Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Losing Credibility: The IMF’s New Cold War Loan to Ukraine

Click here to access article by Michael Hudson from his blog.

Hudson provides many details on the Empire's economic warfare strategies against Russia, and it appears from his analysis that the strategies are rife with contradictions.
The IMF’s Articles of Agreement forbid it to make loans to countries that clearly cannot pay, prompting its economists to complain at last year’s October 2013 annual meeting in Washington that their institution was violating its rules by making bad loans “to states unable to repay their debts.” In practice, the IMF simply advances however much a government needs to bail out its bankers and bondholders, pretending that more austerity enhances the ability to pay, not worsen it. Ukraine looks like a replay of the Greek situation with an exclamation mark! One official last year called its Debt Sustainability Analysis, “‘a joke,’ a [European] commission official described it ‘a fairy tale to put children to sleep’ and a Greek finance ministry official said it was ‘scientifically ridiculous.’”