Add together the cities of Donetsk, Kharkiv and Lugansk and you don’t reach the economic output of Dundee. World domination it isn’t. Unfortunately both in the Kremlin and on Capitol Hill they, and their satraps, think it is. Neither side cares at all about the millions of ordinary people in the zone of potential conflict.
The spiral of death in Ukraine is very worrying. Following the tragic deaths in Odessa, the ball is very much in Putin’s court. His bluff has very much been called. We will now learn whether he was stoking clashes in Eastern Ukraine and massing forces on his border in order to give a pretext for invasion – which pretext he now has – or in order to destabilize and intimidate Kiev into moving away from relationships with the EU.
This has been a discussion of the deaf even more within intellectual circles in the West than between Washington and the Kremlin, where at least the Machiavellians understand full well what they are doing. But their followers either, on the one hand, deny that there are any far right elements on the Ukrainian side or any CIA assistance, or alternatively deny that there are many millions of ordinary Ukrainians who genuinely want to be at peace in their own country and move towards the EU. They either claim that all the separatists are Russian agents and deny the genuine minority population which yearns for the Soviet Union or Russia, or they deny the existence of Russian agents and special forces in Ukraine, and that most of the Russian nationalists are every bit as right wing and appalling as the equivalent tendency on the Ukrainian side.
First, some history. The Ukrainian people really do exist. They have been a subjugated people for centuries, most lastingly by the great Polish-Lithuanian Empire and then by the Russian Empire. That does not mean they did not exist. Consider this: until 1990 there had not been an independent Polish state for over two hundred years, except for a fleeting twenty years between the two world wars. Yet nobody doubts the Poles are a real nation. I shan’t start on Scotland again …
None of modern Ukraine was Russian until the 18th century, when the expansion of the Russian empire and decline of the Polish took in these new colonies. As Putin famously remarked, it was called New Russia. Yes, Vladimir, note it was New. That is because it was a colony. Just like New York. Because it was called New Russia gives you no more right to it than the Channel Islands have to New Jersey. Ukraine had been Russian seven hundred years before its 18th century reconquest, but that population had migrated to Muscovy.
The expansion of the Russian Empire was exactly contemporary with the expansion of the British and American Empires, and other bit players like the French. Like most of the American, most of the Russian Empire was a contiguous land mass. The difference between the Russian and British Empires, on the one hand, and the American Empire on the other, was that the Russians and British did not commit genocide of the existing populations. The difference between the Russian and the British Empires is that the British gave almost all of theirs back in the post-colonial period (a process that needs to be urgently completed). Russia gave back much of her Empire at the fall of the Soviet Union, but still retained a very great deal more than the British. It is to me inarguable that, in a historical perspective, Putin is attempting to recover as much of the Russian Empire as possible, including but by no means solely by the annexation of Crimea and his actions in Ukraine.
Crimea, incidentally, had maintained its own independent existence as the last remnant of the Mongol Horde right up until the 19th century. Despite the Russian colonisation of Crimea in the 19th century, it still had a majority Tatar population until the 1940’s, when Stalin tried his hand at genocide on them. The Tatars were branded Nazis. Opponents of the Russian Empire are always “Nazis” or “Jihadists”. The deportation of the Tatars from Crimea was only twenty years before the British did the same genocide to a smaller people in Diego Garcia. I call for the restitution of both. Those who call for the restitution of one and not the other are appalling hypocrites.
Equally hypocritical are those who call for a referendum on Russian union for East Ukraine, but not for referenda on independence for Dagestan and Chechnya. It is an irony insufficiently noted, that in Russia to call or campaign for the separation of any part of the state is a crime punishable by up to 22 years’ imprisonment. There are over 7,000 people from the Caucasus imprisoned under that law.
There is absolutely no movement among the large minority Russians of the Baltic States to rejoin Mother Russia, because living conditions in the EU are just so much better. As I have blogged before, it is undeniably true that living conditions for ordinary people in Poland have vastly improved as a result of EU membership, and are much better than in Ukraine – or Russia.
