Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner had some choice words for Rodrigo Rato, the disgraced former head of Spain's Bankia bank, which was just blown out of the water and is now demanding a 23+ billion euro bailout. "Imagine everything you could do with that money, in terms of job creation," she said, during a May 29 speech.
Addressing an event at which credits were granted to the National Micro-Credit Program for the Social Economy, which has created 275,000 jobs, the Argentine President recalled that when Rato was the IMF's Managing Director, he had harshly criticized the economic policies adopted by then-President Nestor Kirchner, who basically told the IMF to go to Hell. "Rato gave some very memorable harangues against Argentina and its growth model â very harsh criticisms."
Rato "blew out a bank, but lectured everyone else on how they should run their country, along with his local hangers-on," who repeated Rato's dire forecasts about how Argentina would end up in disaster, Cristina recalled. "The truth is that we see these things, and then [compare them to] here, where a social economy bank created 247,000 jobs with 565 million pesos; well it's not that we think we're better than anyone else, but we feel very proud that this model, which has been so heterodox, and so horrifyng for some others, continues to generate hope and jobs. This is why we want to run the government. It is for this that we govern."
"Today, we face a change of era. The fact that a former head of the IMF has collapsed a bank, and that he previously lectured everyone else, is noteworthy," the Argentine President remarked.