By Sergei Glaziev
Translated from the Russian by Lenok
source: http://www.vz.ru/opinions/2015/3/4/732706.html
National Bank of Ukraine decided to raise the refinancing rate to 30%. Raising interest rates, the financial authorities followed the same path as the Bank of Russia.
The consequences will be the same: compression of already inaccessible credit, worsening recession and high inflation at the same level – about 30%.
Monetary policy, reduced to limiting money supply, in times of crisis everywhere and always gives the same result – the retraction of the economy in stagflation trap, that combines the decline in production, high inflation, rising unemployment and falling incomes.
As I understand the argument, it is a requirement of the IMF. It is absolutely standard, based on the monetarist dogma, and, is widely known as a model of shock therapy. Only export-oriented activities will survive under such a policy.
Since the current Ukrainian authorities are breaking cooperation with Russia, only export possible is that the EU is interested in. Along with sunflower and scrap, it will export cheap labour, smuggle weapons, and, possibly, chernozem.
At the same time there won’t be any investment in agriculture. I mean the physical removal of Ukrainian black earth. Ukraine already has experience of European integration in 1941-1944. The occupation authorities were exporting from Ukraine to Germany chernozem and labour, especially women labour.
The same is happening today – the current government are also occupation authorities. They are assigned by the US and the EU and will likely pursue the same policy. Ukrainian women are always appreciated in Europe. Their removal becomes the main item of Ukrainian exports.
IMF recommendations are harmful to the Ukrainian industry, construction and agriculture. But they are quite useful for the US-European kudos.
Western speculators attract money on their financial market, where, as you know, for several years rampant money printing is taking place. Over the last decade the monetary base in Europe and US has increased three to five times.
This cheap money must be bind to avoid hyperinflation. Therefore, the IMF imposes to our own countries the policy of contraction in the money supply, replacing it by foreign loans and investments, and using all sorts of speculative funds.
Today you can buy Ukrainian assets on the cheap. Then they unleash market and resell them to direct investors.
Ukrainian economy will get nothing apart from little increase in foreign exchange reserves. But this will not be enough to stabilize the economy.
Any sane expert in these conditions would recommend restoring cooperation with Russia. Save a free trade zone with the EAEC and return to the path of Eurasian integration. There is simply no other way for the sustainable development of the Ukrainian economy. It is necessary to revise the agreement with the EU, based on the interests of Ukrainian producers and cooperation with Russia.
After that, one should start restructure of the external debt, while offering a program of restoration and modernization of the economy with deployment of long-term loans. To this end, the National Bank will have to master the technology of multi-channel refinancing of banking system and development institutions under the demand for money from the real sector with acceptable interest rates.
The current authorities will definitely steal everything. After all, from what I hear, the people demand dismissal of the head of NBU for this reason. Ukrainian authorities have already set up a multi-channel system – not for the economy but themselves. I mean special credits by NBU for commercial banks associated with Kolomoisky, Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk. Criminals will not work in another way.
They use the power solely for the purpose of personal enrichment. What can be easier? Make the NBU print money for their banks to cash them and then require the NBU to exchange it for dollars and export it to offshore.
Today it is the main business scheme of the Ukrainian euro-leaders. Perhaps today’s IMF mission is to fight against this oligarchic business in Kiev. But between two evils it’s not worth choosing.
It is an improvement on the old economic policy – start a war between Russia and US and cream off from the US investments.
Along the lines of the labor export Mr Glaziev talked about.Lets see how those “exports” are doing in Poland:
” Ukrainians for cleaning, gardening, pierogi, and sex. At the Piaseczno “slave market,” Poland.”
By Ewa Wołkanowska-Kołodziej, Iryna Kołodijczyk
Translated from Russian by J.Hawk [excerpts]
A Pole locked up two Ukrainian women in the basement. He let them out after two weeks, but they didn’t want to talk about it. “Didn’t you go to the police?”—I ask. “But we have no rights here”, they answer.
