Imf Policies Poem by David Chalk

To reduce poverty is their stated goal
Yet the policies they demand
Always leave assisted countries
In a deeper, darker hole

So why demand policies
That always do fail
That always float like a brick
That, like lead, do sail?

Is their faith in doctrine
Honestly that strong
That policy must always be right
And reality always wrong?

Or is their real aim
Opposite to what they claim
Is it to continue poverty
And power to maintain?

You can never reduce poverty
By concentrating wealth
You do not spread diseases
To protect the public health

So the question that must be asked
Is how to tear away their mask
And now force them to fulfil
Their official stated task?

We can start by recognising
That money in healthy economies
Like blood in a healthy body flows
And severing your arteries
Is worse than body blows.

So let countries pay their debts
Like donors giving blood
Instead of descending like vampires
And leaving corpses in the mud.