Things are getting crazy in Kiev

American anchor Abby Martin working for Russia Today

 

 

Piers Morgan Interviews Abby Martin on CNN

 

 

ameer, it's not as simple as it sounds.

 

The world is becoming a smaller place, every year the world economy is being linked into the Russian economy while it's GDP is growing.

 

In 2002 Russian GDP was $345 billion USD and it grew to $2 billion within 10 years, that's a growth of almost 6 times within 10 years and for the past ten years the news media has been telling the world that Russian economy is going to collapse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_count...n_2000_and_2009

 

Every year the economy grows in Russia the less it depends on natural resources for growth, oil is not important for Russia as important it is for UAE, Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and so on, oil is important for Russia but not as much as important as those middle eastern countries since they do have smaller populations. Every year the Russian economy becomes diversified.

 

By the time shale oil becomes a big player in the world market, the Russian economy will even be more linked into the European economy and Russia will have it's own large internal economy also. European retailers are doing billions in business in Russia, Americans have auto manufacturers and many other businesses there, Russians buying real estate in New York, Miami, London and so on. It won't be easy to walk away from Russia.

 

41.1 million tourists traveled from Russia in 2013. Of these, 31.6 million (77.0%) traveled within Europe, while only 9.4 million traveled to destinations outside Europe.

http://skift.com/2013/11/28/forget-the-chi...nvading-europe/

 

Of course it's not simple, however oil&gas is 30% of Russia's GDP and a a whopping 60% of export earnings, and it's that much because of the hugely inflated prices. By comparison in Saudi it makes up 50% of GDP and in UAE about 20%. They will loose their leverage in Europe, and will no longer be able to bully everyone at their whim. In fact Europe doesn't even need much of its shale gas, the USA has enough to supply Europe which will probably be its most convenient customer. You are mistaken about shale oil&gas, it is already a big factor in world markets and it's bound to get even bigger in the next few years. As I said earlier, natural gas in the US is one quarter of the price it is in Europe. The US has hit the jackpot with shale oil&gas.

 

The Russian economy is important to Europe as a goods consumer, Russia mostly supplies raw materials and doesn't produce many goods with high added value like Europe or the USA. What is Russia going to do? Ban luxury car imports, and goods imports? Putin is going to have a full scale rebellion on his hands if he forces Russians out of their expensive SUVs The reality is Russia depends more on the EU than the EU depends on Russia and the moment it becomes independent as far as energy supplies are concerned they will change their stance on Russia.

 

Aside from that, Russians will keep buying real estate outside the country, you know why this phenomena is happening? Because wealthy Russians are insecure in Russia, and most of them want to secure their wealth as much as possible, hence they are grabbing real estate all over the world, because they trust other countries property rights but are uncertain of their own. They will keep doing that as long as they perceive their own country as being unsafe for preserving wealth. Most wealthy Russians do their best to keep their money outside of Russia. Same as the Chinese. Russian money will still flow to the west just as steadily as it does now.

Nicely said.

The West should forget about punishing Russia and do more to help Ukraine

 

The United States and the European Union both announced aid packages for Ukraine last week. But with the new government in Kiev struggling to clean house after the corrupt rule of Viktor Yanukovych and face down a belligerent Russia, the aid packages are too small and will disburse too slowly to provide the immediate help it needs.

 

Ukraine’s current crisis is typically miscast as a political conflict between East and West—between pro-Russian Yanukovych and Europhile opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko; between the country’s Russian-speaking eastern regions and its Ukrainian-speaking western half; and between Russia and its old Cold War adversaries. These political clashes are, however, byproducts of a much more profound, long-simmering Ukrainian economic crisis that has been decades in the making.

 

Since its independence in 1991, Ukraine hasn’t been economically viable. Though it is one of the world’s top cereal producers, its manufacturing infrastructure is tired and its steel industry is obsolete. It adds to these woes by rigging its currency at artificially high levels, making consumer imports cheap, but exports uncompetitive.

 

The economy is also dangerously dependent on natural gas imports from Russia that power about 40% of Ukraine’s electricity production. The supply contracts for Russia’s natural gas provide a cover for massive corruption by Russian and Ukrainian interests, as Quartz’s Steve LeVine notes.

 

The problem is compounded by huge Ukrainian government subsidies: Kiev pays about 80% of the cost of Russian gas imports. In theory, it passes the remaining 20% on to consumers and businesses, but the government’s collection efforts are spotty.

