The Looting of Ukraine has Begun

[georgephillip]

A former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and editor of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page claims "the sincere idealistic protesters" who occupied the Maidan in Kiev recently are about to learn the harsh truth about IMF rescue packages:

"Ukraine will never see one dollar of the IMF money.

"What the IMF is going to do is to substitute Ukrainian indebtedness to the IMF for Ukrainian indebtedness to Western banks.

"The IMF will hand over the money to the Western banks, and the Western banks will reduce Ukraine’s indebtedness by the amount of IMF money.

"Instead of being indebted to the banks, Ukraine will now be indebted to the IMF.

"Now the looting can begin.

"The IMF loan brings new conditions and imposes austerity on the Ukrainian people so that the Ukraine government can gather up the money with which to repay the IMF.

"The IMF conditions that will be imposed on the struggling Ukraine population will consist of severe reductions in old-age pensions, in government services, in government employment, and in subsidies for basic consumer purchases such as natural gas.

"Already low living standards will plummet.

"In addition, Ukrainian public assets and Ukrainian owned private industries will have to be sold off to Western purchasers."

The West?s Looting of Ukraine Has Begun » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

 

[georgephillip]

"It is now apparent that the 'Maiden protests' in Kiev were in actuality a Washington organized coup against the elected democratic government.

"The purpose of the coup is to put NATO military bases on Ukraine’s border with Russia and to impose an IMF austerity program that serves as cover for Western financial interests to loot the country.

"The sincere idealistic protesters who took to the streets without being paid were the gullible dupes of the plot to destroy their country..."

"The Washington-imposed coup faces other possible difficulties from what seems to be a growing conflict between the well-organized Right Sector and the Washington-imposed stooges.

"If armed conflict between these two groups were to occur, Washington might conclude that it needs to send help to its stooges.

"The appearance of US/NATO troops in Ukraine would create pressure on Putin to occupy the remaining Russian speaking parts of Ukraine."

The West?s Looting of Ukraine Has Begun » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

 

[1ArizonaMan]

Stop watching "Russia Today". They are not truthful.

 

[georgephillip]

Stop watching "Russia Today". They are not truthful.

Who is?

 

[Katzndogz]

You are late to the party. Some of us knew this was going on since it started.

 

[jasonnfree]

"It is now apparent that the 'Maiden protests' in Kiev were in actuality a Washington organized coup against the elected democratic government.

"The purpose of the coup is to put NATO military bases on Ukraine’s border with Russia and to impose an IMF austerity program that serves as cover for Western financial interests to loot the country.

"The sincere idealistic protesters who took to the streets without being paid were the gullible dupes of the plot to destroy their country..."

"The Washington-imposed coup faces other possible difficulties from what seems to be a growing conflict between the well-organized Right Sector and the Washington-imposed stooges.

"If armed conflict between these two groups were to occur, Washington might conclude that it needs to send help to its stooges.

"The appearance of US/NATO troops in Ukraine would create pressure on Putin to occupy the remaining Russian speaking parts of Ukraine."

The West?s Looting of Ukraine Has Begun » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

John Perkins wrote about the IMF lootiing countries in "Confessions of an economic Hitman". Paul Singer, vulture capitalist, buys up poor countries debt also. It's made him a multibillionaire. He can now buy and sell politicians and he does, too. One of Romneys major funders.

 

[georgephillip]

You are late to the party. Some of us knew this was going on since it started.

Congratulations.
Some of us are still late when it comes to connecting the dots between policies in Ukraine and the US:

Joseph Stiglitz:

"This morning, I want to make eight observations concerning this inequality.

"The first is that this inequality is largely a result of policies—of what we do and don’t do.

"The laws of economics are universal: the fact that in some countries there is so much less inequality and so much more equality of opportunity, the fact that in some countries inequality is not increasing—it is actually decreasing—is not because they have different laws of economics.

"Every aspect of our economic, legal, and social frameworks helps shape our inequality: from our education system and how we finance it, to our health system, to our tax laws, to our laws governing bankruptcy, corporate governance, the functioning of our financial system, to our anti-trust laws.

"In virtually every domain, we have made decisions that help enrich the top at the expense of the rest."

