Treasury trying to block Taliban access to its money

They could probably sell some of the helicopters and other heavy defense equipment they scored from the Americans to cover it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Now you can buy your way off the terrorist list

I suppose it's always been so one way or another. But now it's just direct and up front.

Sudan has paid $335m to compensate victims of past attacks against the United States as part of an agreement that removed the struggling country from Washington’s list of “state sponsors of terrorism” – also known as its “terror blacklist” – Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

Khartoum’s transitional, civilian-backed government provided the funds for survivors and victims’ families from attacks including the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania by al-Qaeda, which was backed by Sudan’s then-leader, Omar al-Bashir.

[...]

The compensation will also cover the 2000 attack by al-Qaeda on the USS Cole off Yemen’s coast and the killing of US development worker John Granville in Khartoum in 2008.

Some legislators have also pushed for Sudan to pay compensation to the victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US.

[...]

Sudan agreed to the package last year as it desperately sought to free itself from the designation, which severely hindered investment in a country still grappling with unrest and tough economic conditions.

  alJazeera

They're tougher now that they owe the US $355 million. But wait - there's more.

Last week the US said it had assisted Sudan with more than $1bn in credit to clear debt, making the country again eligible for support from the World Bank and IMF.

How kind. We don't want anyone to not be able to borrow money from the World Bank and the IMF.

Common Sudanese can suffer. Their leaders won't.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

IMF growth projections

Source: International Monetary Fund

Reality Bites

Now, this really does surprise me.

 

From the 1980s the policymaking elite has waved away the notion that they were acting ideologically – merely doing “what works”. But you can only get away with that claim if what you’re doing is actually working.

[...]

[W]hen the Bank of International Settlements, the central bank’s central bank, warns that “the global economy seems unable to return to sustainable and balanced growth” [, the ideology underpinning contemporary capitalism is failing].

[...]

In the IMF’s flagship publication, three of its top economists have written an essay titled “Neoliberalism: Oversold?”.

[...]

At last a major institution is going after not only the symptoms but the cause – and it is naming that cause as political. No wonder the study’s lead author says that this research wouldn’t even have been published by the fund five years ago.

[...]

For so long mainstream economists and policymakers have denied the very existence of such a thing as neoliberalism, dismissing it as an insult invented by gap-toothed malcontents who understand neither economics nor capitalism. Now here comes the IMF, describing how a “neoliberal agenda” has spread across the globe in the past 30 years.

[...]

In this way, the public sector is replaced by private companies, and democracy is supplanted by mere competition.

The results, the IMF researchers concede, have been terrible.

  Guardian

I never understood why this has been called neoliberalism. The first time I heard it actually named was when Hugo Chávez started railing against it. What" I thought.  The forced austerity, privatization schemes are neoliberalism? In light of what the putative liberal party in the US has become (or returned to), I can see the reason now.

Neoliberalism hasn’t delivered economic growth – it has only made a few people a lot better off. It causes epic crashes that leave behind human wreckage and cost billions to clean up. [...] And, they say, its costs “could be large – much larger than the benefit”.

[...]

Two things need to be borne in mind here. First, this study comes from the IMF’s research division – not from those staffers who fly into bankrupt countries, haggle over loan terms with cash-strapped governments and administer the fiscal waterboarding. Since 2008, a big gap has opened up between what the IMF thinks and what it does. Second, while the researchers go much further than fund watchers might have believed, they leave in some all-important get-out clauses. The authors even defend privatisation as leading to “more efficient provision of services” and less government spending.

That's more like it.

Last year the rich countries’ thinktank, the OECD, made a remarkable concession. It acknowledged that the share of UK economic growth enjoyed by workers is now at its lowest since the second world war. Even more remarkably, it said the same or worse applied to workers across the capitalist west.

[...]

[W]hat you’re witnessing amid all the graphs and technical language is the start of the long death of an ideology.

Much too late. Better late than never? Too late might is never for millions and millions of people and for the environment.