GDP per capita figures for Russia look quite good, but do not give a true reflection of living standards because of astonishing levels of inequality of wealth. This is very bad in the West, and getting much worse rather rapidly, but is nowhere near as bad as in Russia which is the most viciously capitalist state in the world, made worse by its commodity dependency. The Russian economy is completely non-diversified, manufacturing and services are miniscule and it is overwhelmingly a raw commodity exporter in energy, metals, grain etc. That leads to extreme concentration of profit and a lack of employment opportunity. Combine that with mafia state corruption and you have the oligarchs’ paradise. Russia is a gangster state. On top of which, if I were a Russian who campaigned against the Russian government in the same way that I do against my own, I would be dead.
The desire of ordinary Ukrainians to join the EU one day, and move closer to it now, is understandable and indeed commendable. It was also the desire of Yanukovich. Those who claim Western pressure on Yanukovich forget – or choose to ignore – that Yanukovich’s government had actually, quite independently and voluntarily, negotiated the EU co-operation agreement and were on the point of signing it, when Yanukovich was summoned to Moscow by Putin and informed that if they signed the agreement, the energy supplies to Ukraine would immediately be cut off in mid-winter and debt called in.
That is a fact. It was not illegal for Putin to do that; it was perhaps even legitimate for those who believe in a Machiavellian approach to great power politics. Yanukovich temporized, between a rock and a hard place. Ukraine seemed to be at a key moment of balance, hung between the EU and Russia. The capital being in West Ukraine and overwhelmingly ethnic Ukrainian, pro-EU crowds started to build up. Then things started to get wildly out of control.
Were western governments encouraging pro-western groups in Ukraine? Yes, that’s their job. Did this include covert support? Yes. Were the Russians doing precisely the same thing with their supporters? Yes, that’s their job too. Did the Americans spend 5 billion dollars on covert support? Of course not.
Victoria Nuland claimed in a speech America had put 5 billion dollars into Ukraine. I used to write those kind of speeches for British ministers. First you take every bit of money given by USAID to anything over a very long period, remembering to add an estimate for money given to international projects including Ukraine. Don’t forget to add huge staff costs and overheads, then something vast for your share of money lent by the IMF and EBRD, then round it up well. I can write you a speech claiming that Britain has given five billion dollars to pretty well anywhere you claim to name.
The problem is that both the left and right have again, equal but opposite motives for believing Nuland’s bombast about the extent of America’s influence on events. I have been in this game. You can’t start a revolution in another country. You can affect it at the margins.
A military coup you certainly can start. One thing we don’t really know nearly enough about is what happened at the end, when Yankovich had to flee. The Maidan protestors would never have caused a government to fall which retained full control of its army. The army can fail the rulers in two ways. First is a revolutionary movement among normal soldiers – the French revolution model. Second is where the troops remain disciplined but follow their officers in a military coup. The latter is of course a CIA speciality. More evidence is needed, but if this is the second model, it is unusual for it not to result in military control of government. Egypt is the obvious current example of a CIA backed coup.
After Yanukovich we had entered the world domination game. Putin seemed to have lost. The annexation of Crimea was a smart move by Putin in that game, because there probably is a genuine small majority of the population there who would like to join Russia. I have no doubt whatsoever that Putin himself does not believe the 93% for a moment. As I said, the Machiavellian players of world domination are realistic; it is their purblind followers on either side who buy their propaganda.
The Kiev government and the West should have conceded Crimea before Putin moved his troops into it. The sensible thing for the new Kiev government to have done would have been to offer a referendum in Crimea itself, under its own auspices. That would have got the most hardline pro-Russian voters out of the country for good. But by that time, everyone had gone into Macho mode, which is where we still are.
