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cglobalcrisis/globalchange NEWS
Martin Zeis, 09.02.2016

Dear all,

Michael HUDSON and Paul Craig ROBERTS, well-known analysts of economics and geopolitics, are warning Russia hauntingly to privatize national enterprises to bridge budgetary short-term gaps.

It’s visible, that neoliberals inside the governmental machinery and the oligarchs, who greedly/criminally plundered and disappropriated the country during the Jelzin-era, want to exploit the economic/national budget problems attendant the triple strategic attacks of the US-Empire:

1. pushing Western governments to impose economic sanctions against Russia,
2. additional dumping of the oil-price using the leveraged derivative tools of Wall Street,
3. attacking core-interests (geopolitical) of the country by the Maidan-Coup and destroying Syria/Mid East by the CIA-/Turkey/Saudiarabia supported/equipped/funded slaugther-gang IS – fortunately failing at present. (see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/syria-putin-assad_b_9169998.html?utm_hp_ref=politics&ir=Politics )

Greets,
Martin Zeis

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/02/08/privatization-is-the-atlanticist-strategy-to-attack-russia-paul-craig-roberts-and-michael-hudson

Privatization Is the Atlanticist Strategy to Attack Russia
by Paul Craig Roberts and Michael Hudson
Feb 08, 2016

E x c e r p t

However, the Russian economic outlook deteriorated as the United States pushed Western governments to impose economic sanctions against Russia and oil prices declined. This has made the Russian economy less attractive to foreign investors. So sale of these companies will bring much lower prices today than would have been likely in 2014. (…)

There is no need for Russia to accept this pro-rentier economic philosophy that bleeds a country of public revenues. Neoliberals are promoting it not to help Russia, but to bring Russia to its knees.“

Meanwhile, the combination of a rising domestic budget deficit and balance-of-payments deficit has given Russian advocates of privatization an argument to press ahead with the sell-offs. The flaw in their logic is their neoliberal assumption that Russia cannot simply monetize its deficit, but needs to survive by selling off more major assets. We warn against Russia being so gullible as to accept this dangerous neoliberal argument. Privatization will not help re-industrialize Russia’s economy, but will aggravate its turn into a rentier economy from which profits are extracted for the benefit of foreign owners. (…)

The excuse being cited by Russian officials for selling these companies at the present time is to finance the domestic budget deficit. This excuse shows that Russia has still not recovered from the disastrous Western Atlanticist myth that Russia must depend on foreign banks and bondholders to create money, as if the Russian central bank cannot do this itself by monetizing the budget deficit.

Monetization of budget deficits is precisely what the United States government has done, and what Western central banks have been doing in the post World War II era. Debt monetization is common practice in the West.

Governments can help revive the economy by printing money instead of indebting the country to private creditors which drains the public sector of funds via interest payments to private creditors.

There is no valid reason to raise money from private banks to provide the government with money when a central bank can create the same money without having to pay interest on loans. However, Russian economists have been inculcated with the Western belief that only commercial banks should create money and that governments should sell interest-bearing bonds in order to raise funds. The incorrect belief that only private banks should create money by making loans is leading the Russian government down the same path that has led the eurozone into a dead end economy. By privatizing credit creation, Europe has shifted economic planning from democratically elected governments to the banking sector. (…)

HUDSON_ROBERTS-privatization-attacks-Russia160208.pdf