World Bank Contradictions

latetoschool · May 20, 2007, 12:27pm

Marite, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for Wolfowitz either - he caused conflict and irritated everyone from the day he arrived, although, to be fair, it seems like the anti-American attitude was already festering when he arrived (but he did nothing to really improve the situation). But I am ridiculously appalled at what Reza has been put through.

Actually, I’d like to see the entire organization restructured, from the top down, and I’d like to see payscales and benefits more in line with what non profits earn - or at least a bit closer to private industry…but, that would be dreaming.

conyat · May 20, 2007, 12:31pm

I don’t think anti-American is fair to say. Anti-neocon perhaps, but thank God those two things are not coterminal.

Sorry, according to your prior statements about women in the workplace (and women who get raped) “there are no victims only volunteers.”

You’ve yet to make any kind of convincing case why out of 10,000 employees the Bank has no authority to enforce its rules for this particular one.

marite · May 20, 2007, 12:35pm

Conyat:

You expect people to know whether rules will apply to them 10 years on?

There are lots of rules that I do not agree with, but they don’t apply to me in the here and now, and so I don’t go challenging them. If and when they apply to me, I will reconsider. If I had to approve of every single rule and regulation, I would never be able to work.

I agree with Hitchens. In order to take down Wolfowitz (I agree he was a very poor choice), Riza is being vilified. I will not take part in such an exercise.

conyat · May 20, 2007, 12:36pm

No, but I do expect people to act in good faith. It’s hard to think of worse faith in business than signing a contract with the intent to break it if it ever becomes inconvenient for you.

Don’t want to buy that house after all, and the contract says I have to forfeit the earnest money? Well, now I’m crying foul because I had no idea when I put the earnest money down that I would change my mind about the house.

If Reza didn’t have a problem with her boyfriend not being able to supervise her when she didn’t have a boyfriend being offered a job with the company, she should have no problem with same rule when she does.

But I don’t think you would sign a contract in bad faith the way you’re suggesting Reza should be entitled to.

latetoschool · May 20, 2007, 1:26pm

Conyat, you reinforce all the points I have made before, which I stand by. Thank you for reposting those points because people cannot see that message often enough - it’s too important. It is precisely because Reza refused to sit by silently and play the “victim” role that was scripted out for her that she is portrayed in the press as such a villain. Good for her for putting them through the ringer over it. And I hope she’s far from finished.

marite · May 20, 2007, 1:37pm

Conyat:

You don’t seem to be able to separate Wolfowitz from Riza, do you? They are TWO different individuals. 
Did she break a contract? Did she sign her contract ten years ago in bad faith? Where’s your evidence? where’s your sense of fairness? You seem to think that she, as a woman, should have been a doormat… Whatever one may think of her political beliefs, she is a talented and knowledgeable woman who is entitled to her own career. (I agree with Latetoschool here, that she should not have been forced to move).
If you want to go after someone, go after Wolfowitz, with my full agreement.

interesteddad · May 20, 2007, 1:57pm

marite:

All of that and more could be said of Valerie Plame. Wolfie and his boys didn’t seem to have much hesitation about destroying her CIA career.

marite · May 20, 2007, 2:23pm

Interesteddad:

I agree; which is why I brought up the Valerie Plame issue myself.
I make a distinction between Riza and Wolfowitz. I shed no tears for him. I deplore the vilification of Riza.

conyat · May 20, 2007, 3:33pm

I have no idea. But people are suggesting over and over on this board that she should have been allowed to break the terms of her contract anytime they were inconvenient for her. They’re the ones suggesting she was entitled to act in bad faith, something I find even more chilling than acting in bad faith itself would be.

Exactly where it belongs. On the proposition that all are created equal. There is not a separate, unwritten rulebook for certain individuals. Where’s the fairness to other 10,000 employees at the bank? Or to the bank itself?