None of the remaining provinces would opt to join Russia given the choice. There is no shortage of existing and historic opinion poll evidence on that. Crimea was the only province with an ethnic Russian majority. The Eastern provinces have Russian speaking majorities, but most are ethnic Ukrainian. I base ethnicity here purely on self-identification in census (and, as I have repeatedly explained, absolutely everybody in the former Soviet Union knows precisely what is asked in the questions of Gradzvanstvo and Narodnosch). Just as some Welsh people speak English, some Ukrainians speak Russian but do not consider themselves Russian. Putin’s frequent references to the Russian-speaking peoples coming back to Russia are as sinister as if we started talking of re-uniting all the English speaking people in the world.
As almost always with colonies, the minority ethnic Russian populations in the East of Ukraine are more concentrated in urban areas. Hence it has been possible in regional capitals to mobilise gangs of disaffected and unemployed Russian young men (in view of Ukraine’s basket case economy there are plenty), and with a slight stiffening of Russian forces take control of town centres. There is a significant minority, and possibly a majority in town centres, willing to support. It is, I think, extremely important to understand that the thugs on both sides are very unpleasant. I have the particular experience of relations with a lot of Uzbeks, and the incidence of racial attacks by Russian nationalist thugs within Russia itself is absolutely horrifying and almost completely unreported. The swastika is a popular symbol among young macho men throughout all of former Eastern Europe including Russia. I absolutely guarantee you that an equally significant proportion of the pro-Russians who have been attacking anyone who tries to show support for Ukraine within Eastern Ukrainian cities, are no more and no less right wing, racist and vicious than the appalling Pravy Sektor thugs included on the other side. We have plenty within the EU – there is a serious problem, for example, with the official encouragement given to commemorations of pro-Nazi forces within the Baltic states which often have a distinctly neo-Nazi tinge.
Putin’s campaign of controlling the urban centres appears to have gone wrong in Odessa, which is simply too large for the numbers of available young men armed with baseball bats to take control. The pro-Russians were badly beaten in precisely the same street fighting they had been winning elsewhere. The culmination of this was the terrible fire and deaths. My expectation is there will not be many women, children or old people among the dead, but also there will not be many non-Ukrainian nationals. I expect these will prove to have been local Russian young men.
Putin now has a real problem. His own rhetoric has indicated that he will sweep in and defend these Russians, but there is one thing anyone with half a brain should have worked out by now. The ruling 1%, the ultra-wealthy, in both Russia and the West are so interconnected with each other that they are playing the game of world domination while trying at the same time to make sure nobody super-rich really loses his money. Hence the strange obviously bogus sanctions regimes. Real stock market disruption and confiscation of corrupt assets would be difficult to avoid if the tanks start rolling in earnest. We may be saved from utter disaster by the sheer scale of global corruption, which is a strange conclusion.
I would like to think the awful deaths of the last few days would lead both sides to step back from the brink. The time has come for a peacekeeping force. Negotiations should be held urgently to make the Kiev interim government more inclusive of opposition elements from the East – and they must oust the far right at the same time. The UN Security Council should then send in UN peacekeepers, which must include both Russian and western forces in close integration, to keep the peace while genuine elections are held. I can see no other way forward which does not risk disaster.
http://harpers.org/blog/2010/11/churchills-dark-side-six-questions-for-madhusree-mukerjee/
Churchill’s Dark Side: Six Questions for Madhusree Mukerjee
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/7991820/Winston-Churchill-blamed-for-1m-deaths-in-India-famine.html
Winston Churchill blamed for 1m deaths in India famine
“More than thirty million famine related deaths occurred in British India between
1870 and 1910”
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.celdf.org%2Fdownloads%2FNATURE%2520and%2520EMPIRE%2520-%2520LAXMAN%2520SATYA%2520ARTICLE.pdf
The British Empire, Ecology and Famines in Late 19 Century Central India
Sir Winston Churchill may be one of Britain’s greatest wartime leaders, but in India he has been blamed for allowing more than a million people to die of starvation.