That, too.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

So Much for "Yats"

We always back the biggest losers. Our man in Ukraine has just been forced to resign.

From March 2014:

Back before February 4, weeks before the most violent crackdown that killed protestors that led to Viktor Yanukovych’s ouster, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador to Ukraine had a conversation about how to divvy up power between 3 opposition figures in a post-Yanukovych Ukraine. Nuland deemed “Yats” the necessary post-Yanukovych leader.

Nuland: [Breaks in] I think Yats is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience. 

  Marcy Wheeler

"Yats", of course, was our man for austerity in Ukraine.

Now, today, April 10, 2016:

After weeks of political crisis in Kiev, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk has announced his long-expected resignation.

[...]

The prime minister has been a highly unpopular figure in Ukraine with his approval ratings languishing in the single-digit range. The public blames him for a ruined economy.

  RT

Again, March 2014:

For economists who think austerity is a disaster, Ukraine is on a path to ruin.

“We saw this in the 90s and what the IMF did to Russia with Yeltsin. They’ll do that to Ukraine,” said [Vladimir Signorelli, president of investment research firm Bretton Woods Research LLC].

[...]

“Yatsenyuk is the the kind of technocrat you want if you want austerity, with the veneer of professionalism,” Signorelli said. “He’s the type of guy who can hobnob with the European elite. A Mario Monti type: unelected and willing to do the IMFs bidding,” he said.

  Forbes

Well, that is indeed what we wanted. Alas, apparently the Ukrainian people did not.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk's resignation comes as no surprise. According to opinion polls, his party's popularity had plummeted and he narrowly survived a vote of no confidence in parliament in February.

[...]

President Poroshenko himself came under scrutiny this week after leaked documents suggested he had set up an offshore company as a tax haven using Panamanian legal firm Mossack Fonseca.

He said he had done nothing wrong and Ukrainian prosecution officials said there was no evidence of a crime but there were calls for his impeachment.

[...]

US Vice-President Joe Biden, in a call to Mr Yatsenyuk on Sunday, congratulated him on "accomplishments over the past two years", including economic reforms

  BBC

He may be calling Poroshenko soon.

Here's my favorite video of Yats (who does indeed maintain an air of professionalism) being appreciated at work:

A Little More Varoufakis

Lecture on democracy (specifically in Europe) and global economy.

Why Can't WE Have Sane People in Government?

Okay, so Yanis Varoufakis is no longer the Greek fiance minister, but for a short time, Greece looked poised to do something remarkable - break free of the IMF -  and Varoufakis was instrumental in the attempt. I just came across this Russian interview (in English) that makes him even more impressive, in my mind, than I've already seen. Thought I'd share.

P.S.  the You Tube title is misleading.  He does indeed explain why he's no Putin fan, but that's only one question in the entire interview.



Since the audio is terrible, I spent a couple of hours transcribing it, in case you want to read instead of strain to hear.  (If you're interested at all.)  I'm posting it "below the fold".  (Click "read more")

US in Latin America: Wikileaks Cables

When Greece’s left government decided to hold a national referendum on the troika-imposed austerity program, the European Central Bank retaliated by restricting liquidity for Greek banks. This triggered a prolonged bank closure and plunged Greece further into recession.

 Though Greek voters ended up massively rejecting austerity, Germany and the European creditor cartel were able to subvert democracy and get exactly what they wanted: complete submission to their neoliberal agenda.

 In the last decade and a half, a similar fight against neoliberalism has been waged across the breadth of an entire continent, and mostly outside of the public eye. Although Washington initially sought to quash all dissent, often employing even fiercer tactics than those used against Greece, Latin America’s resistance to the neoliberal agenda has in large part been successful. It’s an epic tale that’s gradually coming to light thanks to continued exploration of the massive trove of US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks.

[...]

Much of the story of the US government’s efforts to contain and roll back the anti-neoliberal tide can be found in the tens of thousands of WikiLeaked diplomatic cables from the region’s US diplomatic missions, dating from the early George W. Bush years to the beginning of President Obama’s administration.