 

As a result, the Ukrainian state has racked up debt equivalent to about 40% of GDP. That’s not massive compared with other troubled countries—Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio exceeds 150%—but it’s more than Ukraine and most emerging markets can sustain.

 

Ukraine is living on borrowed time

 

Through the 1990s and early 2000s, foreign appetite for Ukrainian grain and steel kept the country afloat. But with the 2008 financial crisis, demand for Ukrainian exports crashed. Rather than adjusting their spending, successive Ukrainian governments flirted alternately with Russia and the West to paper over the country’s financial cracks.

 

With IMF support, the government set reform programs in motion in 2008 and 2010 to put the country on a sounder financial footing. But both IMF loans were suspended when Ukraine reneged on promised reforms. Accession talks with the European Union stalled. Kiev turned to Moscow for help, and replaced Western financing with $15 billion in support from Russia combined with $7 billion of natural gas discounts. All of that got pulled when Yanukovych fled office a few weeks ago.

 

Ukraine is now living on borrowed time. Around $20 billion in debt comes due over the next two years. That’s $20 billion the Ukrainian government can’t finance. Its other financing needs are murky: No-one trusts the Kiev authorities’ numbers. An IMF mission arrived in Kiev last week to set the facts straight, but it won’t report back to Washington for another week.

 

In any case, a crisis two decades in the making can’t be undone in the 18 to 36 months of a typical IMF-supported reform program. As for the American and European aid, it will also likely carry conditions the fledgling Ukrainian government can’t fulfill in the coming months. The government has already started slashing pensions and social spending to meet the West’s demands. Rather than shoring up the interim administration, this is a recipe for disaster ahead of May elections.

 

Kiev needs more money, and sooner

 

Ukraine needs more time to reform its economy and put it on a sustainable path. The West should make its offer of aid more realistic.

 

First, the US and EU need to front-load their aid packages and make them richer. The American offer of $1 billion in loan guarantees would make only a dent in Ukraine’s financing needs. Europe’s $11 billion aid package would release only about $1.6 billion this year, and then only on agreement to widespread reforms and a deal with the IMF. To dispel any fear of a debt default and defer crippling spending cuts, the US and Europe should offer Ukraine $20 billion over the next two years, of which $7 billion to $10 billion should be upfront in liquid non-project financing.

 

Second, the West needs to ensure that IMF money carries fewer strings and disburses faster than past loans. The Ukrainian government has requested $15 billion from the IMF, but this is likely to come in two parts: perhaps $1 billion under an emergency facility, with the rest over the next three years once Kiev has agreed to tough conditions.

 

Third, the West needs to open unilaterally and immediately its markets to Ukrainian goods by dropping tariff barriers.

 

Punishing Russia won’t achieve anything

 

Diplomatic isolation, asset freezes, and travel bans may be appropriate, but are unlikely to have much impact on Russia. Economic and financial sanctions that would actually bite aren’t credible. Russia does $100 billion in annual trade with Europe. One-third of European natural gas comes from Russia. The $3 billion in transit fees on that gas constitute Ukraine’s largest service export. And London’s banks house billions in oligarchs’ assets. Europe needs Russia and Vladimir Putin knows it.

 

Likewise, musings about the US using its abundant shale gas or releases from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to drive down global energy prices and hurt Russia’s exports are fantasies. It will be years before the US has the infrastructure needed to export its gas surplus. And SPR releases turn the screws on Russia only if OPEC, or at least the Saudis, check their production too.

 

Finally, helping Ukraine is diplomatically easier than sanctioning Russia. In contrast with the UN Security Council, where Russian and Chinese vetoes hamper action, the US and Europe have enough voting power on the IMF Executive Board to approve a large loan with few strings to Ukraine. They should use that power.

 

Solve Ukraine’s economic problems, and you stop Kiev’s oscillating tease between East and West. Help Ukraine’s emerging leaders make the country economically sustainable, and you make Ukraine a bridge between East and West rather than a flash point of tension. Henry Kissinger asks how the Ukraine crisis ends. The answer: When we start sending real money to Kiev.

 

http://qz.com/185767/the-west-should-forge...o-help-ukraine/

Henry Kissinger is still alive??

I'm done nation building. Our own countries infrastructure is becoming archaic. Our unemployment is terrible and I see many people in need here at home.

It would be nice to use our money to rebuild our country for once instead of someone else's.

 

That article made me legitimately pissed off. Talk about looking the gift horse in the mouth

I'm done nation building. Our own countries infrastructure is becoming archaic. Our unemployment is terrible and I see many people in need here at home.