“I had no idea that India was the largest opium exporter for centuries. I had no idea that opium was essentially the commodity which financed the British Raj in India.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7460682.stm
‘Opium financed British rule in India’
Note: Bengal was richest province under Mughal Rule:
“Bengal became the richest and
most important of the provinces of the Mughal Empire”
https://archive.org/stream/cu31924022975563/cu31924022975563_djvu.txt
Craig,
I am amazed by the fact how Karimov was well-treated after the Andizhan massacre by both Russia and the West which pretended to be concerned for a few months after the massacre, and how they are devided now on Ukraine.
Winston, Russel.
That’s quite an acheivement for empires that only go places to bring civilisation / democracy / prosperity.
Good intentions paving the way to hells and all that.
There’s the case f Ireland between 1845 to 1851. A remarkable example of a place where, under British rule, approximately 1.5 million people died from hunger and disease and another 1-2 million were displaced (20-25% of it’s population), while at the same time exporting food throughout. Imagine the famine there would have been if more than a single crop had failed.
http://irishpotatofamine.net/the-great-irish-famine/
Great Irish Famine.
Great Odessa fire.
We’ve the makings of a very long list of great miss-namings…
Agreed, Sofia. I’ve been to one of the rural sites near Limerick where hundreds were forced to travel to and died a terrible death through cholera and other diseases as well as starvation. As you say… many atrocities… and it continues.
Sofia,
Great Irish Famine.
Great Odessa fire.
and of course
Great Britain.
BrianFujisan 6 May, 2014 – 1:13 am
Thanks for those links Brian. I had seen the videos and posted them earlier somewhere.
I notice, and I do not want this to be misconstrued as anti-Jewish, whenever it is shown that those whom the hairy bridged-wellers support, have been guilty of horrendous crimes against humanity in Odessa, and the illegal government they support lies about it, there is a mass Exodus from the blog.
bridged-wellers = bridge-dwellers
Peacewisher 6 May, 2014 – 12:26 am
The bounty on the head of honest reporters is indicative of what happened in the second Iraq war where only embedded journalists had any degree of safety, and there is a suspicion that journalists were particularly targeted since nearly as many media personnel were killed as UK soldiers. I researched journalist deaths for this article.
http://newsjunkiepost.com/2013/06/04/the-united-states-of-extra-judicial-murder-and-imprisonment/
Like the bounty-hunters now, bounties were put on the heads of Moazzam Begg (in UK custody for researching torture) and Shaker Aamer (still in Guantanamo Bay after 12 years for no reason whatsoever except that he has been tortured). The US paid the bounties. Wonder where the Maidan thugs got that idea? It could not be from the cowboys who shot innocent people so that all there is in power in the US today is ranch full of cowboys.
I’m living in Poland. Since November I’ve been watching Ukrainian satellite television every day — often for hours. What first struck me was the fact that — after a period of adjustment — I could understand practically everything they said (unless they spoke extremely quickly). Not just the same words, but very often the same turns of phrase.
I was also struck by the fact that political comment and discussion on oligarch-owned Ukrainian television channels was much, much freer than in Poland, where practically all television channels are now de facto government channels working for Mr Tusk and his friends (i.e. against Mr Kaczynski) — the notable exception being TRWAM television run by the Catholic Redemptorist order.
On Ukrainian television both sides can have their say without being continually interrupted by a partisan “journalist” representing the interests of the ruling party. The discussions on Ukrainian television are truly amazing and can last for hours. Speakers freely alternate between Ukrainian and Russian. One recent Friday session of “Shuster Live” lasted for five and a half hours!
Watching Ukrainians, at first I used to say to myself “They’re just like us Poles — it’s the same spirit, the same mentality”. Then the stark realization suddenly dawned on me: “Yes, of course, that’s because THEY ARE US.” Like it or not, what we’re witnessing is the resurrection of the old Polish Commonwealth (not empire, Craig), which was in effect the first European Union. The aim of the Polish 1863 Uprising against tsarist Russia was to recreate the Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita), but this time as a union of three nations: Poland, Lithuania (i.e. Byelorussia) and Ruthenia (i.e. the Ukraine). One of the masterminds of the 1863 uprising was Joseph Conrad’s uncle Stefan Bobrowski. Joseph Conrad’s parents were also involved in preparations for the uprising, but were arrested and sent into exile before fighting started.