The cables — which we analyze in the new book, The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to US Empire — reveal the day-to-day mechanics of Washington’s political intervention in Latin America (and make a farce of the State Department mantra that “the US doesn’t interfere in the internal politics of other countries”).

  Jacobin

Read more.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

German Economic Commentator's Two Cents' Worth on What Just Happened

[D]o you really think that an economic reform programme, for which a government has no political mandate, which has been explicitly rejected in a referendum, that has been forced through by sheer political blackmail, can conceivably work?

[...]

By forcing Alexis Tsipras into a humiliating defeat, Greece’s creditors have done a lot more than bring about regime change in Greece or endanger its relations with the eurozone. They have destroyed the eurozone as we know it and demolished the idea of a monetary union as a step towards a democratic political union.

In doing so they reverted to the nationalist European power struggles of the 19th and early 20th century. They demoted the eurozone into a toxic fixed exchange-rate system, with a shared single currency, run in the interests of Germany, held together by the threat of absolute destitution for those who challenge the prevailing order.

[...]

But it was not just the brutality that stood out, nor even the total capitulation of Greece. The material shift is that Germany has formally proposed an exit mechanism. On Saturday, Wolfgang Schäuble, finance minister, insisted on a time-limited exit — a “timeout” as he called it.

I have heard quite a few crazy proposals in my time, and this one is right up there. A member state pushed for the expulsion of another. This was the real coup over the weekend: not only regime change in Greece, but also regime change in the eurozone.

[...]

This brings us back to a more toxic version of the old exchange-rate mechanism of the 1990s that left countries trapped in a system run primarily for the benefit of Germany, which led to the exit of the British pound and the temporary departure of the Italian lira. What was left was a coalition of countries willing to adjust their economies to Germany’s. Britain had to leave because it was not.

[...]

Any other country that in future might challenge German economic orthodoxy will face similar problems.

[...]

We will soon be asking ourselves whether this new eurozone, in which the strong push around the weak, can be sustainable.

  Wolfgang Münchau

Well, actually, the whole planet works that way on behalf of the U.S. So, why shouldn't Germany expect it to work that way in Europe?

The True IMF

https://www.cigionline.org/blogs/global-economy/behind-scenes-imf-fateful-day-greek-crisis

"A bailout of ... private debt holders."   Precisely how the IMF has functioned throughout its history. Presumably the real reason it was formed in the first place.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

But Isn't That the General Purpose of the IMF?

Greek governments — not the current, much maligned Syriza, but decades of its predecessors — treated the state like a teat from which clients and friends of electoral victors might suck. The Greek state has been a shady, opportunistic borrower, no doubt, the kind of character no one would lend money to with any great expectation of seeing it back.

And yet, that’s precisely what bankers in the relatively not-fucked-up Eurozone countries did! These people were not naïfs. They knew the Greek state was sketchy. But precisely because it was sketchy, prior to the financial crisis its debt paid slightly higher interest rates than that of safer Eurozone sovereigns.

  Interfluidity

Chris Hayes has compared the situation to that of the mortgage lenders in the US.

Did We Buy the Rights?

Or just threaten to withhold support?

The International Monetary Fund required Ukraine’s government to reform its economy, reduce government debt, and open up its market to foreign investment.

Ukraine’s economy has been in the gutter for the past year and has been kept afloat by the IMF and aid money from the E.U. and U.S.

[...]

According to Russia’s state run RIA Novosti anyway, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law Thursday that allows the government to hand over 49% of the country’s gas transport system to investors from the European Union and the United States. That is quite different from actually doing it, but it opens the door to the West and opens the wound that the Russia-Ukraine political imbroglio has caused since February, when pro-Russia president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted from office by extra legal means.

The law allows foreign operators the right to “the management and/or concession or lease” of the gas pipelines and underground storage facilities, now dominated by Russia. The law also allows Ukraine’s government to establish a company to operate underground storage facilities, in which American and European investors can own up to 49%.

