I.M.F. Hit by Sophisticated Cyberattack
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Which means they know. Which means it's China since if it was some backwater country they'd just go ahead and say it, and if it was a western one they'd assume it was teenagers. But coming from China, it is the government doing it, so that's the only country that's taboo to name after being hacked.
Looking forward to reading the stuff on Wikileaks.
Only absolutely necessary things should be classified. Not every time a goverment f*cks up, the should just print a "secret" onto it to get away with things.
Its not a democracy if we don't have enough information to make our election choices.
There are a lot of things, especially when you're dealing with market sensitive information, that's best done behind the scenes. If, for instance, the Prime Minister of Spain calls the IMF and asks what kind of deal they would be able to make in a bailout of the country it's in all parties best interest to keep it secret. If this hypothetical phonecall was public everyone in the financial markets would short Spain, thus making it a selffulfilling prophecy.
I'm fairly certain that a contingency plan exists if Greece defaults. I'm also fairly certain that there's a report somewhere in the IMF stating that the chances of a Greek bankruptcy are greater than 30 or 40%. If these plans were to be made public Greece would default within a week, and wreak as much if not more havoc on the world economy than Lehmann brothers.
Some things are best negotiated out of the public view.
In a few years these records should be made public though.
Bubbles, panics, and all that stuff shouldn't happen but it does because people aren't rational. They're driven by emootions such as love, hate and in this case fear. You can be certain that if documents were released tomorrow showing that the IMF were preparing a Greek default there would be widespread panic.
Furthermore, why is this "irrationality of the masses" more harmful than a leader keeping the secret that the country is asking about a loan from an organization that charges 50+% annual interest? After all, it's truly a rare thing that it's an economist who makes the final decision whether to go through with something like this or not. They're made by people receiving guidance from the economists you advocate secrecy toward those who pay their salaries. Why can't we all receive that guidance and information when it comes to matters of national concern?
The markets are no longer involved in financing the spending of the Greek state. Therefore, whether or not such information is made public would make no difference to the solvency of the Greek state.
Note, however, that such information can obviously affect the price of Greek bonds on secondary markets, and there are certainly major private players involved that are very interested in manipulating those prices. But democracy should not cater to such private interests.
The truth is that Greece will become bankrupt if and only if the EU does not decide to support the Greek government financially or Greek decides to exit the Euro. Without prolonged EU support, there is no way Greece can dig itself out of the hole that it was pushed into - austerity does not work, but without exiting the Euro or EU support, that is the only option available to them.
Whether Greece will go into bankruptcy or not is an entirely political decision, and a decision that is highly influenced by the IMF (although it is ultimately up to EU governments). So if the IMF were to compute odds for an event that they themselves pretty much directly influence, that would be pretty dishonest (or would demonstrate that somebody at the IMF does not understand the fundamental nature of the situation).
Of course, the rhetoric is always hyped. I've seen over the years where individual connections in a port scan was counted as a separate attack. Without details, this could be similarly "simple".