Mark Weisbrot

Mark Weisbrot is an American economist, columnist and co-director, with Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, D.C. As a commentator, he contributes to publications such as New York Times, the UK's The Guardian, and Brazil's largest newspaper, Folha de S. Paulo.

As an economist, Weisbrot has opposed privatization of the United States Social Security system and has been critical of globalization and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He has supported efforts by South American governments to create a Bank of the South, in order to make them more independent of the IMF. Weisbrot's work on Latin American countries (including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela) has attracted national and international attention, and in 2008 was cited by Brazilian Foreign Secretary Celso Amorim. In early 2010 Weisbrot's work on Latvia's economic crisis attracted national and international attention.

Weisbrot has several times contributed testimony to Congressional hearings, in 2002 to a House of Representatives committee, on Argentina's 1999 - 2002 economic crisis and in 2004 to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on the state of democracy in Venezuela, and on media representation of Hugo Chávez and of Chávez's Venezuela.

Mark Weisbrot has been critical of the opposition in Venezuela, and in turn supportive of the Chavez regime in clear contrast and comparison with policies in place in the United States. He uses the policies in Venezuela to criticize the policies set in place by the government on the United States. He has placed the burden of bad press of the Chavez regime on the shoulders of the government of the United States, as stated in an interview in PBS where he attributes the oil reserves in Venezuela as an important motive for the United States to desire a change in the south american country. He compares the reaction of the United States to the election process in Mexico, without knowledge of either the Venezuelan or Mexican elections systems or history and each country's laws.

Economist
Weisbrot earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. His 1993 thesis, Ideology and method in the history of development economics, was supervised by W. H. Locke Anderson. In 1999, he co-founded, together with economist Dean Baker, the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), "to promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people's lives". Weisbrot is co-author, with Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 1999). In the book, Weisbrot and Baker argue that much of the United States Social Security debate has been based on misconceptions, that privatization would be unlikely to improve the system, and that the system in fact performs satisfactorily and does not need fixing.

Commenting on international matters, Weisbrot argues that globalization, as understood by the United States government and American lending institutions, has failed to live up to its promise of making poorer countries grow rich, stating that "no nation has ever pulled itself out of poverty under the conditions that Washington currently imposes on underdeveloped countries." He has criticized the role played by the IMF and has taken an active role in developing the Bank of the South, a joint project by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela spearheaded by Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and designed to make South America financially less dependent on the IMF and World Bank. Weisbrot acted as a consultant to the governments concerned and has been described as the artífice intelectual, the intellectual architect, of the concept.

Weisbrot's work on Latin American countries (including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela) has attracted national and international attention,    and in 2008 was cited by Brazilian Foreign Secretary Celso Amorim. In early 2010 Weisbrot's work on Latvia's economic crisis attracted national  and international attention.

Weisbrot is also the President of Just Foreign Policy, a non-governmental organization dedicated to reforming United States foreign policy.

Media work
Weisbrot writes a column on economic and policy issues that is distributed across the United States by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. His work appeared in such publications as The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times/International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe and The Nation as well as news websites such as AlterNet, the Common Dreams NewsCenter and The Huffington Post. Internationally, Weisbrot writes a column for the UK's The Guardian, and for Brazil's largest newspaper, Folha de S. Paulo. He has appeared on national and local television and radio programs, including CBS, the PBS Newshour, CNN, the BBC, National Public Radio and Fox News.

Weisbrot's commentaries on Latin American affairs have been broadly sympathetic to many governments in South America, including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela. In particular, Weisbrot has praised Latin American governments' attempts to assert stronger national control over key national resources, and to take a tougher stance in relation to foreign creditors. Weisbrot has also criticized some of these governments' policies.

In 2009, Weisbrot and Tariq Ali wrote the screenplay for the Oliver Stone's South of the Border, which examined the "pink tide" of elected leftist governments in South America.

Publications




Co-authored with Dean Baker