Laid Low: Inside the Crisis that Overwhelmed Europe and the IMF

The latest book by journalist Paul Blustein to go behind the scenes at the highest levels of global economic policy making, Laid Low chronicles the International Monetary Fund’s role in the Eurozone crisis. Opening with the sensational arrest of IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn during a pivotal point in the crisis, the book makes clear that this sordid episode was only one in a series of setbacks for the IMF as financial conflagration spread from Greece to Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Cyprus — threatening to engulf a region comprising nearly one-fifth of the world’s economic output. As the book reveals, IMF officials had grave misgivings about a number of these financial rescues, but went along at the insistence of powerful European policy makers — to the detriment of the Fund’s credibility, with disheartening implications for the management of future crises. Laid Low is available October 6. https://www.cigionline.org/publications/laid-low-inside-crisis-overwhelmed-europe-and-imf