Mark Weisbrot is an American economist and columnist, and is co-director, with Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, D.C. As a commentator, he contributes to such publications as The New York Times, 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 is 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.