that useful when you look at all the analysis. Many countries don’t even use them. But even setting that aside, this is very complicated to try to channel them for other development uses, and that really isn’t their intent.
Slater: So, Mark, could you ever see in the future, looking into your crystal ball, a need for another SDR issuance?
Sobel: I could see the circumstances come together in which there would be a SDR allocation for sure. We saw it in the global financial crisis, and we saw it in the pandemic. And the points I made about the awkwardness of the SDR as a tool were made then and not accepted by the power they went forward.
Slater: Yeah. All right. We’re going to move on to our final question here. And this is a little bit of looking at the sort of global financial architecture a little bit more broadly. Post great financial crisis, right, we saw some sort of new institutions or agenda setting bodies form right. Namely the G20, which was meant to be sort of the political forum to work through some of these economic issues. As well as the Financial Stability Board, which was, you know, really meant to sort of monitor the global financial system post crisis and try to prevent some of the issues that that led to the crisis. So, my question to you both is, you know, with the creation of some of these bodies and institutions that were meant to kind of fill perceived gaps in the architecture, have they kind of chipped away at the Fund’s role in the in the financial architecture? I mean, one could argue that the IMF should have been sort of performing both of the functions of the G20 and the FSB. So, has the IMF kind of been relegated to the little kids’ table at Thanksgiving dinner and other organizations superseded it? And does the political climate now maybe lend itself to a little bit of a resurgence of the IMF and its role going forward?
Sobel: So I’ve long heard the G20 and the FSB undermine the IMF. Whether the Fund has legitimate legitimacy due to its universal membership, while the FSB and the G20 don’t. I categorically reject those views. So look, I played a not insubstantial role in beefing up the G20 leaders process in the FSB in the wake of the GFC. And by the way, the G20 finance process started in 2000. So there was A G20 process going on. It was the leaders process that started at the November of 2008 in the Washington Summit. OK, so the G20 finance ministers meet often. The USG20 Finance Rep is the Secretary of the Treasury. The Secretary of the Treasury is also the Governor of the United States to the IMF. Elizabeth and I came out of the Treasury. We worked for the Secretary and we carried out his or her responsibilities, instructions. So why is there an alleged inconsistency between the G20 and the IMF for the US Chair, I can assure you there is no inconsistency whatsoever. Now let’s turn to the FSB. We needed to strengthen financial regulation after the global financial crisis. So, let’s take capital standards, right? Hugely complicated. For example, you need to have defined risk wakes. You need to supervise bank models and the like. This is the job of technical experts at the Fed, the FDIC, and the OCC. For America, their representatives meet with international counterparts in the Basel Committee. That committee has a seat at the FSB, as does the IMF. Let’s take securities law. That’s in the SEC’s domain. The SEC attends the FSB. It’s also a member in IOSCO, which is the appropriate standard setting body for securities matters. So why would the Fund be in charge of global cooperation on capital standards and securities laws, areas where it doesn’t have primacy? And as brilliant as Elizabeth is, she probably wasn’t the best person to have a good back and forth with the IMF staff about these issues in the IMF Executive Board, notwithstanding her brilliance. So no, FSB and G20 membership isn’t universal like the funds, but we urge the FSB to create regional outreach bodies. And it did. And the G20 represents 85% of global GDP and has various outreach channels. And not to be unfair, it’s a fact of life that the US is going to exert more global sway than Eswatini for example. No, insult to Eswatini. The IMF, the G20, and the FSB work toward consistent 3 aims. All three partake in the other’s key activities. There is a role for each of them at the adult’s table.
Shortino: So, I agree with Mark that these are complementary institutions, and I will grant Mark that I am not the best person nor are most executive board members to review, you know standards around financial stability. So, I 100% agree on that. I maybe disagree a little bit based on my experience of Treasury on G7 and G20 and after Mark, I don’t think G20 is that productive, to be honest. I think it’s the whole process has kind of spun out of control. We tried to rein it in in the first Trump administration. I don’t think there was as much of an effort in the Biden administration, first Trump administration. It’s gotten to the point where it is a lot of meetings and not a lot of outcomes. So here I think the IMF,I will agree with you Emily that the IMF far from perfect, but in this period of heightened uncertainty, it has a very clear mission and a very clear relevance, and it still has buy in. I think you can’t necessarily say the same for the G20. So, the FSB is maybe a different topic because it has a different set of issues that it covers. And certainly G20 has a broader set of issues. I think the IMF shouldn’t displace those entities, but it is very, very relevant and perhaps even more relevant, especially if kind of going back to what I said at the beginning, it can deliver high quality surveillance. It can hold countries to high standard in its lending and it can do better in terms of coordinating with other institutions to achieve real outcomes, especially on those topics where it is not an expert. So maybe this is an opening for the IMF to stay at the big kids’ table and even take more of a lead role.
Slater: Thanks. I can completely buy the argument on the FSB. Think I agree with you Elizabeth. And, and you know, I mean, Mark as well, I think the G20 was very effective post crisis. And over time that effectiveness has waned. And perhaps now is a good time to kind of have a rethink about how we’re going about the global coordination element and, which body is the best to carry it forward.
Sobel: Can I make two points? One, I totally agree with the proposition that the G20 has lost its mojo, and it needs radical streamlining. I would say that crises will happen in the future and once you keep the G20 machinery intact. But again, far more streamlined back to basics machinery. And then the second thing, my last, the last thing I am going to say is that we haven’t mentioned that there’s IMF legislation sitting on the Hill and it would raise quotas, reduce the new arrangements to borrow and bilateral lending facilities. It would keep the overall firepower of the IMF unchanged, but it would better allocate resources among those three pots. I think it’s important for Congress to pass that legislation. If Congress doesn’t, I think that will erode the standing of the United States, which is already facing blemishes around the world. It would be good for the IMF if the US would do it. It’d be good for our standing institutions, and it also provides an opportunity in passing to perhaps advance some of the reforms that Elizabeth and I have been discussing with you today.
Shortino: I’ll chime in on that just to say it, it, I think it’s huge that the administration put this request into their, into their budget. But I also think the IMF needs to do its part and it needs to respond to some of what Secretary Bessent laid out, which are all reasonable suggestions and, and potential reforms. So it’s a two-part thing, right? Congress needs to pass it because it, it really is beneficial for the United States and solidifies our leadership, both nominally, but from a quota perspective. But the Fund needs to, to step up to the job as well. And I hope they do.
Slater: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more with both of you on that. It’s a good deal. Well done to Elizabeth and her other colleagues who helped negotiate that deal. It’s a good deal for the US. It’s a good deal for the Fund, and having it in the PBR is a good first step. And now both Congress and the IMF need to do their part as well. All right, I think we’ve covered it all. I want to thank you both for joining today. Excellent conversation. I think we tackled all of the thorny issues and, you know, really hope that some of these ideas will get taken up. I do think in this current environment, there’s a bit of a willingness to rethink some of these tricky, sticky issues. So, thank you both for joining. Thank you for being a part of the BWC community. We rely and thrive on people like you. We couldn’t do what we do as a network and an organization without your participation. So, thanks to you both. I really appreciate you.