Tag: International Monetary Fund

How Long Will We Use Cash?

I recently wrote a post talking about our use of money….a sort of historic perspective…..

Source: Why Use Money? – In Saner Thought

Then I went on to talk about how it seems that there is a movement to replace cash with a plastic card of sorts…..the first I heard of it awhile back when Great Britain was replacing some of the their paper money…..

The prospect of living in a cashless society has grown steadily for decades but it might have now reached tipping point, after cards became Britain’s number one payment method for the first time.

According to data released by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) on Wednesday (12 July), cards now account for over 50% of payments processed in the UK for the first time. The landmark achievement was largely driven by a boom in contactless payments, which now account for approximately a third of all payments, compared with 10% in October 2015.

The so-called “tap and go” cards were introduced a decade ago in the UK and after a somewhat unimpressive start they appear to have finally won over British shoppers. An increase in the number of stores accepting “tap and go” payments has also contributed to the sharp rise in popularity of contactless cards.

Source: Beginning of the end for cash? Cards now UK’s preferred payment method

When I first read about this I thought that it was an interesting experiment…but how far would it really go?

I had to ask, huh?

Looks like the IMF (I never thought the IMF was all that important) has a program in place……

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington has published a Working Paper on “de-cashing”. It gives advice to governments who want to abolish cash against the will of their citizenry. Move slowly, starting with seemingly harmless measures, is part of that advice.

In “The Macroeconomics of De-Cashing”, IMF-Analyst Alexei Kireyev recommends in his conclusions:

Source: IMF Tells Governments How to Subvert Public Resistance Against Elimination of Cash – Rigged Game

If this attempt is successful then you will be at the mercy of the government…..I do not like that feeling…..I like the feel of CASH!

Any thoughts?

Ukraine’s IMF Deal Means Greece-Like Depression | Common Dreams

Today it may look as if I am lazy…I will be pressing a lot of articles but I have an excuse…..I will be lecturing and do not want to miss posting in the morning…..I should be free this afternoon that is considering I am not arrested for brow beating someone stupid………….hope you guys enjoy the reads…..

My linchpin prediction is looking better and better……..GOD!  I love this stuff!

Ukraine is waiting and hope for aid from the West, especially from the IMF……and the poor peasants will be screwed……

 

Ukraine’s IMF Deal Means Greece-Like Depression | Common Dreams.

The Great Ukrainian F*ck!

Inkwell Institute

Eurasian Desk

I am a fortunate person……I have the time to keep up with my interests…..politics, international affairs and economics….I can thank that bitch Katrina for this good fortune…..you see she crushed my leg that forced me into retirement which in turn gave me all the time I want to keep track of the world and its insanities……

Now that the Crimean thing is all but settled and the Russians are pushing into Eastern Ukraine……..now with the loss of Crimea Ukraine will be needing to bring its economics into balance….but how will they do that?  One term…..the IMF!

This situation is just what the IMF is looking for so they can step in and demand changes in the economy and society……………The IMF will offer financial assistance to Ukraine…..but that will mean a whole lot of restructuring…..and that could be a disaster in the making…..How you may ask?

Remember the old USSR, that evil empire that Reagan brought down single handedly, kinda like the work of Underdog, and with the failure and the collapse the IMF stepped in to help……help with the transition to a free market economy…….

Since the USSR’s collapse, Russia faced many problems that free markets proponents in 1992 did not expect. Among other things, 25% of the population lived below the poverty line, life expectancy had fallen, birthrates were low, and the GDP was halved.  And this gave rise to the true “free markets”…..the Black Market and an increase of criminal activity that is still massive to this day……..

The IMF has been licking its chips to get their hands on the another country to boss around….they were not satisfied with the economic collapse of the PIGS…..now they have Ukraine to work on……….

IMF aid programs typically are accompanied by stringent conditions to ensure that a country will be able to fix its economy and make it grow. Canada, the European Union, the United States and other countries have promised to support Ukraine if an IMF program is put into place.

When developing countries get into financial trouble—usually because of reckless government spending—IMF procedures require that any loans made to these countries be accompanied by fulfillment of strict “conditions” that must be met before IMF funds can be disbursed.

Interesting, right?  But what are these conditions?