You stand by the road and wait for a Pole. On Sunday, in the frost, from 5, 6 in the morning. Maybe today a Pole will wake up thinking “I don’t have a pressed shirt” or “why pay for a worker if I don’t have to pay?” Then he’ll get in the car and come get a Ukrainian girl: to pain walls, load coal, assemble scaffolding. He’ll pay 7 and sometimes even 20 zlotys per hour. At the end of the day he may pay less than promised, or not pay at all. But that’s better than working for a month and getting paid nothing.
I drive to the illegal labor market in Piaseczno. Ukrainians fondly call it “the little market,” Poles, more directly, the “slave market.”
Roksana: “A week ago a young man took a woman who used to pick apples for him into his car. They drive off, but then I see the car stops and she jumps out crying. What happened, I asked. She replies—he told me I’m taking you not to pick apples but for loving. But she was 60 years old!”
A few women nod her heads. Olena: “When I first came here, I stood over there, by the bushes because I didn’t know anyone. Others looked at me funny and whispered among themselves. One finally came up and said, stand closer to us. Here they wait for sex.”
Gala: “A Pole took me and a friend to paint in Konstancin. A big house, tall fence. We entered the garden and are painting, but he asked me to change the bed for him. So I enter into his bedroom and then he approaches me from behind and starts to grope me. I ran out screaming, the two of us wanted to run away, but the gate was closed. What were we to do? We kept on painting.”
Olena: “Poroshenko ought to come and see this. Let him see how Ukrainian emigres live… it’s easier during the summer. A farmer pays 7zl per hour or by kilo, then one can earn as much as 100zl in a day. Sometimes he’ll offer work for several weeks, even offers housing and food. But the work is hard.”
Anna: “I managed to pick radishes for 6 days. They paid 3.5zl per box. In each box 50 bunches of radishes, 12 radishes per bunch. I was not used to such hard work. I filled 12 boxes in 12 hours, but some women filled as many as 30. I paid 5zl per day for housing. You work close to the ground, it’s as cold as in Siberia. If it rains, you sit in the mud the whole day.”
Kateryna: “Picking beets was like a concentration camp. We could not stand up because then supposedly you slow down. We could not talk, only use sign language. One sandwich and a cup of tea for dinner. That was all.”
Larissa: “Never admit to the Poles that you can make pierogi! They won’t leave you alone, you have to feed them all the time. It’s worse than cleaning. I spent an entire day making pierogi, and they didn’t even invite me to eat with them.”
Olga: “I recently quit after one day. There were three reasons. The lady of the house wanted a copy of my passport. That never happened before. Two, all families encouraged me to eat whatever food is on the table. So I took an apple and she told me not to do it without asking. Three, she told me not to touch the dishes in the sink because she fills the dishwasher herself. So I drank my coffee and put it in the sink, and she yelled at me for that too. I thought, what do I need this for? I suffered my share in life, I have a sense of self-worth. Now I tell all employers I’ll work for only 8 hours per day. Like a white person.”
J.Hawk’s Comment: It’s as bad as that, and even worse. Ukrainians have been a fixture on Poland’s “labor market” for many years, but now there are far more of them, and they are chasing fewer jobs. And the official-level “sympathy” for the Maidan does not translate into tolerance toward Poland’s gastarbeiters, many of whom are acquiring radical anti-Polish attitudes as a result of the humiliating treatment they receive in Poland.
http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/03/ukrainians-for-cleaning-gardening.html
“Like a white person . . ?”
Funnily enough, this is a common phrase in Russian. e.g. “living like white people” means living respectably and comfortably…
Once IMF is superceded and vulnerable, the ensuing metamorphosis of “Ukraine” should “default”.
Why play the old game?
“Ukrainian women are always appreciated in Europe. Their removal becomes the main item of Ukrainian exports.”
Sounds like a simplistic view…what is the EU to gain from having hot ukranian ladies in its territory?
other than that, very interesting opinions.
Same thing the EU has to gain from breaking unions in Greece: Cheap labour.
