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Arabica Robusta

The Kamikaze Economics and Politics of Forcing Austerity on the Ukraine | New Economic ... - 0 views

neweconomicperspectives.org/...forcing-austerity-ukraine.html

economic adjustment crisis structural theory neoclassical social neoliberalism debt ukraine russia us intervention

shared by Arabica Robusta on 08 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • austerity dogma trumps – simultaneously – good economics, good domestic politics in the U.S. and the Ukraine, and U.S. national security.  That’s how insanely powerful the failed dogma of austerity has become.  The CEOs who run the banks that loan money to the Ukraine are more powerful than the Pentagon and our State Department.
Arabica Robusta

BRICS' new financial institutions could undermine US-EU global dominance | Al Jazeera A... - 0 views

america.aljazeera.com/...developmentbankimffinance.html

economic adjustment crisis structural neoclassical theory social neoliberalism debt brics

shared by Arabica Robusta on 10 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • During the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis, when middle-income countries were hard hit by big capital outflows, there was an effort by China, Japan, Taiwan and other countries to put together an Asian Monetary Fund to offer balance of payments support. Washington vetoed the idea, insisting that all assistance had to go through the International Monetary Fund. The result was a mess, including an unnecessarily deep regional recession, as the IMF failed to act as a lender of last resort and then attached all kinds of harmful and unnecessary conditions to its lending.
  • Western media coverage of these developments has been mostly dismissive, but that primarily reflects the concerns of Washington and its allies. They have had unchallenged sway over the decision-making institutions of global financial governance for 70 years, and the last thing they want to see is competition. But competition is exactly what the world needs here.
  • Just look at Ukraine, where the economy is shrinking by 5 percent this year and the IMF is imposing austerity that will prolong and possibly deepen the recession.
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  • Although most economists and most of the major media have ignored it, the IMF’s loss of influence over economic policy in most middle-income countries is one of the most important developments in the international financial system in the past half-century.
Arabica Robusta

The Collectivist, debt colonialism and the real Alexis Tsipras | openDemocracy - 0 views

www.opendemocracy.net/...ialism-and-real-alexis-tsipras

greece social movements economic crisis development intervention tsipras neoclassical

shared by Arabica Robusta on 31 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • The first of many clashes between Alexis Tsipras and the status-quo powers concerns not debt restructuring and structural reforms but EU-Russian relations. A statement published on the January 27, 2015, claimed all twenty-eight leaders of the EU agreed that Russia bears responsibility for the rocket attack on Mariupol. The attack killed thirty people.
  • In this context, Alexis Tsipras’ expression of “discontent” at not having been consulted may have been justified. “The aforementioned statement was released without the prescribed procedure to obtain consent by the member states and particularly without ensuring the consent of Greece” the Greek government noted. “It is underlined that Greece does not consent to this statement”. Whether the oversight was intentional or a mix-up resulting from the transition of power in Greece remains unclear. That the new government of Greece will exert pressure in order to realign EU policies towards Russia should not however be in doubt.
  • What is more, EU pressure contributed to the failure in the privatisation process of one of Greece’s state-owned energy companies to a Russian-backed consortium. Subsequent criticism to the effect that Greece is not privatising assets at sufficient speed have sounded hollow as a result. EU sanctions on Russia are thus directly affecting some of the few dynamic segments of the Greek economy and have contributed, albeit indirectly, to SYRIZA’s victory in these elections.
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  • All things considered, Alexis Tsipras is wrong on Ukraine. The fact that EU policies have had such a destabilising effect on the country, and that even today the EU is not offering anything like adequate aid, are not sufficient to justify Russia’s annexation of the Crimea and its support for separatists in the East.
  • Whatever one’s take on dependency theory, it should be self-evident that no democratic country can support running primary surpluses of up to 5% of GDP over decades, as called for by the Memorandum, when over 25% of its population is unemployed, poverty is endemic and the productive base of the country has been ravaged. Given similarities to economic conditions during the Great Depression, the EU should consider the victory of a democratic party like SYRIZA a relief. Still, it remains a source of surprise that the EU did not move to link debt reduction to GDP growth before April of 2014, in other words before the Euro elections, when such a move might more easily have been coupled with accelerating the pace of the structural reforms that are needed to strengthen Greece’s private and public sectors. 
  • It is already exposing Greece to criticism. But can Greece’s economy – in particular its banking sector – survive such brinkmanship on all fronts for even a short period of time?
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