The Minsk ceasefire is holding up remarkably well, and no one was killed in the Ukraine Civil War today. That should be great news for the Poroshenko government, but is likely overshadowed by their worsening economic state.
The state-run natural gas monopoly Naftogaz is struggling mightily with keeping gas imports flowing, and is once again facing a cut-off this week as they’ve failed once again to pre-pay for their shipments.
Meanwhile, the hryvnia, the Ukrainian currency, is in a state of free-fall, having lost about half of its value with respect to the US dollar so far in February. Today saw another plummet, when their central bank announced a surprise ban on currency trading.
The ban was supposed to be through the end of the week, and sent investors scrambling. The central bank, bizarrely, reversed the ban just hours later, leading to a bit of a rebound.
The damage may be done, however, with the threat of being hung with increasingly worthless hryvnias from an increasingly insolvent Ukrainian government underscored by that brief ban. While the IMF is promising to do something to save the currency, the number of bailouts Ukraine’s new government has already burned through doesn’t leave much hope that the nation, even if it can reform its way out of civil war, can readily fix its economy.
Ukraine needs this cease fire badly just to regroup. Even the ultra right battalions that are threatening to overthrow Poreshenko if he honors the cease fire must realize they need time to lick their wounds or be totally defeated.
What, that US chick who pretends to be finance minister in Ukraine hasn't done anything to save the economy and currency? Shocking news.
War — Pure profit for the rich
A super good deal, for a mere $5 billion our Empire buys a coup d’état that gives it full ownership of a bankrupt Ukraine government. Stupidity is, the astronomical costs of maintaining such a failed state, the billions upon billions needed for war-bombs and assault tanks to fight a civil war, an economy that suffers a loss of all goods and services produced until an end comes to the war, surely this is the ultimate conclusion of allowing the quick-profit rich to control things.
For not hardly is this a civil war when such a rich man’s paradise like Ukraine has one group of billionaires fighting to join the Europe Union, just as many billionaires dead set against it and both power combines bringing in foreign troops to enslave the population.
Capitalism 101, don't pay for it don't get it, default on payment when there is a loan cut off the supply or repossess!
Does this mean in the US now if you do not pay your utilities like gas and Power you get them for free!
I DONT THINK SO!
The "IMF is going to save a country"? Such cruel parody.
Don't worry, our handpicked economists will remove the statist barriers to growth and have Ukraine leaps and bounds ahead of Russia economically in no time. In 2025 we'll be hearing about Ukrainian violations of Russian sovereignty because they'll be the bigger economy. Democracy always wins.
Please ignore that the apologist ideology of the 1% that we call economics in the west doesn't work.
Why has not this been done already? Why? All East European countries have opened themselves up to neoliberal economic model, deregulated much further then Western Europe, and are not by all meaningful indicators worse off then under Soviet Union? Meaningful indicators are standard of living for majority of people not top 5%, health care access and affordability, education access and affordability, employment, hours worked, number of older people forced to stay in workforce until death, as there is no way to retire in dignity, sustainability of economic activity, that is reliance on import, and the resulting growth of debt, etc. Look at Baltic states, Balkans, Central Europe, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece. Not to mention the woes of Italy, France, Portugal, Spain, Ireland — all of them the product of the same economic model. People in Greece and Bulgaria are now hungry. What a contrast to once well off Greece with their merchant fleet, shipbuilding, and agriculture. What about Bulgaria that once fed Europe during Soviet times, while today, people go to nearby equally poor Serbia in search of seasonal work to feed themselves? The system you advocate is an unmitigated disaster all over Europe, Africa, and Middle East. Wars are thus a necessity — lest the oppressed do something to shake off the dysfunctional systems. How little do you know. We are in our own country sitting atop of a huge finance bubble courtesy of neocons that seem capable to sell to us the idea that REAL ECONOMY DOES NOT MATTER, only the credit they create! And for as long as they will be allowed to create the credit, the bubble won't collapse! Of course, they make sure that their own kind stashes away plenty of goodies before the pile of rubbish called "treasuries" all over the world, collapses. They are too busy looking for another host to latch on.
Poor Poro…I'm sure he envisioned being able to raid the Treasury while his loosely controlled storm troopers ran all the "sub-human" malcontents out of the country. Problem is most of the income generating business sectors are in the eastern oblasts and the semi-leashed jackbooters shelled the industries to nothing. Poro has no national income except the handouts from those who would own him.
If I was a banker at the IMF, Ukraine would be one of the last places I'd want to authorize a loan. Just sayin'…
This sounds like a tacit admission that Putin can't win militarily and his American supporters are thrashing about wildly trying to sow panic.
So all those US sanctions on Russia have been admissions that the US can't win militarily either, then?
SOMEONE is thrashing about wildly. Be careful not to accidentally knock your electric radio into the bathtub with you and your rubber ducky.
Why doesn't John Mc Cain agitate for the US to pay Ukraine´s gas bills? That would surely elevate his stock with the World Savers, and its far less than the taxpayer money used to change the regime.
We deserve to be rich? — We deserve nothing?
Today one billion suffer hunger, yes one out of eight suffer that type of food insecurity and the root cause of it has all to do with basic human nature. For one hundred vegetarians could have their nutrition satisfied on what it takes to feed a person who prefers the average American diet, a 50% fat diet so refined that it contains virtually none of the complex carbohydrates or other nutrients essential to maintain good health.
And the mindset that one needs to be health conscience plus caring and giving to the starving, this is the same attitude adjustment one needs to except the socialist perspective on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
For socialism is the only system of economics that can cure global warming and the over consumption of fossil fuels, as only socialism eliminates competition and strives not to maximize production, but to optimize what we produce in a way that satisfies the needs of all, not just the wants of those rich and powerful who seek to maximize excessive wealth.
For our driving force in life, that which controls all of our desires, goals and ambitions, it is none other then a drive to own what we think is ours, to gain what we perceive is due and owed to us.
So, to maximize pride and have great ambition to take all you can take, you have but to convince yourself that you deserve to be rich.
On the other hand, to be so humble as to give all you can give to those in need, you have but to except the reality that we humans have this world about to expire in a convulsion, that surely no one deserves to own even this one day of life. Which means that we own nothing, that everything we have belongs to those who have less and most guilty would we be toward those in need who come into our life, if ever we failed to give all we can give.