  Forbes

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Breaking Free

The [BRICS] group of emerging economies signed the long-anticipated document to create the $100 bn BRICS Development Bank and a reserve currency pool worth over another $100 bn. Both will counter the influence of Western-based lending institutions and the dollar.

The new bank will provide money for infrastructure and development projects in BRICS countries, and unlike the IMF or World Bank, each nation has equal say, regardless of GDP size.

  RT

Damned commies.

The BRICS bank will be headquartered in Shanghai, India will preside as president the first year, and Russia will be the chairman of the representatives.

[...]

The $100 billion crisis lending fund, called the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA), was also established. China will contribute the lion’s share, about $41 billion, Russia, Brazil and India will chip in $18 billion, and South Africa, the newest member of the economic bloc, will contribute $5 billion.

The idea is that the creation of the bank will lessen dependence on the West and create a more multi-polar world, at least financially.

“This mechanism creates the foundation for an effective protection of our national economies from a crisis in financial markets," Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

Thinking ahead (and back).

Russia has also proposed the countries come together under an energy alliance that will include a fuel reserve, as well as an institute for energy policy .

Regrettably

The International Monetary Fund slashed its forecast for US economic growth on Monday, citing a harsh winter, problems in the housing market and weak international demand for the country's products.

  Guardian

What products? Guns and warplanes?

In its annual review of the US economy, the IMF cut its growth forecast by 0.8 percentage points to 2%. At a press conference IMF managing director Christine Lagarde blamed the bad winter for much of the cut and said the setback should be temporary. But she warned: “Growth in and of itself will not be enough.”

So let me guess…austerity measures needed?

In its annual review of the US economy, the IMF cut its growth forecast by 0.8 percentage points to 2%. At a press conference IMF managing director Christine Lagarde blamed the bad winter for much of the cut and said the setback should be temporary. But she warned: “Growth in and of itself will not be enough.”

Say again?

[T]he IMF has called for an increase in the minimum wages in the US.

[...]

“We believe that a rise in the minimum wage would be helpful,” [Lagarde] said, especially if complemented with tax policies to help low-wage earners. “We are talking about significant numbers when you have 50 million living below poverty, many of whom are working. That’s why we are recommending it,” she said.

She’ll be out on her ear in no time.

While the impact of this winter’s frigid temperatures was now dissipating, Lagarde warned that extreme weather events were becoming more frequent and had an outsized impact on the economy. “I think that’s a valid reason to worry about climate change and how to deal with it,” she said.

Oh yeah. On her ear.

The IMF believes the US also needs to do more to mitigate the impact of its ageing population and to stimulate productivity. The best option would be for government to boost spending, notably on infrastructure, the IMF said. "But, regrettably, political agreement on such an approach remains elusive," the fund said.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

And So It Goes

Back before February 4, weeks before the most violent crackdown that killed protestors that led to Viktor Yanukovych’s ouster, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador to Ukraine had a conversation about how to divvy up power between 3 opposition figures in a post-Yanukovych Ukraine. Nuland deemed “Yats” the necessary post-Yanukovych leader.

Nuland: [Breaks in] I think Yats is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience. He’s the… what he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a week, you know. I just think Klitsch going in… he’s going to be at that level working for Yatseniuk, it’s just not going to work.

Pyatt: Yeah, no, I think that’s right. OK. Good. Do you want us to set up a call with him as the next step?

Thursday, Yatseniuk was appointed Prime Minister.

  Marcy Wheeler

“Yatsenyuk is the the kind of technocrat you want if you want austerity, with the veneer of professionalism,” [Vladimir Signorelli, president of boutique investment research firm Bretton Woods Research LLC in New Jersey] said. “He’s the type of guy who can hobnob with the European elite. A Mario Monti type: unelected and willing to do the IMFs bidding,” he said.

[...]

