During a recent panel discussion hosted by CNBC, IMF Director Kristalina Georgieva conceded that central banks globally “printed too much money and didn’t think of unintended consequences.”

 

 

"I think we are not paying sufficient attention to the law of unintended consequences. We take decisions with an objective in mind and rarely think through what may happen that is not our objective. And then we wrestle with the impact of it.

Take any decision that is a massive decision, like the decision that we need to spend to support the economy. At that time, we did recognize that maybe too much money in circulation and too few goods, but didn’t really quite think through the consequence in a way that upfront would have informed better what we do.

We act sometimes like eight years old playing soccer. Here is the ball, we are all at the ball. And we don’t cover the rest of the field.

Our ability to deal with more than one crisis at one time is very, very limited and we have to zero in on the really big things that could determine the future and keep our attention on them.”

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