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a bloody european mess....Recently, the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said that the European Union should double its assistance to Ukraine. She went on to say the EU should create a support fund of 50 billion euros by the end of the year and that everything should be done to ensure victory on the battlefield for the Ukrainians.
BY Phil Butler
The European Union has created a “support package” for Ukraine for 2023 of up to €18 billion. This money, however, is not in the form of gifts, grants, or to create an emergency war chest. These billions are a loan under an EU macro-financial assistance program dubbed the MFA+ Instrument. In the fine print, EU member states are guaranteeing these loans as well as paying the interest for the Ukrainians. The move is extraordinary given that Ukraine is not an EU member and that, even before the current conflict, was one of the most corrupt governments on Earth. This begs the question, “Why?” The EU is issuing special bonds to be sold to investors for this purpose at a time when many people in the European Union go without proper healthcare, services, and even employment. The European Union, EU Member States, and European financial institutions have already dispersed some €49 billion to President Zelensky’s regime. This figure, added to the $76.8 billion already funneled to Ukraine, dwarfs any assistance given to any other country in the world. This very conservative report from the Council of Foreign Relations shows the U.S. alone has shoveled more into Zelensky’s coffers than Afghanistan, Israel, Jordan, Ethiopia, and Iraq combined in 2020. In all, some 47 countries have given money and arms to Ukraine. As of now, EU Institutions (?) handed Zelensky over €30 billion. The UK has forked over about €10 billion as their pensioners worry about what’s for dinner next. Germany has given somewhere around €8 billion, and Japan almost €7 billion. The Netherlands, Canada, and Poland have pitched in about €5 billion each, and the list of others about €14 billion. The numbers, as you would expect, do not all add up. A U.S. News & World Reports story from earlier this year claimed total aid to Zelensky’s country had exceeded €150 billion as of January of this year. Again, why? The answer, this time, is really simple. BlackRock, and the new investment initiative to rebuild Ukraine (whatever’s left of it). You already knew this, right? Zelensky and BlackRock’s BlackRock CEO Larry Fink met late last year, and in November, the Ukrainian Ministry of the Economy (MoE) and BlackRock Financial Markets Advisory (FMA) signed a memorandum to structure Ukraine’s reconstruction funds (PDF). Also, in on the moneymaking schemes in war-torn Ukraine are Nestlé, International Finance Corporation, the private investment arm of the World Bank, Australia’s Tattarang Group, Zelensky has called the rebuilding of his country, once it’s been used up as a proxy NATO against Russia, “the greatest opportunity in Europe since World War Two.” Earlier this year, Fink told Barron’s and other financial magazines that Western investors will be “flooding” Ukraine post-war and the country could become “a beacon to the rest of the world of the power of capitalism”. Also, JPMorgan Chase is joining BlackRock to help Ukraine set up a reconstruction bank to steer public seed capital. This American Conservative report says, “BlackRock Plots to Buy Ukraine,” in a recent editorial. Author Bradley Devlin outlines the Ukraine case, while also revealing how Fink and BlackRock are transforming America into a nation of renters by artificially elevating the prices of normal houses. If ever a man were appropriately named, Fink is that man. “Why?” Is there any doubt about why some poor untrained bartender from Kyiv is in a foxhole being bombarded by Russian artillery? Doesn’t all the misleading media, inflated Ukraine military gains, and Joe Biden’s cock of the walk attitude toward a peace deal make more sense now? And Ursula, the lady I fondly refer to as Frau von der Clucky for her chicken-like pecking and strutting about while millions either die or are in harm’s way because of all the Western world barnyard antics right out of Orwell’s Animal Farm. While someone’s Dad takes a bullet or shrapnel in Donetsk, our leaders keep crowing, snorting, braying, and hog-wallering in their capitalistic farm dream. Why? Greed, that’s why.
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
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self-immolation....
The conflict in Ukraine and US-led sanctions on Russia have wreaked havoc on European economies. Dr Jack Rasmus, professor of economics and politics at St Mary's College in California, said that was Washington's plan all along.
Russia's economy has overtaken Germany's thanks to US efforts to provoke a recession in Europe, says an economist.
The World Bank reported last week that by the end of 2022, Russia's wealth in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms exceeded $5 trillion for the first time — putting it ahead of western Europe's three biggest economies France, financial giant the UK and industrial powerhouse Germany.
PPP takes into account the varying cost of goods and services between different countries, not just raw gross domestic product (GDP).
Dr Jack Rasmus told Sputnik that what Russia's rise "really represents is that Europe is slowing down its economy, particularly Germany."
"A lot of that has to do with global forces that were set in motion by the US driving Russia out of the Western European economy, providing cheaper energy," Rasmus said. "And now they're paying more: they — Germany and Europe — pay more for US goods, particularly energy. And that's taking its toll. It's slowing the economy down."
US President Joe Biden claimed in March 2022 that the "ruble is rubble" as a result of Western sanctions — just before the Russian currency surged to its strongest exchange rate against the US Dollar in years.
That September the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines were sabotaged, an act that award-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed was carried out by the Biden administration.
The academic argued that Russia's economic growth did not mean the US had failed in its strategic objectives for the Ukraine conflict.
"The US is actually obtaining its objectives, which are to drive Russia totally not just in energy out of Western Europe, so that the US economy and capitalism can enter that vacuum and make Europe more economically dependent on the US," Rasmus said. "That's an objective of this war, to make Europe dependent economically on the US, which allows the US to manipulate it in many ways."
"If you look at Europe, it's sliding into being an economic vassal of the United States," he noted. "I think that was an objective. And politically, Europe has no foreign policy now. NATO is driving Europe's foreign policy."
READ MORE:
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230810/russian-economy-overtakes-germany-uk-and-france-despite-western-sanctions-1112511026.html
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