Imagine how out of control a classroom would be–and how little time a teacher would have to teach–if there were no way to enforce rules. Every time a child decided that he or she didn’t like a rule, the teacher had no more standing to enforce it for that particular person. The teacher would never be able to get anything done.

So children who refrain from running with scissors because the teacher has a rule against it are doormats now?

She had the option to protest Wolfowitz’ hiring, either to him or the bank. Her apologists are claiming she should have had the right to have her cake and eat it too–have her boyfriend in a powerful, lucrative position at her employer, but not accept the limits that went with that situation, such as not having him set her salary or determine the contents of her performance evaluations.

Were you aware of that, by the way? That Reza’s front line supervisor and the HR department, on instructions from Wolfowitz, had no authority to give her anything but an “Outstanding” rating–regardless of the quality of her work or her conduct on the job?

Imagine if the principal told a teacher that for one particular child in the room to whom he had a personal connection, the grade for content and conduct could never be anything but an A? What do you think would be the effect on classroom morale and discipline?

First off, I have no real interest in “going after” either of them. My concern is with the attitude that very basic industry-wide ethical standards simply don’t apply to XYZ–and XYZ is so exalted that traditional authorities (such as employers) should have no jurisdiction over them. I don’t know if they have this attitude or not, but I dislike seeing it expressed on their behalf.

As for who is to blame:

Obviously, Wolfowitz shouldn’t have accepted the position if he wasn’t able to restrain himself from using his influence to exempt his girlfriend from the bank’s rules about promotions, raises, and performance evaluations.

But I do have to wonder about the person who would accept those kind of things vis a vis his involvement, given that the banking industry’s standards for conflict of interest are well-known. Perhaps she is blameless-perhaps he lied to her and told her that the ethics board had signed off on all this, the way he lied to everyone else when this first came out.

But a prudent employee, if the boss tells them something like this, would find a way to politely ask for documentation in case questions arose later. If it was too awkward for her to ask her SO for proof that the ethics board approved the extraordinary largesse, that demonstrates all the more the wisdom of the bank’s policy against conflict of interest.

marite · May 20, 2007, 3:42pm

conyat.

Your comments are so off the wall that I won’t engage in further discussions with you. 
You’ve succeeded in alienating a liberal feminist. Heck of a job!

conyat · May 20, 2007, 3:51pm

Go back and read post #6, that insists Wolfowitz did nothing wrong, and tell me again that some people don’t think that neocons are exempt from the rules.

This is simply not a feminist issue. I don’t know of any feminist who thinks that she’s entitled to have her boyfriend break rules on her behalf in the workplace and the employer shouldn’t be able to do a thing about it.

Why on earth should the bank’s salary scale suddenly not apply to Reza, just because her boyfriend is a powerful neocon? Why should she automatically get an “outstanding” job rating, just because her male lover demands it?

That has nothing to do with feminism and everything to do with women’s worth being judged, not on their own merits, but on the status of the males around them. It’s a major step backwards and the anti-thesis of feminism.

marite · May 20, 2007, 3:55pm

Conyat:

I am not razorsharp. Not only can you not distinguish between Wolfowitz and Riza but you cannot distinguish between different CC posters!

conyat · May 20, 2007, 3:56pm

I never said you were razorsharp. My posts were about the attitude razorsharp was expressing–that it was OK for Wolfowitz to break the rules for Reza. You kept challenging me, not I, you.

I am very well able to separate out what Reza did from what Wolfowitz did. I’ve even said that she may be blameless and have no idea that he was breaking rules on her behalf.*

I think you’re having trouble separating out the fact that I disagree with you from what I’m actually saying.

*But I am still not going to jump on the “the bank has no authority to enforce industry-wide ethical standards where Reza is concerned” bandwagon.

razorsharp · May 20, 2007, 4:12pm

The compenation Reza received was earned by her and not inflated by any relationship she may have had with Wolfowitz. This whole matter represents a slap in the face of a woman’s rights to be given credit for her hard work and talent.

