Travelling light
IT IS a pity that Mr Wolfensohn fell out with his crisp chief of staff, Rachel Lomax, who had arrived from the Treasury by way of Downing Street and has now returned to bide her time at the Welsh Office. Great international boondoggles have a staying power of their own, but nowadays the World Bank must compete. Its tied cus- tomers have now been relabelled as emerg- ing markets. The Bank has cheap capital guaranteed by its national shareholders, Britain included — but its competitors can travel lighter. They have learned to curb costs, turn away staff and get along without their vast head offices. Plans to raise their costs and keep them raised would go down with their shareholders like a plutonium balloon, and will not enthuse Mr Wolfen- sohn's shareholders, either. I now have two helpful suggestions for him. First, he should proclaim that his bank's aspiration was not to perpetuate itself but to work itself out of a job, Then he should put it somewhere closer to its customers, where costs are low and office space is cheap — Calcutta, or even Rangoon — and see how many of his cast of thousands choose to come along with him.
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