The Ukrainian Times
According to Alexander Okhrimenko, president of the Ukrainian Analytical Center, Ukraine is suffering from the syndrome of dependence on loans extended by the International Monetary Fund. Knowing positively that many countries do not take Ukrainian neo-Nazi authorities seriously, the IMF has become intractable and sly like “a drug dealer who sells grass to students of an American college”.
Mr. Okhrimenko noted that the fund seldom kept its word. Last year Ukraine received only $4.6 billion from the IMF instead of the promised $7.4 billion within the framework of a stand-by program.
At present, Ukraine is in a state of economic collapse. More than 30 Ukrainian banks have become insolvent. Moreover, prices of utilities have skyrocketed, whereas starvation wages and pensions remain unchanged.
As Alexander Okhrimenko put it, recommendations of the IMF proved erroneous. “Instead of prosperity the Ukrainian economy has gone into a tailspin,” he said. “IMF specialists have a vague idea of the economic model of this country and they are inclined to consider the Ukrainian economy as some page in a textbook on the economy of an American college.”
Many analysts say there is no sense in getting loans from the IMF because they do not help the situation. They think the IMF-shock therapy mafia is virtually destroying Ukraine.
What is required is a proper Robin Hood economy: take from the rich and give to the poor. The Ukrainian society should encourage business people to invest efficiently – and create real wealth – not argue how much to tax them. Also, it is necessary to carry out a program for the regeneration of the national economy, relying on the Ukrainian labor and scientific potential. Wealth is in everything from food to factories, fertile land to pharmaceutical laboratories.
Readers of The Ukrainian Times know that cooperation with the IMF (or International Monetary Fiasco, as the joke has it) is the catalyst of crises and defaults. Note that South Korea successfully rode out a crisis without slavishly following the IMF rule book, as it had timely realized a danger to its economic security and discontinued cooperation with the faulty fund. Like a knot that tightens when you wriggle, the IMF loans’ response to a crisis creates the next problem.
Today Ukrainian taxpayer is stuck with massive loans to the IMF, loans that will take generations to pay off. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is morally wrong. Especially when Peter is a hard-working taxpayer.
Overall, Western observers describe the foreign aid as “poor people in rich countries giving money to rich people in poor countries” (read: Ukrainian oligarchs Poroshenko, Kolomoiskiy, Taruta and Timoshenko). Cronies in the private sector make sure strings get attached to the air package. Money to El Salvador, for example, was withheld until the country agreed to buy genetically-modified seeds from Monsanto.