Because Wolfowitz is not married to Reza, he did not directly benefit from any compensation she may have received. How Reza spent HER money was up to her and could not be controlled by Wolfowitz. There was no ACTUAL conflict of interest, merely the appearance of one that Wolfowtize recognized and attempted to recuse himself from. The only reason his actions get any attention is because of left wing witch hunt by people who can’t get their policies adopted legitimately so they use the polticis of personal destruction.

conyat · May 20, 2007, 4:20pm

Sorry, that’s bull. Have you even bothered to acquaint yourself with the facts in the case?

She was given raises well above the bank’s salary scale for a person in her position, not once but twice. She was given promotions that normally employees would have to compete for. This is well documented. She was allegedly reporting to the State Department, but was making more than Condeleeza Rice.

What proof do you have that she was such an extraordinary employee she deserved extraordinary compensation? If she deserved it, there would have been no reason not to get the ethics board to sign off on it.

You can’t even prove she was an outstanding employee, much less an extraordinary one, because Wolfowitz made a rule that she couldn’t be evaluated on her merits. She had to get an outstanding evaluation, no matter what she did.

Yes, but not in the way that you mean. The whole idea that a woman sleeping with a powerful man should be automatically be compensated higher than a woman sleeping with a less powerful man is just disgusting.

Compensating Reza in accordance with the bank’s salary scale, her applying for competitive promotions just like any other employee would have been giving her credit for her hard work and talent. A powerful man she’s personally connected breaking rules to give her extra, not so much.

BedHead · May 20, 2007, 4:34pm

<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/17/AR2007051702376_pf.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/17/AR2007051702376_pf.html</a>

I have thought about this issue a lot. I went to grad school where PW was a Dean, and generally speaking he was a good Dean, though I agree with the impression left about his Deanship with the article above. That is, “good, but not really there.”

And I had classmates benefit from their connection to him, in one case very directly through a job in the lead up to the Iraq War effort.

I do think that there was a lot of animus directed at him because of his ties to Bush and his authorship of US’ Iraq policy.

So, I’ve really looked to see if there is a way that this is all just a put-up job by disgruntled underlings.

And I think a balanced finding is as follows (in Wolfowitz fashion, I am declaring my own findings balanced and fair):

1) There is a lot of animus directed at PW because of his ties to Bush and authorship of the Iraq War.
2) He was given unclear instruction by the WB about how to handle his situation with his girlfriend.
3) He lied to cover up what happened.
4) It was really stupid to make himself so easy to come after given number 1.
5) He rankled a lot of people at the Bank because he didn’t respect the bureaucracy both in terms of hiring his assistants or process to do things like determine whether “corrupt” countries should have their lending cut off. In other words, he unilaterally and apparently capriciously decided himself which countries were or were not on his hit list (add an s in front of hit).
6) In light of number 5, revisit number 4 and redouble it.
7) He was a really bad choice for the institution because 1) he is not a development expert 2) he is not a banker 3) he is a lousy manager by all accounts. See the article above; his own friends say he can manage a paper bag, let alone his way out of one.
8) In light of number 7 revisit number 4 and redouble the redoubling of number 6.
9) One can have an argument about the value of the World Bank as an institution and whether it should exist or has outlived its usefulness or is a big, bloated bureaucracy. But if the purpose of PW’s tenure there was to assert this on some level, it was a really stupid way to make this argument. If it wasn’t to assert this, why the heck was he appointed to the job? To buy his silence? To reward him for a job well done on a war that ended with “Mission Accomplished”?
10) One line of defense that Wolfowitz used at one point was that his girlfriend Shaha had felt that she had been unfairly passed over for promotion and that her anger at this, in addition to her anger at having to give up her position because of her romantic bond, was why she felt she was justified in getting the huge raise she got. Uh, that’s just stupid, and if you don’t see why that’s stupid, you probably don’t actually work. This is not to say that it’s not unfair that she was being treated unfairly as a result of her romantic connection, but two wrongs don’t make a right.
11) What Wolfowitz should have done in the face of really poorly clarified instructions is to get the board on record in support of the deal that was struck. Wolfowitz did the opposite thing; he tried to hide it. If you don’t know why this was a stupid thing for him to do, revisit number 4 above and quadruple it.
12) It’s really, really a bad idea to let the US – a 16% shareholder – determine singlehandedly who the WB president should be. We really shouldn’t be in this position of having to completely revamp the rules around this issue, but since the Bush Administration chose cronyism (see number 9) versus competence or desert or rationality to name Wolfowitz in a world where the relative prestige of the US is declining anyway, we are going to have to sooner rather than later. Oh, and the same for Europe and the IMF.
13) People say that Wolfowitz is just being blamed because of his ties to Bush or because of Iraq. On the other hand, I would argue those people who make this claim are overlooking all the above to defend Wolfowitz only because of his ties to Bush and their unwillingness to have Iraq declared a failure as an effort. The fact is it’s true Wolfowitz might have gotten a lot more breaks if he didn’t have those ties or history. But then no other Administration would have been so inane as to name someone like him to that position in the first place – distinguished neither by general managerial track record or by specific understanding of the portfolio or even by his ability to effectively impose a countercultural ideology. Oh, and I know that some are going to say well, MacNamara was the same as Wolfowitz when he was named to the Bank. No, MacNamara started his career as a Harvard MBA in industry before turning to government. He may have been a brilliant ideologue with amazing blinders, but by all accounts he was a hell of a better manager.