Program approval or reviews are based on various policy commitments agreed with the country authorities. These can take different forms:

  • Prior actions are measures that a country agrees to take before the IMF’s Executive Board approves financing or completes a review. They ensure that the program has the necessary foundation to succeed, or is put back on track following deviations from agreed policies. Examples include the elimination of price controls or formal approval of a budget consistent with the program’s fiscal framework.
  • Quantitative performance criteria (QPCs) are specific and measurable conditions that have to be met to complete a review. QPCsalways relate to macroeconomic variables under the control of the authorities, such as monetary and credit aggregates, international reserves, fiscal balances, and external borrowing. For example, a program might include a minimum level of net international reserves, a maximum level of central bank net domestic assets, or a maximum level of government borrowing.
  • Indicative targets are used to supplement QPCs for assessing progress. Sometimes they are also set when QPCs cannot because of data uncertainty about economic trends (e.g. for the later months of a program). As uncertainty is reduced, these targets are normally turned into QPCs, with appropriate modifications.
  • Structural benchmarks are (often non-quantifiable) reform measures that are critical to achieve program goals and are intended as markers to assess program implementation during a review. They vary across programs: examples are measures to improve financial sector operations, build up social safety nets, or strengthen public financial management.

These are nothing more than a rape of the working class and a boom for business to take whatever they can out of the country before it implodes…….it lead to the depression in Russia after the collapse and it is killing the PIGS…..the people of each of these countries suffer at the hands of the IMF………and Ukraine will be NO different.

The IMF is the front man of trans-national corporations and their plundering of a nation in trouble……..I see political unrest in the Ukrainian situation which could lead to even more economic problems…….

The I.M.F., Ukraine and President Obama – NYTimes.com

By now most Americans could care less what happens in Ukraine……they are fixated on a news item that is perpetuated without any news…..flight 370.

The vote is in…Crimea wants to be part of Russia……Putin is poised to be a national hero there…..and the IMF gets to f*ck the country of Ukraine unmercifully……

The I.M.F., Ukraine and President Obama – NYTimes.com.

Where Have All he Statesmen Gone?

A good question to ask here in the US.  We NO longer have statesmen we have old farts that want to hang on o their prestige of Congress for as long as possible…..it is NO longer what is right for the country and its people but rather what is right for those paying their political tabs for them.  These bloodsuckers will lie, distort and misinform the voter just to remain in their ivory towers and in doing so have crapped all over the ideal that is America.

But how do we know what a REAL statesman looks like?  Since we have NO one capable of demanding that title ….,what should we look for?

I advice…..look to ICELAND!

Icelandic president, Olafur Grimsson…….

A combative former leader of a now defunct left-wing party, he became a symbol of resistance after the 2008 collapse of Iceland’s banks by taking the unprecedented step of refusing to sign into law government bills on repayment of money lost in the crash to its larger European neighbors.

In doing so, Grimsson, 69, emboldened a presidential office that had up until then played a mainly ceremonial role and put himself at loggerheads with the centre-left government as well as international creditors.

Grimsson, who, unlike the government, opposes joining the European Union, won 52.8 percent of the vote in Saturday’s election to beat his closest rival, television journalist Thora Arnorsdottir, 37, who won 33.2 percent, the final tally showed on Sunday.

When the North Atlantic nation’s top banks collapsed in the space of a week in 2008, the country adopted a strategy to compensate local savers but not overseas ones, the bulk of which were British and Dutch depositors with so called Icesave online accounts.

These countries later demanded repayment of about $5 billion they spent compensating domestic savers, triggering a fierce international row. Twice, deals with the Icelandic government were agreed only for Grimsson to refuse to sign them, sending the unpopular bills to defeat in public referendums.

By effectively vetoing the agreements he broke well over half a century of political tradition and staked out a claim for a much more active and powerful presidential office, a course he has pledged to continue.

Now that is a statesman!  His concern is for the people and the country not what the World Bank wants or the IMF….is it self-serving?  Probably, but the people see a man fighting for them and not the international financial giants that are controlling the rest of the world….

Grimsson makes the politicians in the US look like the pathetic tools that they are…..we can only hope that one day there will be a real statesman that will rise in the US………

It’s Greece Again

Austerity….protests…..violence…..IMF loans….more austerity…..more cuts….more privatization…..more protests…. and the beat goes on…….but sports fans, will all this austerity and cuts and protests and…….will Greece be saved?

Not only will they NOT be saved but will still probably default……all that BS and they still cannot be saved…..

From BBC…….

“The announced EU programme… implies that the probability of a distressed exchange, and hence a default, on Greek government bonds is virtually 100%,” the agency said.

[…]”The support package for Greece also benefits all euro area sovereigns by containing the severe near-term contagion risk that would likely have followed a disorderly payment default or large haircut on existing Greek debt,”

Now my question is……with all the cuts and austerity….who will benefit the most if default is coming?   I can tell you the big losers…..the Greek people….that is who!

You realize that this is FAR from over, right?

Yet Another Greek Post

Inkwell Institute

European Desk

I know….we all are well aware of the problems that Greece is having……socially, economic and political……….violence, forced austerity and dissension……people having to pay for the problems created by a government…. that is pretty much always the case……

The EU and IMF plan is that Greece needs to cut spending, suspend benefits and to sell off as much as possible of the governments assets….like airports or bridges or toll roads….etc…..but there is a problem…..

As reported in UK’s Guardian……

Up for sale are 39 airports, 850 ports, railways, motorways, sewage works, a couple of energy companies, banks, defence groups, thousands of acres of land for development, casinos and Greece’s national lottery. George Christodoulakis, Greece’s special secretary for asset restructuring and privatisations, said the sell-off would raise €50bn (£44bn) to help pay back the country’s €110bn bailout debt.

The private equity bosses gathered in the hotel’s ballroom for the parade of Greece’s national treasures showed little interest in buying anything.

But why would rock bottom prices for assets not be attractive to speculators and developers?

Aref Lahham, managing director and founding partner of Orion Capital Managers, said most private equity firms would not buy Greek assets because the “risks are too high”. He added: “I think people will not buy those assets, that is the sad truth.”

Lahham said more than half of the assets up for sale comprises land for commercial or residential development, which is unattractive because of the difficulty of securing financing to build in Greece. His firm was attracted by the potential of Greek tourism but legislation made it difficult for foreign companies to develop the country’s islands and beaches. “Greece is a fantastic tourism destination with very undeveloped infrastructure. There isn’t a Four Seasons or a Shangri-La or a Peninsula or any of the major hotel chains in Greece,” he said. “It’s strange, they would love to be there and we would love to build it for them, but somehow regulations don’t allow you to do so.”

To me that sounds like the people with the cash want to eliminate any regulations that would keep them honest…….kinda like the big corporations in the US…….in a recent vote even more austerity measures have been approved by the Greek parliament……and since the first round of austerity was not as productive as anticipated….I ask what happens if this round is not successful?

The claim that “healing” and “renewed growth” will come from the further suppression of wages, deeper government spending cuts and the sell-off of government-owned assets is a contemptible lie as millions of people know through their own bitter experiences. The austerity measures of the past year—also introduced with the promise of “recovery”—have seen a rapid economic contraction and rising unemployment. But rather than bring down the level of debt, the ratio of debt to gross domestic product has continued to rise and is heading to 160 percent.

Who will pay the next round?  Will the people be cut even deeper?  The people have little left to be taken away….or maybe this time they can have the people work for free and to keep working until they drop dead….now that would settle a bunch of costs to the government……Greece is being RAPED!

I swear if I was a hard core conspiracist I would say that this is a world wide plan to eliminate the middle class and to return us back to the days of serfdoms…..(now that sounds like a future post in the making)…….

A More Austere Greece

Greece has lots of problems, along with several other countries in the EU and some even say that the US is looking at major economic problems….Greece has erupted in violence….again.

I have been writing about the problems and some of the solutions that the IMF will look for and some of the other choices that Greece must come to terms with and soon……..

I wrote a piece the other day about what the IMF will most likely demand of Greece…..http://bit.ly/mEUNw0……and today there is another post on the austerity politics ….all are related to the happenings in Greece….

But if Greece is to save itself from financial ruin what must it do?

In an article written by Wayne Madson…..

What lies in store for Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Italy, and, in short order, the United States, is the wholesale sell-off of public property to private corporations at bargain basement prices. What the despots who gather in their secretive lairs at Davos, Cernobbio, Bilderberg, and G8/G20 are bringing about is a world where no property is owned by the state, which by default means the people. Total corporate control over every facet of life equals extreme fascism.What is occurring in Greece is a bellwether for what will befall other nations in Europe, as well as the United States, if the bankers get their way. And in Greece, the people know how generations of investments by the taxpayers are being turned over to vampire capitalists who have the full backing of the International Monetary Fund, European Commission, and the European Central Bank.

The European and global bankers have demanded that the Greek government sell off entirely or assume a minority stake in a number of state enterprises and utilities.

For example, this year global capitalists are slated to acquire 84 percent of OTE, the Greek telecommunications provider. In addition, private bankers will assume 66 percent ownership of the Greek Postal Savings Bank; 51 percent of the National Lottery; 60 percent of the Salonika Water Authority; 68 percent of DEPA, the natural gas utility; and 25 percent ownership of the ports of Piraeus and Salonika.

Next year, the capitalist grab for public property increases in intensity with Athens International Airport coming under 79 percent private ownership. The global capitalists will also obtain 100 percent ownership of the Egniata toll motorway; 60 percent of Hellenic Post; 66 percent of OPAP, the state-run video-lotto and online sports betting firm; 73 percent of the Athens Water Authority; 83 percent of DEI, the Greek Electric Authority; and 51 percent of the Greek Regional Airports Authority.

There you are……an all out assault on the public sector…….an attempt to make everything and I mean everything is controlled by the private sector….everything will be for profit and NOTHING will be based on need or society’s needs….not a bad deal…..one gets to control the public sector for pennies on the dollar………..and NO one can see why the people are pissed off?  What is the first thing companies do when they buy another company?  (pause here for reflection)…..do not hurt yourself…..they fire people and shit can benefits…..and this what the whole world is looking at when the people scream about austerity…….

What part of any of this austerity crap is good for the people?  Where will it improve their lives?

Happy days are here again!

IMF–Killer Of Nations

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has made a lot of headlines in the past month or so…..you know Mr. Cool, the head of the fund was caught trying to make happy with a chamber maid and now there is a woman in France that is trying to make happy with the IMF as its new head….you have heard all the jokes….but how much do you know about the IMF?

The Activist Post has a short history…..

Under a new post-war monetary system, the IMF was created to stabilize exchange rates linked to the dollar and bridge temporary payment imbalances. The World Bank was to provide credit to war-torn developing countries. Both bodies, in fact, proved hugely exploitive, using debt entrapment to transfer public wealth to Western bankers and other corporate predators.

Basically, the IMF is NOT an organization to save country’s economic system, but rather to open them up to exploitation from banks and other raiders……how does this exploitation work, you ask?

the scheme destructively obligates indebted nations to take new loans to service old ones, assuring rising indebtedness and structural adjustment harshness, including:

— privatization of state enterprises, many sold for a fraction of their real worth;
— mass layoffs;
— deregulation;
— deep social spending cuts;
— wage freezes or cuts;
— unrestricted free market access for western corporations;
— corporate-friendly tax cuts;
— tax increases for working households;
— crushing trade unionism; and
— harsh repression against opposition to a system incompatible with social democracy, civil and human rights.

As a result, bankers and other corporate predators strip mine countries of their material wealth and resources, shift them from public to private hands, crush democratic values, hollow out nations into backwaters, destroy middle class societies, and turn workers into serfs if they manage to have any means of employment.

Look at what is being asked of Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland and what response is being felt by the people of the countries in question…….the truth is that the IMF has caused the collapse of many countries….in the 1980’s, those countries in a struggling sub-Sahara and in the same time frame many countries of Latin America….yet Article ! of the IMF states….

to give confidence to members by making the general resources of the Fund temporarily available to them under adequate safeguards, thus providing them with opportunity to correct maladjustments in their balance of payments without resorting to measures destructive of national or international prosperity.

Sounds good, huh?  Yep, kinda like the “all men created equal” of the Constitution in the 1850’s…..the IMF destroys more economies than it saves and yet it continues to rape countries of their resources…it is time for the world to realize that these organizations help….but helps only the ones that can do the raping, not the raped……

Here Comes History Again

Inkwell Institute

European Desk

I try to help my readers stay up on the happenings around the world that could possibly involve the US….and on that note…..here comes history……. again…..

In my early years of being a world traveler I had a chance to visit Greece….that was in the days of the junta and the communist uprisings….both fighting to control the country……the US was not really too popular in those days for we were entrenched with the junta and the communist were determined that we pay for our loyalty….any way I take this trip down memory lane because I see something occurring in Greece that could be a replay of those days……

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency warned in a report that the tough austerity measures and the dire situation could escalate and even lead to a military coup, according to a report by Germany’s popular daily Bild.  According to he CIA report, ongoing street protests in crisis-hit Greece could turn into escalated violence and a rebellion and the Greek government could lose control, said Bild. The newspaper said the CIA report talks of a possible military coup if the situation becomes more serious and uncontrolled.

Greece is under immense pressure owing to public debt that has swollen to 340 billion euros. The EU, IMF and European Central Bank are pressing Greece to step up a privatization program and get all political parties to approve more austerity and reform measures that have sparked violent protests, but emergency talks called by the president on Friday failed to make any headway, AFP reported.

Opposition parties have mostly refused to support the government in its quest to cut spending by trimming an overblown civil service and the sweeping privatization drive announced this week has attracted even stronger protests.

All this protests and demonstrations give some validity to the concerns….and the US will most likely return to the policy of supporting the junta, if it occurs….why?  Economics, my friend, economics!