Will Americans Pay to Bailout Yet Another Foreign Bank ... in Afghanistan?
As Tyler Durden pointed out last week, the IMF has now abandoned any cap on the bailouts it gives, and the U.S. is the largest funder of the IMF.
Now, the New York Times says that the U.S. is going to bail out Afghanistan's biggest bank:
Details of the deal, including how much each government would contribute, were still being worked out on Saturday between the Central Bank of Afghanistan and the United States Treasury Department, officials said...Top officials at Kabul Bank and a senior leader at the Central Bank declined to comment publicly on the proposed bailout, which was still being negotiated. However a manager at the Central Bank and a senior American official confirmed what the American official called an "intervention."
Not surprisingly, there have been numerous allegations of corruption at the Kabul Bank.
Update: The New York Times has updated their story with comments from U.S. Treasury officials insisting that no American money will be used to recapitalize the Kabul Bank:
"No American taxpayer funds will be used to support Kabul Bank," said Jenni LeCompte, a Treasury Department spokeswoman.
[If this is so, it would mean that the CIA's heroin profits might be used to shore up CIS's own Afghan banking system. ]





