COMMENT: Marty; it is clear that the IMF is reading your forecasts. No such agency has the power to provide any economic forecast whatsoever. The IMF is starting to mimic your forecasts since you said China would decline into 2020 when no one else said that and now Lagarde says China will be a drag on the world economy for the next three years. Whatever you may think, they do pay attention to you.
AC
REPLY: I really do not know. I did meet with a former board member of the IMF on my trip to Greece last year. We did have some frank discussions. I do know that just about every intelligence agency reads our work since they regard the model as some sort of national security from an economic weapon perspective. I believe where they go wrong is assuming you can press a button and make the world go on life-support at any given moment. Granted, there are some aspects I deem as dangerous for, like all things,, there can be crazy people in power who think they can mess with the balance of things. You CANNOT manipulate any market against its trend and expect it to be sustained. That is illustrated by the 1998 silver manipulation where silver rallied and gold declined with the rest of commodities into the 1999 low. I agree, given government agencies are notorious for their wrong forecasts, it is curious that the IMF seems to be departing from their traditional script. On the other hand, they may be touting what we say and spinning it to justify why they should get more power since individual governments are wrong. Hard to say what is behind this posture.
