The Politicisation of the Future Fund
The Future Fund has barely invested a single cent and yet it is already the target of rent-seeking in relation to its basic administrative arrangements, such as its choice of custodian. The Future Fund’s investment decisions will be the subject of even greater scrutiny, especially following Chairman David Murray’s recent suggestion that the Fund would seek to invest in private equity. This scrutiny will necessarily be after the fact, given the lack of transparency around the Fund’s investment process. By creating an asset portfolio subject to public ownership and control, the Future Fund will increasingly become a focus for distributional conflict and rent-seeking.
posted on 22 May 2007 by skirchner
in Economics, Financial Markets
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Stephen your timing is spot on. On May 21st I sent this to the SMH and ABC: “The interview with Chris Hitchens last Friday on Lateline was the only program I am aware of in Australia which went some way to set the record straight about the World Bank’s railroading of Wolfowitz. Unfortunately the overwhelming number of journalists repeated the World Bank propaganda verbatim, effectivley becoming outsourced mouthpieces for the institution. The ABC’s Kim Landers, the Times’ Tim Reid, The Australian’s Geoff Elliott, AFP and Reuters, the New York Times, have all referred to Shaha Riza as the ‘girlfriend’ and presented the story as if the version of events presented by the World Bank officials (and the exceptionally vicious employees union) was truthful. Hence Wolfowitz was always presumed guilty, even though the Wall Street Journal and Chris Hitchens had published detailed rebuttals of the World Bank accusations. It has been a shameful dereliction of the journalists’ duty to be the fourth estate. Not only has the press been complicit in the injustice against Wolfowitz, it has been complicit in keeping the real scandal under wraps, which is the World Bank itself. The real story has gone missing while the journalists have become collaborators (and I do mean that in the sense it was used during wartime occupations). Even though I count some journalists as friends, I feel a deep sense of shame for the profession.”
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05/22 at 01:52 PM