Some (all?) stories are best read in context. Today's Financial Times ran a story under the headline "World Bank offers robust global outlook." Here are the lead paragraphs:The World Bank's annual global economic prospects report, released on Wednesday, is a rare thing these days: a study glowing with optimism about the future for globalisation.
The report not only says that the global economy should do well in the next two years, but that globalisation between now and 2030 will proceed apace.
This is one of those articles I had to read all the way from beginning to end, just to see if anywhere in this rosy account was any column space devoted to the more pessimistic account from the World Bank's own independent assessment arm. Sure enough, any evidence of the World Bank's own exercise in self-criticism was missing from this story; but then that assessment was yesterday's news (actually from December 8)! Have we come to the point where the annual report from the World Bank is about as credible as the annual reports from Enron used to be?
Alternative, it this just evidence of the extent of our addiction to optimism? The other day I was watching La Haine on the Sundance Channel. There is a running gag about a guy who has been pushed off the roof of a skyscraper. As he passes each floor, he says to himself, "So far, so good!" The punch line is: "It's not how well you fall but how well you land!" The independent assessment of the World Bank seems to be asking questions about how this institution will land, but the annual report would rather talk about how well they are falling!
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