The main export to EU is coming though now — small Ukrainian children age 5 through 9 (preferably Russian speaking ones for now). A few years fattening up on Monsanto-corn enriched gruel, while keeping down their fat through vigorous sexual services and doing chores, and they then make excellent meats for barbeque, with scraps going for pet food and feed for chickens and hogs. They don’t even need to make it green — Soylent red and Soylent brown work fine. It’s are an almost ideal capitalist project, and saves the Ukrainian rulers the expense of sustaining them.
As the CEO of the project says, “Lets cut the nonsense and get down to the real business at hand”.
Don’t neglect the kiddie giblets-excellent for the human organ trafficking business.
Oooops!
“7.5 billion UAH fraud of Yatsenyuk government uncovered in Ukraine”
“The Kiev junta wanted to expose the fraud of the previous government of Yanukovich, but audits, which continued until a year after the Kiev junta took control of the government also uncovered their own fraud. The head of State Financial Inspection was fired for the findings.”
“Levchenko, in his speech said that today at the briefing in the Parliament the fired chairman of the State Financial Inspection, Nicholai Gordienko reported about the government fraud for more than $7.5 billion UAH. “We’re talking about fraud in “Ukrpochta” (Ukrainian state mail service), “Ukrgazdobycha” (state gas company), about fraud of more than $4.5 billion UAH in “Naftogaz”, said Levchenko.”
“KR: Europe and America, by all means give them more money!”
http://fortruss.blogspot.ca/2015/03/75-billion-uah-fraud-of-yatsenyuk.html
The loot will be recycled to Western banks, Manhattan real estate etc. BAU.
Looks like the “indispensable” nation is trying to pile more pressure on Russia. Reported today in Press TV which I haven’t seen reported elsewhere :
US oil giant demands millions from Russia
“US oil and gas giant ExxonMobil is demanding millions of euros in back taxes from Russia.
Russian officials say Exxon chief executive Rex Tillerson was in Moscow for closed-door meetings with Energy Minister Alexander Novak.
The Kommersant daily says Tillerson is contesting taxes paid on the Sakhalin-1 project in the Far East operated by ExxonMobil.
Exxon, which owns 30 percent of the operation, claims it overpaid on the project.
The company has allegedly been paying 35 percent of its profit to Moscow despite the state reducing taxes to 20 percent in 2009.
Kommersant said while Exxon had not insisted on the issue in the past years, Western sanctions over Russia had prompted the company to change tack.
The company is reportedly threatening to file a complaint against Moscow at the international court of arbitration in Stockholm”.
The Russians should tell them to take it to the new International Court of Arbitration..Beiijing.
They’ll jutting have to wait til it’s up and running. ;)
Well they only have their own Govt. to blame! Who is driving the sanctions. The sooner Russia walks away from the Stockholm court – and all those other EU courts – the better. They will not get a fair hearing.
Rgds,
Veritas
If Tillerson is in Russia, lock the arrogant parasite up. In solitary, like they do in good old US of A.
Chernozom is the black gold, not oil, not gas. It is the major source of the organic energy for the humans and animals, i.e. food. It is very rich and incredibly well balanced , needs very little artificial fertilizers, or weed killers, or insecticides, and only small amount of organic compost and minerals for its replenishment, in order to have self-sustained food production.
Thus, having Monsanto, John Deere, Rothschilds, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sacks and other chemical and vulture corp’s buying/selling land there spells gigantic troubles for all Ukraine (and all Russian Fed. ) people in the (not so) long run. More so than what Nazis did in 1941-1944, as they did not have GMO, fracking, and nano technologies.
It is estimated that Ukraine has 30 % of the world’s black soil, with most common grains/seeds being wheat, corn, rapeseed and sunflowers. Nazi troops did cart some of chernozom back to Germany during World War II, just like coke coal, but stopped in 1943 after the major defeats at Kursk, Smolensk, and Dnieper.
Regards, Spiral
The last year I’ve seen figures for is 2012 — estimated $900 million worth of black soil was scraped up and exported. Illegally of course. This would fit in nicely with fracking, for which several acres per drill end up covered in pumped-out fracking sand, so you may as well remove and sell the chernozem off it first.
