Letters: IMF boss is in no position to preach

 guardian.co.uk, Sunday 27 May 2012 21.00 BST

While Christine Lagarde might not care about how the Greeks deal with their financial disaster, I think she might be a little more contrite, since the IMF happily let it all happen (It's payback time: don't expect sympathy – Lagarde to Greeks, 26 May).

Obviously she and the rest of the IMF crew – and all those supposedly in charge of our financial systems – have no answers capable of addressing the scale of this problem. All they can offer involves crushing a nation's people into poverty for a generation, with who knows what long-term results. And, when Greece has been destroyed, Portugal, Spain, Italy and, who knows, France might follow. Will Lagarde shut up then?

The simple truth is that the IMF didn't see the disaster coming over the decade or more when it was happening, they did nothing to tackle the situation when it hit, and now they haven't a clue what to do except cut.

Gordon Brown was in the Metro newspaper recently, calling on the world to recognise the scale of the problem in Europe. His solution – a global bailout to avoid a decade of "unemployment and stagnation" – sounds a lot more convincing than anything the IMF is offering.

But the IMF doesn't seem to realise this and, in several thousand words (Can this woman save the euro?, Weekend, 26 May), Lagarde confirms the poverty of their imagination. Once again we have got the wrong person in the job.
David Reed
London

• So Christine Lagarde tells us that, for the sake of their children, Greek "parents have to pay their tax"?

Personally, I can't judge how many Greek parents are to what extent in tax arrears. But, more importantly, I also can't judge how many Greek corporate magnates, government officials and contract companies have quietly shunted their cash off to Zurich, Jersey, the Cayman Islands or indeed Delaware (just round the corner from Mme Lagarde's HQ in Washington).

So, before she condemns Greek parents, maybe she should initiate an investigation of how much Greek money has been creamed off and is now sitting in one or other of the many tax havens that we seem unable to shut down.

Yes, if Mme Lagarde is serious about taxation justice, then maybe she should walk the walk rather than just talk the talk.
Alan Mitcham
Cologne, Germany

• As a Greek mother who has religiously paid her taxes for 20 years and had to pay €4,000 extra in 2011, I found Mrs Lagarde's comments extremely offensive.

Of course there is tax evasion in Greece. It is a huge problem and it has not been tackled yet. But there is a very big part of the Greek people that pay their taxes and have seen their incomes shrink. This kind of comment plays directly to the hand of Alexis Tsipras.

The kind of comment that would help now would be, for example, that Europe would help the Greek government locate the huge amounts of money that have fled Greece in the past year.
Irini Andreadi
Athens, Greece

• Given the IMF's destructive and impoverishing policies in sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere, I doubt Christine Lagarde is in a position to make claims about her concern for "little kids from a school in a little village in Niger ... Because I think they need even more help than the people in Athens". No one in the IMF, the World Bank or the World Trade Organisation is in a position to preach economic/financial righteousness to others.
Bruce Ross-Smith
Oxford

• The moral weight of Christine Lagarde's matronising of the Greeks to pay their taxes is not strengthened by the fact that, as director of the IMF, she is in receipt of a tax-free annual salary of $468,000 (£298,000, plus perks).
John Weeks
Professor emeritus, University of London

• To hear that latter-day Marie Antoinette Christine Lagarde tell someone rummaging in bins for food he should pay his taxes is obscene. She should resign.
Michael Paraskos
London

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