“Yatsenyuk was saying that what the Greeks did to themselves we are going to do ourselves,” said Signorelli. “He wants to follow the Greek economic model. Who the hell wants to follow that?”

[...]

Yanukovych resisted the International Monetary Fund’s demand to raise taxes and devalue the currency. Yatsenyuk doesn’t mind. For economists who think austerity is a disaster, Ukraine is on a path to ruin.

“We saw this in the 90s and what the IMF did to Russia with Yeltsin. They’ll do that to Ukraine,” said Signorelli.

  Forbes

Yeah, austerity hasn’t done any country any good that I’ve heard. Well, not directly. It’s done the money-holding countries wonders.

Meanwhile...

Russia sent fighter jets to patrol the border with Ukraine [...], as the interim president warned any movements of its troops from their Crimea naval base will be considered an act of "military aggression".

Meanwhile, a Russian news organisation said the country was providing shelter for ousted president Viktor Yanukovych in a Kremlin sanatorium just outside Moscow.

Ukrainian interim President Olexander Turchynov condemned the takeover of government and parliament buildings in Crimea as a "crime against the government of Ukraine" following a seizure by pro-Russian activists.

  UK Independent

National Security

US President Barack Obama has called on the National Security Agency to halt spying on the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in conjunction with a review of surveillance activities, Reuters reported.

[...]

The NSA’s surveillance of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington was previously unknown based on the classified nature of such programs.

  RT

Two well-known terrorist organizations, apparently.

Top officials with US intelligence agencies have admitted economic espionage in the past, but a former senior US intelligence official said the Obama administration has put more effort than previous administrations into gathering economic data.

Donkey Hotey

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Surprise!

The International Monetary Fund admitted it had failed to realise the damage austerity would do to Greece as the Washington-based organisation catalogued mistakes made during the bailout of the stricken eurozone country.

  UK Guardian

[N]ot even Greece could have turned into Greece without a lot of help from some international financial finagling.

  Charlie Pierce

The surprise is not that austerity measures have royally screwed the Greek economy, but that the IMF admitted as much.

Where High Finance & Politics Meet

You know there's scandal.

August 2011:   Charges have been officially dismissed against Dominique Strauss-Kahn now that a New York appeals court has denied a request for a special prosecutor in the sex assault case, news agencies reported.

The appeals court agreed with another court's ruling that there was no legal basis for a special prosecutor.

Attorneys for the woman accusing the former leader of the International Monetary Fund had requested one because they felt Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R Vance was biased.

Prosecutors on Tuesday argued the case should be dismissed because they did not have faith in the credibility of the hotel worker who accused Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her in his luxury suite in May.

[...]

Prosecutors conceded that DNA evidence showed sexual contact but not necessarily a forced encounter. They also found medical findings inconclusive.

  alJazeera

You remember Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the IMF who had sights on the presidency of France. Of course, in a battle between the head of the IMF and a lowly hotel maid, there was really no question.

[...]

But wait. There's more.

In a separate case in October 2011, French prosecutors refused to pursue an allegation by a young French writer of attempted rape by Strauss-Kahn.

The Paris prosecutor's office dropped the investigation into writer Tristane Banon's, claim that Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her during a 2003 interview for a book the then-23-year-old was writing, saying they could not send him to trial because it happened too long ago.

  alJazeera

But wait...there's more!

February 2012:  A prosecutor on Tuesday said Strauss-Kahn was being questioned in the northern French city of Lille as a suspect over alleged cross-border prostitution ring in France and neighbouring Belgium that has implicated police and other officials.

Police have questioned prostitutes who said they had sex with Strauss-Kahn during 2010 and 2011 at a luxury hotel in Paris, a restaurant in the French capital and also in Washington DC.

[...]

"He could easily not have known, because as you can imagine, at these kinds of parties you're not always dressed, and I challenge you to distinguish a naked prostitute from any other naked woman," Henri Leclerc told French radio Europe 1 in December.

  alJazeera

Oh, lord.