Subconsciously (for now), Poles and Ukrainians — whatever their differences — seem to sense what’s happening, hence the wave of sympathy for the Ukrainian struggle in Poland. Poles know that now it’s the Ukrainians who are fighting “for their freedom and ours” and — in their hour of need — Ukrainians for their part can now see who their real friends are. Whatever the outcome of the present standoff, one thing’s perfectly clear: after three hundred years of russification, Russia’s finally lost the battle for Ukrainian hearts and minds.
On a spiritual plane, this is a disaster for Putin, who — like all Russian nationalists — is clearly horrified by the medium-term prospect of a de facto revival of the old Polish Commonwealth. So are the Germans. Hopefully Scots are more sympathetic!
Thanks for your excellent report here on how you watched hours of Ukrainian TV, semblance. I can assure you that this german has no fear of any Polish neighbours or their fancifull dreams of past grandiose times.
My question would be, will it hurt all those who are currently hungry in Poland and Ukraine even more, will it cause bloodshed and does it involve the EU, because as a member, Poland would have to jump through some hurdles to make such a move work.
And, what would this mean to relations with Russia, nevermind Germany.
Semblance. 9 48am
Hello, I can’t recall seeing your moniker here before, so welcome.
Thanks for the West / East Poland perspective.
How, in your opinion, can the the two ethnic / cultural groups, move with the least violence to a new equilibrium which respects the human rights and aspirations of all?
This question has particular emotional weight for me, living as I do, in a place which has had it’s own eight hundred year brush with empire. Maybe we are fortunate here that our geographical location has us far away from the edges of the greater geopolitical dramas, so we had / have only one “Great” (thanks John) power interfering with our attempts at reconcilliation.
We have a habit of understatement. “The Troubles” is the name we have for the violent phase of our own conflict. Believe me, the killings create problems which echo through the generations.
Our own armed struggle evolved into an ongoing “peace process”, constantly under threat from unelected groups on both extremes, but, so far relatively intact.
Most of us just want to get on with our lives and let each other be, with all our differences and historical wounds. Neither group emerges from our history without stories that give good justification to fear the other.
Here’s a flavour of where we are at right now.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/mcconville-case-signals-pressing-need-for-independent-commission-of-inquiry-1.1784237
Are we all simply helpless pawns in the great games of others.
I’d like to think we can learn from each others’ stories Can we learn from each other and nudge the process towards resolutions that leave less grieving families with good reasons to hate, ad feckin infinitum?
.
I’m incensed by the sycophancy of Merkel, the picture says it all. Where was Obama’s wife during his four hours of ‘making time for Angela’?
Typical CDU/CSU lovey, since the Franz Josef Strauss bribery scandal over Starfighters have these idiots courted the USA.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/chancellor-merkel-sacrifices-nsa-investigation-for-unity-on-ukraine-a-967596.html
Semblance, welcome, and thanks very much for giving us your thoughts from a Polish perspective. You are not alone in having your news fed from the same nipple of powers that be. It is the same here – though some are getting fat on the rich diet of lies. Are you English? Your English is very good.
A query though. If in Poland, which is part of Europe, gets restricted news, and the news in Ukraine is perceived as being balanced, if/when Ukraine becomes a part of the greater Polish commonwealth will its news cease to be balanced?
The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says holding a presidential election in Ukraine would be unusual at the time when Kiev has deployed troops against civilians.
Surely if the Crimea referendum is illegitimate because it took place during unrest and in a short timeframe then the Ukraine elections due on the 25th May should be regarded as illegitimate for the same reasons.