I wonder if black soil, scraped away from its mother earth and shipped away, would continue to contain the organisms and ethers that make it great….somehow I doubt it.
Once the Roundup Ready GE crops are introduced and the soils get drenched in Roundup, which sterilises the soil of micro-organisms, kills beneficial fungi and promotes detrimental ones and poisons nearby populations, the black soil will be history. If you want to see the future look at the catastrophe of Argentina’s soy growing belt.
There are many ways Malorussia (“Ukraine”) is being fleeced of its treasure. Here is another.
Due to the collapsing economy, the exchange rate of its currency, hryvnia, is right now at a dismal low. Because of that, the government bonds of the country can be purchased for a pittance – and they are right now being purchased in huge quantities by the western vultures.
The significance of it is quite simple. When the country’s economy at some future time gets back to normal, the value of hryvnia goes up (say, hundred times) – and so the value of these bonds also goes up (in this example hundred times). At that moment Mr. Shylock from New York & London, who earlier bought cheaply a big pile of these Ukie government bonds, for, say, one million U.S. dollars, goes to the Ukie government, rightfully demands that these bonds be paid in full in hryvnias, and then converts them back to U.S. dollars: he thus receives one hundred million dollars. The “recovered” Ukie economy is then owned by Mr. Shylocks & Families from New York & London. You get the idea.
These current going-ons are nicely detailed in Prof. Dr. Valentin Katasonov’s fresh article “Ukraine and the Rothschild Family”, http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/03/17/ukraine-and-rothschild-family.html (in English).
but really. This is not Mr Shylock’s fault. This is a fault with the whole economic system. Why should Mr Shylock be hated for being smarter, economically than us ??? Racism.
Because Mr. Shylock has operated under a differential moral system for 3500 years, where he will do things to those not of his tribe that he would not do to his brethren. Moreover he, or to be fair, many of his tribe, have only rarely shown any remorse or disinclination to exploit the ‘strangers’ mercilessly. This, in fact, has been the root of most antisemitic anger, and consequent pogroms and expulsions over the centuries. Implying Mr Shylock is ‘smarter’ than non-Shylocks, rather than just more unscrupulous, is the real racism here.
No doubt Ukraine will also be targeted by the money-lenders, particularly the ‘pay-day lenders’ with their yearly interest rates exceeding 1000%, that also plague the poor in the UK, USA, Australia etc. Another almost entirely kosher industry.
He makes good points, but here are a couple of better reports about how IMF is violating its own policy by giving money to Ukraine when it hasn’t implemented required reforms and is at war. Money for the banks has little, if any, supervision, despite past experience that it ends up in offshore bank accounts:
http://johnhelmer.net/?p=12920
http://johnhelmer.net/?p=12944
Who can stop these people?
And the Yanks have the insufferable gall to attempt to sabotage the Chinese Infrastructure Bank because it might not observe ‘appropriate standards’. The role of the IMF and World Bank in crucifying poor countries through the barbaric ‘structural adjustment programs’ that always destroy the target country’s health, education and social welfare, loot the economy through ‘privatisations’ and open the country to looting by Western capital, has caused more misery and premature death than any other Western crime against humanity.
Coincidentally, I re-watched Mr. Glaziev’s June 2014 presentation the other day, truly a watershed moment. Piracy, even when dressed-up in monetary and banking language, is still piracy. Terribly sad.
Dave night 18th Episode 619 MAR 18
44 min mark
Djibouti, home of a AFRICOM huge base, US embassy closed today!
What’s there??
Camp Lemonnier is a United States Naval Expeditionary Base,[2] situated at Djibouti’s Djibouti-Ambouli International Airport and home to the Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) of the U.S. Africa Command (USAFRICOM).[3] It is the only US military base in Africa.[4
news.yahoo.com/u-embassy-djibouti-closes-three-days-review-security-152118677.html
What else is surprisingly closed same time, as of 4 days ago?
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-embassy-saudi-remains-closed-third-day-726486126
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjuSSDokH_E
Love Glaziev…..guy is brilliant.
GLAZIEV IS PURE GENIUS. I LOVE GLAZIEV.