The New Colonialism: Greece and Ukraine.

The New Colonialism: Greece and Ukraine. By Jack Rasmus in CounterPunch.
   
Can you hear that financial vacuum cleaner gearing up to empty the personal wallets and national wealth of Ukrainians? 

In comparison to this experienced, efficient and well-connected international machine, Ukraine's former President Yanunovich was a mere amateur in corruption and wealth extraction.
   
"A new form of colonialism is emerging in Europe.  Not colonialism imposed by military conquest and occupation, as in the 19th century. Not even the more efficient form of economic colonialism pioneered by the U.S. in the post-1945 period, where the costs of direct administration and military occupation were replaced with compliant local elites allowed to share in the wealth extracted in exchange for being allowed to rule on behalf of the colonizers.
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In the 21st century, it is “colonialism by means of financial asset transfer.” It is colony wealth extraction by colonizing country managers, assigned to directly administer the processes in the colony by which financial assets are to be transferred. This new form of colonialism by direct management plus financial wealth transfer is now emerging in Greece and Ukraine.
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The new colonialism as financial asset transfer takes several practical forms: as wealth transfer in the form of interest payments on ever rising debt, in firesales of government assets sold directly to the colonizer’s investors and bankers, and in the de facto takeover the colony’s banking system and bank assets in order to transfer wealth to shareholders of the colonizing country’s private bankers and investors.
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In Ukraine’s case, only once U.S. and Euro bankers were installed as Ministers of Finance and Economics last December 2014, were more loans promised to Ukraine. The U.S. and EU put in another $4 billion in January, and the IMF quickly announced the new $40 billion deal in February. After the $40 billion, Ukraine’s debt rose from $12 billion in 2007 to $100 billion in 2015. The new $100 billion debt will mean a massive increase in financial wealth extraction in the form of interest payments on that $100 billion.
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Another form of transfer will occur in the accelerating of privatizations. No fewer than 342 former government enterprise companies are slated for sale in 2015, including power plants, mines, 13 ports, and even farms.  The sales will likely occur at firesale prices, benefiting U.S. and European “friends” of the new US and European ministers.  So too will the sale of Ukraine private companies approved by the new Ministers. One of every five are technically bankrupt and unable to refinance $10 billion in corporate junk bond debt. Many will default, the best scooped up by U.S. and EU shadow bankers and multinational corporations."

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/03/the-new-colonialism-greece-and-ukraine/