I don’t know how we can square this anti-Russian hatred manifesting in Eastern European peoples in Western Ukraine, Poland, Baltic states and who knows where else including it seems amongst Western-EU europhile elites amongst the Ferrero Roche set (almost certainly containing nuts), such as Craig Murray, to whom the caution in paranthesis doesn’t apply. The EU must embrace Russia, and vice-versa Russia should and must become a central component of the EU, I’ve always viewed as inevitable then that the centre of power in the EU must necessarily move eastwards, with countries like England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland becoming even more peripheral in every sense, even parts of south-western mainland Europe feeling as if outposts. The fraternal idea of such an EU embracing all the European peoples (putting aside how ill-governed and corrupt it is at present, and how much worse it could get if bigger) cannot contain both Russia and this virulent hatred of Russia, which assorted parties seek to stoke rather than allow to subside. For the new EU members the honeymoon period is now over, the money that has been thrown at them to stupify and entrance them and bind them helplessly to their new master has now inevitably dried up forever, the smoke clears and the mirrors shatter, soon they’ll be bickering over who gets to keep the toast rack and who the pet tortoise loves the most. In the cold light of this new dawn, it’s meet the new boss, same as the old one (copyright, the newly nationalised National Coal Board) and really being a sineless gutless servile client state of the US empire, based on the spectacularly unsuccessful model of the British Isles, is hardly any bit better than being in the political orbit of the old-USSR. You Russophobes better give yourselves a shake and clear your heads, because the Russia the crude propaganda you’ve been over-exposed to and has taught you to hate, will, must inevitably be inside the EU you’ve lemming-like cleaved to suicidally, simply to express your xenophobic hatred of Russians. To us some distance away you’re all exactly the same (as are we), indistinguishable from each other and the differences you conjure up, seem as if the ravings of madmen. Empire’s divide and rule tactics play you like fiddles and jerk your strings. Alasdair Gray wrote (though he might have plagiarised it, it’s such a good line): “Man is the pie that bakes and eats itself, the recipe is separation”.
“Surely if the Crimea referendum is illegitimate because it took place during unrest and in a short timeframe then the Ukraine elections due on the 25th May should be regarded as illegitimate for the same reasons.”
Nominations for the Ukrainian elections opened on the 25th February so it’s hardly a short timeframe.
In common with the vast majority of mainstream media output, Craig misleadingly uses the epithet ‘Separatists’ to describe what more accurately ought to be termed ‘Federalists’. This is an important distinction.
The situation in Ukraine is spiraling out of control. The notion, therefore, that Russia is micro-managing the crisis behind the scenes, as Craig infers, seems to me to be nonsense. The West could end this crisis tomorrow by simply pressuring their Ukrainian puppets in Kiev to issue two statements:
a) They would never apply to join NATO and
b) They are prepared to have a devolved government so that the people of eastern Ukraine can have something like, say, a Ukrainian version of the Scottish or Welsh assembly.
Much agreement there, Daniel. Words are important.
Ben, there is much in Craig’s analysis that I agree with. However, he does in my view, underplay the role of the West in what I regard as being the main catalyst for the crisis.
If we are to accept the premise that equality is correlated to social cohesion, then it seems to me that Craig’s assertion that the Ukrainian people are better served by the E.U as opposed to a Federalist concept more closely aligned with Russia, is a disingenuous one. Murray appears to be basing his analysis on the discredited assumption that wealth trickles down under neoliberalism as opposed to gushing upwards. Or is it his claim that E.U is not a neoliberal project?
Daniel; I agree with Craig on most issues and feel most of his analysis is spot-on, but he does have a bit of a blind-spot on the EU.
Just guessing, but I think he feels the EU is the best bad solution Europe has. His roots are in Diplomatic services and he doesn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but the machinations of Empire make that a steep slope, as he well knows. Anarchy is not in his lexicon, but that is a much misunderstood notion. It has more to do with de-centralized government, so that the Octopus doesn’t grow larger than the people it’s supposed to serve.
