An Opinion Piece on - "World Bank: Obama Nominates Dartmouth's Jim Yong Kim to World Bank Chief"

Link to the article used for this opinion piece: World Bank: Obama Nominaes Dartmouth's Jim Yong Kim to World Bank Chief

It was a bit of a shock yesterday when I was making a random trip around the net checking out what the world stock markets were doing and I stumbled across an article in the LA Times about the recent Obama nomination for the new head of the World Bank. Up until this time the person that was most commonly being considered to take over this extremely high profile position was Hillary Clinton. And with all honesty it seemed at the time to fit because Zoellick had announced he would be stepping down in June 2012 coupled with an announcement by Hillary that she would not be seeking another Government appointment after this term of Obama's was over. I was not the only one who cocked an eyebrow wondering if perhaps she was going to make the move to World Bank, infact that sentiment was echoed up by numerous others as well such as Reuters. Link to HuffPost's reprint of Reuters article

A third source said Obama has already expressed support for the change in her role. It is unclear whether Obama has formally agreed to nominate her for the post, which would require approval by the 187 member countries of the World Bank.

(Source from HuffPost link above)

So, not only was it a surprise that Hillary Clinton was not tapped for this, but who has been nominated has the finacnial world turned up on it's ear. Who is it? Well, his name is Jim Yong Kim. Ummm... come again... who? Yeah, didn't think you had heard of him either.

It appears that Mr. Kim is the president of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. (For those of you who do not know of the college, it is a very upscale private college chocked full of the extremely intelligent set.) Ahhh, OK you say so the man at least has some good solid think tank background. Yep...in medicine. Mr. Kim was also the head of the WHO's HIV/AIDS division up until the time he took the position as president at Dartmouth. In order words, one of the most influential banks is now going to be head up by a Dr. of medicine. Am I the only one that finds this a bit...well.. strange?

In a world where banks who operate on a global scale are being so incredibly mismanaged, our President sees benefit in placing a man who has no financial background to speak of into a position of extreme power? I am extremely uncomfortable with this move. To put a man into this position who has no real track record in the global financial realm is not the smartest move I've ever seen in my opinion. Maybe it it just me, I don't know.

I found it interesting as well the other 2 people mentioned having been in the running for this postition. The Finance Minister for the country of Nigeria, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Jeffrey Sachs, a development economist from Columbia University.

Two things of interesting note about the Nigerian Finance Minister.
1. Since it's creation in the 1940's, the World Bank has traditionally been headed by an American and traditionally as well the IMF (essentially the WB's twin brother in Europe) has been headed by someone other than an American. These are not mandates mind you, just by tradition how it's been done. Breaking with tradition can be a good thing at times I think but I find it odd that 'now' a foreign finance minister should have been considered for the job. At least he has some knowledge on big financial dealings.... more so than a Dr. with little financial dealings.

2. The African connection. Now, this may not be obvious to some who have not bothered to delve into the whole mess of politics going on in Africa at the moment (the last several decades actually). To be honest I knew little myself until the whole Kony2012 thing came to light and I started looking deeper into the situation as a whole. It seems that Africa is very rich in mineral depostits, the very same mineral deposits that the rest of the world has been trying to extract (read exploit) from countries like Uganda for a long time. If this nomination had gone through it would have been a political move on the part of the US, pure and simple. Do we have a 'presence' in Africa just for this kind of exploitation? Of course we do, as does China and a whole host of others. But having the Nigerian Finance Minister sitting at the head of World Bank would prove rather cushy should tensions increase. He would almost certainly have some pull in other African nations, possibly giving the US an advantage over the rest of the world by providng a launching point of any military action in the area as well as some dipolmatic advantages as well.

The other gentleman, Jeffrey Sachs, I honestly know little about. However, the fact that he is someone of importance in another highly regarded learning institution in the area of high end finances would still put me at greater ease. Even for being a relative nobody as far as the general public goes, I can accept that if he has better qualifications for the job.

So you can see and perhaps understand better now, just why this nomination of Mr. Kim stumps me. I see no benefit. But I suppose time will tell, maybe just what we need is someone with little knowledge and big ideas to step in and give the global financial banking institutions a swift kick in the pants to shake things up a bit.

My thoughts on this are that perhaps he can look upon the present situation with fresh eyes. Perhaps with an outsiders perception some of the economic mess can be straightened out. Of coarse he could also be a stooge.

thanks for posting this info S&F and your thoughts on this are indeed warranted seriously what is Obama doing?

with a bit of reading I found this bit of info that opens new windows into Mr Kim's record of being a financial leader.

During his tenure as president of Dartmouth, Kim has not been immune to criticism. In 2011, he was criticized for refusing to release the college's budget, prompting the passage of a resolution by faculty demanding more details.[15][16]
Kim answered this criticism by releasing a large supplementary report on the budget and holding a public meeting with faculty who afterward expressed satisfaction with the response.[17].

However, Kim did not address a request by the Student Assembly asking for access to information about all budget items exceeding $10,000.

[16] In 2011, a handful of editorials appeared in Dartmouth's student newspaper expressing dissatisfaction with Kim's presidency, with one describing Kim as "unpopular among many students these days."[18][19]

His leadership has also been criticized in the wake of a hazing scandal, which resulted in charges against the fraternity and the creation of a task force to address hazing; and amidst comments from some that Kim did not spend enough time on campus.

en.wikipedia.org...


world bank material I think NOT.

reply to post by -W1LL


Well with that bit of info I'm leaning toward stooge. Seems he doesn't like to operate in the open with scrunity. should be perfect for Obama.

I agree MyMind, something is off with this nomination. Not that I wanted to see Hillary Clinton in there either. I'm wondering if there's a connection to BigPharma or some such...what else has this guy been involved in?

reply to post by -W1LL


Excellent find and thank you for providing that. Indeed in my reading up more on Mr. Kim I found that tidbit of info as well which increased my thought that perhaps a re-think by the administration was in order. I did not include it simply as a matter of not wanting to throw too much out in the OP and give others a chance to read up and add to it.

For an administration who ran on a platform of more transparency in how our government operated, nominating a person who seems to rather want to hide financial dealings makes one wonder. Perhaps it is more of a 'Do as I do and NOT as I say" as we have seen from the onset of Obama's presidency.

Thanks for the response! Greatly appreciated

MMIMO

reply to post by Kali74


Good question. A big pharma connection popped into my head too but I could not make a solid connection to it in the time I spent researching this guy.

In all honesty the ONLY connection I could make in reference to BigPharma would be the think tank he created at Dartmouth to study the financial impact of ObamaCare on the country. Now keep in mind that this would not be his findings per say, but that of the carefully selected people he would place in the group.

That is the only connection to Obama and possibly Big Pharma that I could think of. I hope someone else will come along who can perhaps give better insight into this aspect.

Thanks for posting!!

In providing a reason for Mr Kim, the global economy is very sick at the moment. Having an understanding of immunity systems, problems and treatments is an asset to help guide the world bank into a stronger and more stable global economy. As president of the world bank, his vote only counts when there is a tie between the other executives, but I expect there would be a lot of direction provided on the agenda as well.

For his position in releasing the budget while director at the university, is this common practice? if not, how far from standard practice was it? was there any misappropriation of funds? Trying to get full access to budgets is generally quite difficult, especially for the general public.

I would also like to see an electrical engineer near the top job too as amps, volts and ohms do translate into supply, demand and liquidity quite well. When breaking it down, the workings of economic power is not far removed from electrical power and a dame good tune up is well overdue.

I am not sure about the other two yet, but very happy that Hillary is not on the short list.