IMF

Greeks Strike Against Austerity Before Merkel Visit

April 10, 2014 Renee Maltezou and Costas Pitas, www.reuters.com Resist! Austerity, European Union (EU), Greece, IMF

Thousands of striking Greeks marched to parliament on Wednesday to protest against job cuts and austerity measures imposed by the country's foreign creditors, including Germany, whose leader will visit Athens this week. Schools and pharmacies were shut, ships remained docked at ports, hospitals operated on emergency staff, and transport in Athens was disrupted due to the 24-hour strike called by private sector union GSEE and its public sector counterpart ADEDY. More than 20,000 workers, pensioners, students and the unemployed marched peacefully through the streets of the Greek capital chanting "EU, IMF take the bailout and get out of here!" Unions said their anti-austerity message was also aimed at German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is due to meet Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in Athens on Friday. Germany has insisted on painful spending cuts and tax hikes in return for international loans.

New Shock Doctrine: ‘Doing Business’ With The World Bank

April 6, 2014 Jason Hickel, www.ajazeera.com Educate! Debt, Food and Agriculture, IMF, World Bank

In 2003 the World Bank published the first Doing Business Report, which ranks the world's countries based on the "ease of doing business" in them. For the most part, the fewer regulations a country has, the higher they score. The report has become the Bank's most influential publication, and the ranking system is recognised as a powerful tool for compelling countries to initiate regulatory reforms, driving a quarter of the 2,100 policy changes recorded since it was launched. Investors and CEOs use the rankings to decide where to move their money or headquarter their businesses for maximum profit. There's even a handy iPhone app that jet-setting capitalists can use to redirect their investments on the fly. A new minimum wage law was just passed in Haiti? Better move your sweatshop to Cambodia! Higher taxes on the rich in Sweden? Time to shift accounts to Kenya's new tax haven!

Ukraine: What Now? The IMF Plan

April 4, 2014 Dominique Ferré, www.socialistorganizer.org Educate! Corruption, IMF, Ukraine

Obama-Putin telephone discussions, meetings between the U.S. and Russian foreign affairs ministers in Paris . . . the “de-escalation of the Ukraine crisis” is underway. Obama, in Europe, called on the NATO member countries to increase their military spending, and the Russian authorities promised not to cross over the eastern borders into Ukraine. Everything seems to have gone back to normal. The U.S. government, while repeating that “nothing will be decided without the Ukrainians,” has nonetheless rubber-stamped — without officially recognizing it — Crimea’s being attached to Russia. This is all the more true, as the Russian government, which in appearance has “saved face,” has come out of this crisis under increased pressure. According to German Gref, the managing director of the biggest bank of Russia, Sberbank, “US$35 billion of capital have been withdrawn from Russia over the first two months of the year.”

IMF Demands For Austerity Make Debt-Based Economy Worse

April 3, 2014 Eurodad, www.eurodad.org Educate! Debt, IMF

Loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) largely come with policy change conditions attached – conditions that the IMF has played a significant role in developing. Criticisms of the excessive burden and politically sensitive nature of these conditions led to significant reviews at the IMF and the introduction of some conditionality-free facilities, although these are limited in scope. The IMF claims to have limited its conditions to critical reforms agreed by recipient governments. However, the worrying findings of this research suggest that the IMF is going backwards – increasing the number of structural conditions that mandate policy changes per loan, and remaining heavily engaged in highly sensitive and political policy areas.

Time To Reverse The World Bank Land Grab #OURBIZ

April 1, 2014 Staff, www.ourlandourbusiness.org Resist! IMF, World Bank

WHOSE LAND IS IT ANYWAY? #OURBIZ Right now, millions of people are being thrown off their land because large corporations are being given special rights. The World Bank is driving this destructive trend with its Doing Business rankings, which force countries to compete with each other to do away with things like environmental protections, workers rights and corporation taxes. Stand with us to tell the World Bank and the land grabbers it’s our land, our business.

Who Benefits From Ukraine Crisis? (Hint: Not Average Ukrainians)

March 20, 2014 Jack Rasmus, www.http://www.kyklosproductions.com Educate! Finance and the Economy, IMF, Ukraine

On March 16, 2014, 83% of the Crimea’s eligible voters have voted by 97% to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. Simultaneously, negotiations between the European Union and IMF with the interim government in the Ukraine, brought to power by a Coup D’etat on February 22, continue toward a conclusion set tentatively for March 21. Extreme political uncertainty thus promises to continue for weeks and perhaps months given these events, while economic conditions consequently continue to deteriorate in the Ukraine from an already extremely precarious state. Most accounts of the situation in the Ukraine and Crimea have focused to date on political events and conditions. Little has been said in the press about the economic consequences of the Coup and subsequent events, or likely scenarios for the future. What interests—in the Ukraine and global (i.e. western Europe, USA, Russia)—stand to benefit economically from recent and future events in the Ukraine? Who stands to lose? There’s a well-worn saying, if you want to find out ‘who benefits’, then “follow the money trail”.

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