Leave this one alone, latetoschool: it’s not worth trying to defend Wolfowitz. Keep your powder dry for other fights.

Here’s an interesting take on Wolfowitz and math.
<a href=“Wolfowitz's problem is that he's too good at math.”>Wolfowitz's problem is that he's too good at math.;

conyat · May 20, 2007, 4:41pm

Thank you for posting this. For a new boss to come in and decide he’s going to take it on himself to settle his honey’s old scores…this is exactly why institutions have rules about conflict of interest in the first place.

BedHead · May 20, 2007, 4:54pm

Hey, as Leona Helmsley said about taxes, rules and due process are for the little people.

I HAVE wondered how Shaha could have been treated more fairly than she was. It seems ridiculous to suggest that a woman should have to quit a company or organization 'cause her boyfriend was made CEO (when she was there to begin with). The very fact that it’s a thorny issue is why PW should have stayed on the level from A to Z about it.

For me, it was almost an aside, but the most telling thing in that whole article from the Post was that anecdote about him wanting to jump a DoD plane to Africa. Wow, talk about a rules don’t apply and I should be able to do what I want attitude.

marite · May 20, 2007, 5:02pm

Bedhead:

I agree with everything you wrote.

Besides the Iraq issue, there would have been tensions at the WB anyway because of Bush’s policy re: birth control among other issues.

I recently met someone who knew PW when he was in the diplomatic service. My acquaintance is generally liberal and much opposed to the Iraq invasion. He had kinds words to say about PW–a “decent man”–but agreed he was ideologically driven and inflexible as well as not a details-oriented person. I understand that was the verdict on his deanship, too?

conyat · May 20, 2007, 5:06pm

Well, she didn’t quit, she was transferred. That happens all the time in the business world, the subordinate is the one to be moved, regardless of which is male and which female. I suspect that the people defending Reza haven’t worked much in private industry for large corporations.

If your girlfriend is a judge and you’re a lawyer, you can’t try a case in her court, period. It really doesn’t matter whether you were there first or if you think it will hurt your career to work in a less prestigious court.

The best thing, really, would have been for the Bush administration not to suggest Wolfowitz, knowing that his girlfriend would be in his line of authority. (They could hardly not have known; he pressured a government contractor to hire her while he was still working for the US). To want him in that position and want him exempt from commonplace, industry-wide ethical standards is a bit much.

World Bank Contradictions

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