Author Archives: Yves Smith

John Helmer: IMF Loan to Ukraine Props Up Failing Banks, Enriches Oligarchs

One reason for our continued coverage of the IMF generosity to Ukraine isn’t simply to demonstrate how the institution is bending its rules to support US adventurism. It’s also to highlight the striking contrast with the treatment of Greece. While Greece has a class of oligarchs that specialize in tax-evasion, Ukraine is widely recognized as a spectacularly corrupt country, to the degree that it makes Greece look like a paragon of virtue.

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Nomi Prins: The Volatility/Quantitative Easing Dance of Doom

The battle between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ of global financial policy is escalating to the point where the ‘haves’ might start to sweat – a tiny little. This phase of heightened volatility in the markets is a harbinger of the inevitable meltdown that will follow the grand plastering-over of a systemically fraudulent global financial system.

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John Helmer: IMF Makes Ukraine War-Fighting Loan, Allows US to Fund Military Operations Against Russia, May Repay Gazprom Bill

For the first time, an IMF loan is funding a country at war, and one that is an impossible basket case economically. It’s hard not to conclude that the IMF largesse served to solve the wee problem of getting Congress to approve funding for US adventurism in Ukraine.

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