Ben, yes, I agree with you that that the scope of Craig’s line of argumentation is limited in as much as he appears not to accept any socioeconomic possibility other than what Dr Johnson termed “the dictatorship of the prevailing orthodoxy”.
The worthy vision Delor’s had of a federal Europe has in reality mutated into a imperialistic one. How does this play out in terms of Ukraine?
Well, the E.U Agreement excludes simultaneous membership in a Russian-led customs union and would thus cut off Ukraine from its main trading partner, with which Ukraine’s industry and transport routes are closely connected. The abolition of customs duties on European goods would also mean bankruptcy for many Ukrainian industries.
The terms of the agreement, which include the introduction of E.U rules for labour market deregulation, the privatization of state enterprises and a reduction in the public debt, would have a social impact similar to the E.U austerity programs imposed on Greece, Romania and other countries.
The IMF is already denying Ukraine a much-needed credit because the government refuses to hike the price of gas by 40 percent—a move that would inevitably result in the death of many unemployed people and pensioners unable to pay their heating bills.
The Association Agreement would turn the country into an extended workbench for German and European companies, which could produce at lower wage rates than those in China. At the same time, the country’s natural resources, its vast and fertile landmass, and its domestic market of 46 million inhabitants make Ukraine a mouthwatering prospect for German and European businesses.
It’s the lack of an emphases on these issues that undermines Craig’s otherwise sound analysis.
Semblance are you aware how many Poles the Banderists killed?
Daniel; My question. http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/05/world-domination/comment-page-2/#comment-456151
Craigs response.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/05/world-domination/comment-page-2/#comment-456153
Is this feasible? Is the EU going to provide the bail-out under the circumstances?
After all; say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss.
Sending gold to the Fed……sure seems a sticky-wicket.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-06/and-first-thing-ukraine-will-buy-imf-money
Ben,
Craig’s line seems to be that, under the circumstances, the E.U is the best way for Ukraine to go. He cites the improvement in living standards in post-Cold War Poland as an example. I would contend that the breaking of the post-War consensus that existed between capital and labour – from around the mid-1970s onwards – has resulted in the acceptance by many of a prevailing socioeconomic orthodoxy which is impacting negatively on the vast majority of working people throughout the E.U.
This is the kind of bitter neoliberal pill the people of Ukraine are expected to swallow on the basis of a better tomorrow. This, of course, is very much a subjective determination. With the prospect of a 40 per cent reduction in pensions, in addition to numerous other severe austerity measures, the people of Ukraine are unlikely to be persuaded by the E.U promise of this better tomorrow.
In fact, so harsh is the E.U/IMF medicine, many will not live to witness their supposed increasing living standards.
Subjectivity aside, objectively speaking, it’s true that a minority in Poland have benefited massively from E.U membership and the ending of the Cold War. But it’s also true that the vast majority of Poles have seen their relative standards of living – as measured by real disposable income – fall.
Relative poverty is the significant factor that it seems to me Murray has failed to acknowledge. What the era of neoliberalism illustrates, is that rates of inequality within the countries of the E.U are increasing to levels reminiscent of the Victorian era. This will almost certainly lead to widespread civil unrest in the near future.
“Subjectivity aside, objectively speaking, it’s true that a minority in Poland have benefited massively from E.U membership and the ending of the Cold War. But it’s also true that the vast majority of Poles have seen their relative standards of living – as measured by real disposable income – fall.”
Daniel;
This is the mirror-image of Western experience with ‘trickle-down’ economic theory. It is the focus of acrimony in the US, as well, and we supposedly have all the marbles. The only element holding up our britches is the Petro-dollar, which is an annoying feature for many nations, no less Putin. BRICS is his answer to PD, and the TPP is a direct attack against the US losing it’s muscle on the world market.
Wheels within wheels, as they say.
correction; TPP is a direct attack BY the US and fellow conspiriators.
TPP was joined by US in 2011, the same year BRICS was formed.