Surviving Capitalism (Not) : The Russian Loan and the IMF’s One-Two Punch

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, February 16, 2015

The Russian Loan and the IMF’s One-Two Punch

Click here to access article by Michael Hudson from CounterPunch.

The US Empire is using full-spectrum warfare in its attempt to subdue Russia to Empire dictates, and it's clear that the main victims of this new cold war are the Ukrainian people. While the European elites seem comfortable with financial warfare, they seem desperate, unlike the US, to avoid any spread of the military conflict by their latest independent effort together with Russia to secure a ceasefire agreement at Minsk, Belarus. Hudson explains the rather complicated financial side of this warfare.

The Ukraine-IMF debt negotiation shows is why finance has become the preferred mode of geopolitical warfare. Its objectives are the same as war: appropriation of land, raw materials (Ukraine’s gas rights in the Black Sea) and infrastructure (for rent-extracting opportunities) as well as the purchase of banks.

The IMF has begun to look like an office situated in the Pentagon....