latetoschool

Sometimes I don't understand this institution. Primary purpose is economic development in poorer regions of the world, but, employees are incredibly generously compensated, and the benefits packages and leave time granted are incredible.

Wolfowitz (apparently) literally forced his then-girlfriend to leave the bank for the State Dept. so that there could be no conflict of interest, in spite of the fact that many top-ranked executives have spouses and other family members employed in the same or related departments. As to his girlfriend, she was furious at the prospect of having her career derailed and being forced out to the State Dept. when other employees suffered no such requirement, and rightly so. So Wolfowitz tried to do the right thing, but went overboard, and ends up being forced to resign...

I totally understand the basic issue of complying with internal regulations, but, this entire issue just looks and feels wrong - it's almost as if the board needed a way to force him out because they couldn't stand his ties to the Bush administration, or couldn't stand his politics, or both....

conyat

Part of it was the arrogance. That he was above the regulations. And the sneaky way he went about it, by not having the internal reviews that should have been conducted before granting salary increases to his sweetie that were far greater than the rules allowed.

Additionally, Wolfowitz first lied when confronted, insisting that the ethics board had approved the raises, when it hadn't. The thing about the banking industry is that it's all about integrity. You simply cannot issue statements with false, easily disproved claims and hope to keep your job the way that you can in politics.

There were other issues that went to job performance rather than ethics. For example, Wolfowitz made it a point to push the Bush administration's anti-contraception agenda, making unilateral decisions to remove family planning from policy statements and from grants of assistance--over the wishes of the other countries participating in the World Bank, and the countries who asked for assistance.

A World Bank is a co-operative endeavor, not a private business or a dictatorship. It only works if the guy at the top agrees to be accountable to the rest of the community. That simply wasn't in Wolfowitz' nature, so best he moved on, before the other countries dropped out--as they were on the verge of doing.

conyat

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...482945,00.html

He also stocked the World Bank with tons of cronies to the detriment of the bank:

Turns out the family planning issue wasn't just a job performance issue; there was also an integrity issue, as he lied to cover his tracks:

Also at issue was Wolfowitz' reaction when the news about his rule-breaking was disclosed. His immediate concern was not trying to rectify the situation--it was shooting the messenger.

I realize that in some circles all this is considered "a heck of a job." But not in the circles that count, the countries that contribute to the bank's coffers.

conyat

You've been misled. Per the above linked article, it wasn't Wolfowitz' idea to move her out of the Bank; this was something the Bank insisted on.

His plan when he took over the job was to function as her superior, but allegedly he was going to recuse himself from salary decisions. The decision to move her to the State Department was made only after bank ethics officials said no to this arrangement.

It was the ethics officials who tried to do the right thing, and Wolfowitz who went out of his way to defeat them by bypassing their approval on the unprecedented salary increases he arranged for her.

About the only thing Wolfowitz tried to do right was to disclose his relationship with her upfront. But I think that was out of necessity--trying to take the position without making that disclosure would be what Dear Abby used to call "trying to slip daybreak past a rooster."

interesteddad

Yeah. Poor misunderstood Woolfie. I mean what is it with all the meaning out there attacking everying from the Bush administration. You'd think they lied about starting a war, tortured people, and tore up the Constitution or something.

razorsharp

The only lie was the Big Lie told by countless others to make it appear Wolfowitz did something wrong. Wolfowitz was trying to hold the feet to the fire of a lot of people trying to misuse funds. This is just more politics of personal destruction.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?

conyat

Um, Razor, there's nothing new in that passage you cited.

I already mentioned that Wolfowitz' original plan was for his girlfriend to work under him, but to recuse himself. The ethics officers turned down this plan. With good reason, it looks like, given that Wolfowitz refused to accept that a very basic limit like the salary scale applied to his sweetie.

If you ever go to work for a big company, you'll understand why this is such a big deal. Having an employee (and a contentious and difficult one by even Wolfowitz' accounts) that you can't supervise effectively because the big boss refuses to accept that he or she is subject to the same rules and limits as everyone else is an untenable situation.

So it's simply not a lie when a right-winger says something that's false and deceptive?

The ethics officials have said over and over again that they didn't approve the raise; they weren't even informed of it till it hit the press.

I suppose a conspiracy theorist could argue that its the ethics officials who are lying, but it stands to reason to believe them over Wolfowitz. If they'd approved the raise, there would be a paper trail he could point to.

I'll grant that in some circles of the US, lying your way out of a jam in order to keep power may be laudable behavior. But that's a cultural thing.

However much some here may approve personally, the reality is that the wealthy nations of Europe do not appreciate deceit in the person who is handling money they donate. And without them, there isn't much of a "world bank."

conyat

I think the reaction to this episode illustrates the cultural divide in America.

Left: He shouldn't have broken the rules and then lied about it.

Right: He was entitled to do whatever he wants, regardless of the rules, because he's on our side. And it's not a lie if it benefits our side politically.