Joseph Stiglitz | Why Inequality Matters and What Can Be Done About It

IMF "loans" to western bankers that benefit Ukraine's oligarchs and are expected to be repaid by Ukrainian workers and pensioners are just another example of how the global 1% privatize profits and socialize costs.

 

[georgephillip]

"It is now apparent that the 'Maiden protests' in Kiev were in actuality a Washington organized coup against the elected democratic government.

"The purpose of the coup is to put NATO military bases on Ukraine’s border with Russia and to impose an IMF austerity program that serves as cover for Western financial interests to loot the country.

"The sincere idealistic protesters who took to the streets without being paid were the gullible dupes of the plot to destroy their country..."

"The Washington-imposed coup faces other possible difficulties from what seems to be a growing conflict between the well-organized Right Sector and the Washington-imposed stooges.

"If armed conflict between these two groups were to occur, Washington might conclude that it needs to send help to its stooges.

"The appearance of US/NATO troops in Ukraine would create pressure on Putin to occupy the remaining Russian speaking parts of Ukraine."

The West?s Looting of Ukraine Has Begun » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

John Perkins wrote about the IMF lootiing countries in "Confessions of an economic Hitman". Paul Singer, vulture capitalist, buys up poor countries debt also. It's made him a multibillionaire. He can now buy and sell politicians and he does, too. One of Romneys major funders.

Singer is a good example of private parasites increasing their fortunes at the expense of millions of productive workers:

"In 1996, Elliott bought defaulted Peruvian debt for a reported $11.4 million. In 1998, a U.S. court ruled that one could not buy debt with the sole purpose of suing the debtor.

Elliott won a $58 million judgment in 2000, when the ruling was overturned.
After Argentina defaulted on its debt in 2002, NML Capital, a unit of Elliott, refused to accept its offer to pay less than 30¢ on the dollar on debts that originally amounted to over $182 million but that Elliott assessed were then worth $2.3 billion.[4][12]

"In early October 2012, NML arranged for the seizure of an Argentinian naval vessel in Ghana, the ARA Libertad, in an effort to force Argentina to pay its debt.

"Argentina, however, refused to pay the debt, and shortly thereafter regained control of the ship and removed it from Ghanaian waters.[13]

"In a November 2012 piece in the Huffington Post, Argentina's Foreign Affairs Minister, Hector Timerman, harshly criticized Singer for attempting to collect on the debt.

"Calling Singer 'the inventor of vulture funds,' Timerman argued that the $127 million Singer had received from the Republic of Congo to settle a $400 million debt he had acquired for $10 million 'should be going to build roads, schools and other poverty reduction programs.'”[14]

Paul Singer (businessman) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[georgephillip]

From a March 30th TRNN interview with Derek Monroe on the role of Ukrainian billionaires in the recent "revolution:"

"As it happens, to truly understand the political situation in Ukraine, one has to understand the situation within Verkhovna Rada, which is the parliament of Ukraine.

"As it happens, a majority of the opposition parties on the right, and including the party of regions, which was at that time ruling party of Ukraine, are founded and run by political oligarchs.

"And this basically comes from a geopolitical and economic setup within the new Ukraine, where basically it creates a system, almost a semi-feudal system, where five major oligarch families are running the whole economy.

"It's gotten to a point where the people are simply shut out from any kind of policy-making and process.

"And this also galvanized the population in general to simply go in the street and base their frustration with the possibility of not being associated with the European Union, to which they were looking for, basically, much better standard of living, much better prospect for their future.

Oligarchs, Fascists and the People's Protest in Ukraine

 

[editec]

None of this much surprises us.

Basically all that has happened is the THUGOCRACY controlling Ukriane changed from the Russian THUGS to the MASTERS OF WESTERN BANKING THUGS.

 

[georgephillip]

None of this much surprises us.

Basically all that has happened is the THUGOCRACY controlling Ukriane changed from the Russian THUGS to the MASTERS OF WESTERN BANKING THUGS.

The $15-$18 billion IMF loans will go straight to western (and maybe Russian) bankers with Ukraine's oligarchs taking their cut, workers will lose their jobs, pensioners will see cuts to their monthly checks, and Ukraine's resources and infrastructure will be bought up by western corporations like Chevron and Cargill. Another pit-stop on the road to Bangladesh for 99.99% of global humanity..