It would be nice to use our money to rebuild our country for once instead of someone else's.

 

That article made me legitimately pissed off. Talk about looking the gift horse in the mouth

 

This is exactly what I was talking about! There are things in our own backyards which we need to take care of! Without a shadow of a doubt we have idiots leading our countries!

Solve Ukraine’s economic problems, and you stop Kiev’s oscillating tease between East and West. Help Ukraine’s emerging leaders make the country economically sustainable, and you make Ukraine a bridge between East and West rather than a flash point of tension. Henry Kissinger asks how the Ukraine crisis ends. The answer: When we start sending real money to Kiev.

 

http://qz.com/185767/the-west-should-forge...o-help-ukraine/

 

What makes the author of the article think that any money sent to Ukraine will actually be spent in a productive manner? We have trouble spending it in a productive manner in a country like the United States if we decide to engage in large-scale spending, let alone a country like Ukraine, where a majority of the money would probably end up in the pockets of corrupt people as opposed to actually being used to build up the country.

 

And we can do more to punish Russia. For one, sure developing U.S. energy exports may take years. But Putin has a grand vision in mind that probably involves years of action as well. If it takes us five to seven years where we are then in a position to really start changing the energy relationship of these Euro nations to Russia, fine. In five, seven, or even ten years, if we have NOT done so, then we will be kicking ourselves saying, "If only we had started at this a decade ago, we'd have the capability now."

 

In addition, start a process of re-strengthening NATO. Make Putin know that the United States, in particular, is devoted to a grand, medium-to-long term plan of countering his grand plan. That if he keeps up with his nonsense, then within a decade, he's going to be facing a much more muscular NATO and a much more energy independent NATO as well. Along with various other actions to undermine Russia.

 

And pay attention similarly to Iran and China too. Iran, China, and Russia represent, IMO, the trio of major threats to American power and hence the free world and Western civilization.

I'm done nation building. Our own countries infrastructure is becoming archaic. Our unemployment is terrible and I see many people in need here at home.

It would be nice to use our money to rebuild our country for once instead of someone else's.

 

That article made me legitimately pissed off. Talk about looking the gift horse in the mouth

 

 

This is exactly what I was talking about! There are things in our own backyards which we need to take care of! Without a shadow of a doubt we have idiots leading our countries!

 

Yup, let's fix our own house before we condemn somebody else's

I don't want to give my money to anyone, we gave hundred of billions to Greece, and what did they do? Buy tanks with the money.

 

They should do what Ireland did, as we should all in europe and us.

Civilian airline reportedly shot down in this region.

 

Over to our field correspondent Hannibal who will also link this to the infamous LP milk thread because not only was it a Malaysian airliner but also I heard there was some milk onboard.

Civilian airline reportedly shot down in this region.

 

Over to our field correspondent Hannibal who will also link this to the infamous LP milk thread because not only was it a Malaysian airliner but also I heard there was some milk onboard.

 

Flight Tracker:

 

Claiming it was terrorists.

 

The aircraft was "shot down" over Ukraine by "terrorists" operating a Buk surface-to-air missile system, according to the Facebook page of Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry. There were 280 passengers killed as well as 15 crew members, Gerashchenko's post reads.

"We do not exclude that the plane was shot down and confirm that the Ukraine Armed Forces did not fire at any targets in the sky," Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said, according to his website.

fcuk

Only picture I have been able to dig up so far here at work.

 

Pro-Russian rebels are denying responsibility.

Pro-Russian rebels are denying responsibility.

 

Well who wants to take responsibility for shooting down a civilian airliner? There isn't a line going "pick me pick me pick me!"

Good point

Here just a half an hour go the leader of russian terrorists Igor 'Strelkov' Girkin made boastful statements in his social profile that they shot down two planes, one of them he believes was Ukrainian An-26 and the other seems to be Su-25. http://std3.ru/ef/41/1405610146-ef41d7464b...bf6c86d11e6.png

 

"We just shot down An-26 (note:ukrainian transport plane used by military) near the city of Torez, the debris is lying somewhere close to the coal-mine "Progress. " We have warned before not to fly in "our sky." And here is the video confirmation that "the rain of dead birds" continues. The plane fell behind a spoil tip, the residential sector is not caught. Civilians are not injured.

 

Nice find Rob!

Good point

 

Yeah this would be only the 4th time it has happened. Russians did it to the Koreans twice and we did it to the Iranians once although there is a ton of debate as to what the cargo was on that Iranian flight...

Couple of additional pictures: