"With the overthrow of the Yanukovich government, the $15 billion of promised Russian financial assistance to Ukraine is in doubt. According to Moody[HTML_REMOVED]#8217;s rating agency, [HTML_REMOVED]#8220;Ukraine will require $24 billion to cover a budget deficit, debt repayments, natural gas bills and pension support just in 2014.[HTML_REMOVED]#8221; Without Moscow[HTML_REMOVED]#8217;s continued bond purchasing and other forms of financial aid, and with pro-EU forces taking control of the country[HTML_REMOVED]#8217;s economic and foreign policy, the outcome is not hard to predict: a rescue package from Europe with all the usual austerity conditions attached.
In exchange for European [HTML_REMOVED]#8220;aid[HTML_REMOVED]#8221;, Ukraine will be forced to accept the driving down of wages, significant cuts to the public sector and social services, in addition to a rise in taxes on the working class and slashing of pensions. Moreover, the country will be compelled to accede to a liberalization program that will allow Europe to dump goods into the Ukrainian market, deregulation and the further opening up the country[HTML_REMOVED]#8217;s financial sector to predatory speculation and privatization.
It doesn[HTML_REMOVED]#8217;t take psychic powers to predict these developments. One merely has to look at the wave of austerity in European countries such as Greece and Cyprus. Furthermore, Eastern European countries with similar economic and historical conditions to Ukraine [HTML_REMOVED]#8211; Latvia and Slovenia specifically [HTML_REMOVED]#8211; provide a roadmap for what Ukraine should expect."
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/24/ukraines-sickness/print
Freedom of contract. We sell them guns that kill them; they sell us drugs that kill us.