That may work OK at home, but an international community is not going to accept it.

ETA: I forgot the other right wing meme. Anyone who thinks that the rules apply to a right winger clearly has some kind of sinister, possibly Nazi-like intent.

latetoschool

What I have some issue with is the fact that there are many MARRIED couples at the bank who work at different levels in same or proximal departments and no one in those relationships is having their career shelved or being forced out to executive departments etc.

I actually agree with W's girlfriend here - I too would have been outraged - and would have been demanding serious compensation - for being sent off to the state department while married couples continued their careers without interuption.

Of course, I would have ended the relationship as well...

conyat

Is there any instance of a married couple where one is in a direct line of oversight over the other, like Wolfowitz wanted to do with his sweetie? Having married couples work for the same entity, but not supervising each other (or each others' bosses) is not a conflict of interest in the same way.

The difference may not seem as obvious to someone who has their own business without many layers of bureaucracy underneath. But it's an absolute nightmare for a supervisor when they have a difficult employee who is accountable to no one because of favoritism by upper management. This is why the World Bank very rightly said it was a conflict of interest for Wolfowitz to supervise his girlfriend's supervisors.

The best resolution would have been for Wolfowitz not to take the job, especially since he wasn't able to restrain himself from violating policy and procedures to benefit his girlfriend.

But if you believed you were due extra compensation, you would have gone through the proper channels-- rather than just breaking rules to get whatever you thought you were entitled to.

And again, Reza wasn't due any extraordinary compensation. Married couples both working for the bank is nothing at all like having one's lover supervise one's boss.

latetoschool

Conyat, some of those married couples actually are working within the same departments - hence her outrage. But the bigger contradiction is that the organization's pay scales are wildly in excess of what counterparts in private industry earn, which is weird considering the organization's mission. Imagine by contrast a person employed in the public sector earns less than the same category of profession in private industry; a person in the non profit sector earns less still. And the leave times are incredibly generous, as is the rest of the benefit package. There are people working there who do not do any actual real work, or at least not very much of it; rather, they spend a huge majority of their time just working the internal politics in order to protect their "non-jobs". Of course, there are people there who work very, very hard - incredibly long hours - but which group a person falls into appears to depend entirely on their political connections, and to a larger extend the political connections of their immediate supervisors.

Personally, I think Reza is due a huge apology for what she was put through - as well as appropriate compensation.

conyat

But is one supervising the other? You keep glossing over this, but it's a key distinction.

And Reza is now getting way, way more than even that wildly excessive scale. And thanks to her boyfriend's intervention, she'll get still more when she returns to the bank--and another promotion he finagled for her that was supposed to have been competitive under bank rules.

She's already gotten MORE than was appropriate to her position. That's the whole point.

Why would the bank owe her an apology for enforcing its rules? They have a very clear cut rule that partners cannot be in lines of authority over each other. They owe her an apology for not deciding that she was so unique and special the rules didn't apply to her?

Ridiculous, even by right wing standards.

If you have a rule that your employees can't talk on their cell phones while driving on company business, do you owe each of them who would rather not follow that rule an apology and extra compensation?

The World Bank is every bit as entitled to enforce its rules as you are to enfore yours.

marite

Latetoschool:

I have a good deal of sympathy for Shaha Reza in this issue, though none for Wolfowitz. He did break the rules. He knew them. The time to sort out their consequences was before he accepted the job.

The rules do seem to discriminate against unmarried partners. I suspect they were put in place in order to prevent exploitation and sexual harassment of subordinates by superiors (it probably was assumed, too, that the superior would be male). It may well be time to revisit the rules, but they are what they are now.

Actually, I find some fascinating parallels with the Plame/Wilson case; even though he was not at the CIA, it has been suggested by their detractors that she was responsible for sending him on a "boondoggle" as a means of undermining his findings.

It looks like Wolfowitz earned little sympathy within the ranks of the World Bank. The focus has been on his advocacy of the Iraq invasion, but it seems that he was an atrocious manager before coming to the WB. Fred Kaplan on Slate.com suggests that his a priori stance on issues has to do with his training as a mathematician. S, the math-nerd, actually said it was not a bad diagnosis (without knowing much about the details of Wolfowitz career).

conyat

I think the rule against partners being in lines of authority over each other applies to married people as well as unmarried. I haven't seen anything to the contrary. Do you have a source that the rule exempts married people?

According to everything I've read, it's all about the conflict of interest when one partner oversees another's work.

I totally agree. I'd further add that when Reza took her job over 10 years ago, she must have known that there was a rule against conflicts of interest. These kind of rules are pretty standard in any entity that receives public funds, and even in publicly traded companies due to the fidiciary duty to the stockholders. If it was very important to Reza to have a job where at some future point her boyfriend or husband could be in a line of authority over her (or vice versa), she didn't have to sign on with the World Bank.

mini

I'm glad he found a little luv, and is willing to make the necessary sacrifices for it.