tanked the previous IMF loans. Under the agreement they were not allowed to increase certain government expenses and he announced an increase for retirement and social programs. I don't know if that was purposeful or not, and I don't know if there was an issue like high inflation that was causing problems for the residents to justify the increase. One thing was clear it was a very popular move, so I don't know if he did it to boost his popularity or to help people.

Is it always the USA that is to blame ...???

clear. If Yanukovich wanted to increase the pensions, he could have appealed to the IMF and submitted a plan showing why it was necessary. The bottom line is, to get that country back on it's feet financially cuts are going to have to be made and none of the previous Presidents have wanted to do it.

A perfect example of the idiocy of the problem: Ukraine subsidizes all of it's gas so all citizens pay a fraction of the total cost. This is a huge portion of their deficit. Ukraine is horribly energy inefficient. They use the same amount of gas as France or Germany whose GDP is 7-8 times what Ukraines is. An example of the problem: Homes in Kiev are heated by radiators which are fed by boilers located throughout the town. I think there are three large ones. The pipes lose 50% of their heat in transit, plus it doesn't allow for individual thermostats so the heat is turned on in September and runs through March when the state shuts it off. So what do you do when it gets too hot? You open the window. Clearly there need to be system upgrades, but who is going to pay for it? If the citizens were paying the cost of all this extra heat they'd make a fuss, but they're paying like $10 bucks a month so they don't complain. Who keeps blocking or not funding improvements to the system? Gee, I don't know...who benefits from all the gas sales? Russia.
Not only that, factories use 46% of the subsidized energy. I don't think that counts small businesses who may genuinely need subsidies, I think it's the billionaires who are making a profit because their expenses are low because the cost is being shifted back onto the government/taxpayers.

And why won't investors back the upgrades to the system? Because all the power players control the gas, the gas pipelines, and the companies who benefit. They in turn control the politicians who will keep capital improvements from happening in one form or another.

Ukraine has a future, there are solutions that will put it on a path to prosperity, but there will be some short-term inconvenience. It's not like the countries who are already efficient and massively in debt. Ukraine has a bright future if they can start doing what's in their best interest and not what suits the companies and corruption as they are today.

Maybe their houses and appartments don't have a conventional gas supply at all and they all cook with electric and otherwise heat with wood burners..

Centralized planning of apt. blocks and city blocks called for centralized services. You have a single boiler that handles a large population. The super for the building doesn't have to worry about shoveling coal (most of these are probably converted from coal boilers), you keep the logistics simple enough for a central planning office to handle.

It is horribly inefficient, but it simplifies things for the planners. Older buildings in the US had central boilers for a large building. Some older universities and colleges have central boilers and chillers with steam tunnels.

The downside is that you really can't regulate things at the individual level. But the governments, for many decades, didn't really care about things at the individual level.


In many older Soviet apts. you had centralized kitchens, as well. There'd be a kitchen or bathroom for a group of apts. Everybody had to share the stove, the oven, the sink. Those fell out of favor as Soviet society became a little better off, but putting in one heating unit for a "subdivision" (I don't have English words for them) was still standard in the '60s and '70s.

where whole housing estates were built with a centralised heating system. Got a friend who's just sold her house in north London with that. Almost impossible to control and like a fucking oven in their most of the time.

But like you said, the communal nature of utilities extends to all but the nicest ($$$) buildings.
In Saint Petersburg the heat for the entire building would be shut off on a particular day in the spring and would not be turned on until autumn.
In Moscow there are no basement boilers and hot water comes from plants around the city. We'd have to bath with hot water from the samovar because the hot water would suddenly be shut off, neighborhood by neighborhood, for maintenance. It always took much longer to be turned back on then it was supposed to.
Add to it the mafia control of utilities.
The lights would be turned off in the middle of class for nonpayment or some sort of warning.
It was always something.

As an aside, Russia has a serious housing crisis on its hands. Most of the Soviet era buildings were meant to be replaced at least 20-30 years ago. The heating systems and roofs were poorly planned and cause a slow, constant accumulation of ice on the eaves all winter long. Every spring killer ice sickles come hurtling down. Its very scary. These things are as big as grown men.

again the link is greed ...

We need to stop giving so much money to other countries. Our country is a mess. We need to fix our country first.

We could cut every dime of foreign aid and it wouldn't make a damn bit of palpable different in regard to our overall fiscal situation.

If you oppose foreign aid on some principle that has nothing to do with the money, I can respect that. But if you are opposing it on fiscal grounds, I believe there are bigger fish to catch.

because, regardless of what the actual percentage it is we give to other countries, it's money, I believe, that can be better utilized by investing it at home.

$1 billion is a lot of money. Ask our poor. Ask our homeless. Ask our ill. Ask our unemployed. Ask our educators.

1 billion isn't nearly enough money to do jack shit for our poor, homeless, sick, unemployed or underpaid. What we need to do is eliminate tax loopholes, raise taxes on capital gains, slash all the useless crap out of the defense budget, raise the cap on social security and then we can look at where we are at... invest in jobs and healthcare and safety nets, all that. What we do with foreign aid isn't going to make any real difference when you are talking about several hundred billion that's being lost to a flawed tax system or given away to wealthy special interests. If you want to find the money to make the right domestic investments, foreign aid is nothing more than a wishing well at a local shopping mall.

don't help the American nor the foreign poor.

I've heard way too much isolationism on DU lately. While I like most on DU agree we need to avoid military conflicts, that doesn't mean we can't help in other ways.

The claims that we don't have any right or duty to care about other nations are just ignorant. As someone else pointed out, if we got our financial house in order we should be able to do both.

Thanks for posting it.

implies the US the will guarantee loans which others make removing the additional cost of credit default insurance. The billion which the EU offered is physical - straight forward bank transfer.

The US govt spends that amount every 2.5 hours.

For a billion you get nix.

a "frail" is a woman who wants to be kept...so she doesn't have to support herself.

But no mention was ever made by the opposition of the level of austerity they are likely to face for at least the next 5 years by the strings which will be attached to what will effectively be bailout funds.

im with the writer of the article, seems a lil late...

i don't think the 'new' government can be trusted any further than the old one personally..

that place is full of political and economic corruption.

and while i get that 1 billion isn't a huge amount in the grand scheme of things.. i can think of some bridges near me that could sure use a billion dollars towards their repair tabs


oh well, hope it gets to the Ukrainian people and has its intended purpose fulfilled. that's all you can really hope for.



i still think we should be focused on getting our allies to impose some sort of economic punishment on Russia.. i was against our invasion of Iraq, and im against their invasion without reasonable justification just as strongly. call me old fashioned, but i like global border stability. i do think crimea should be given a chance to decide what direction it proceeds.. by vote or whatever 'fair' means... their nation did just have a coup after all, and imagine they would be within their rights if they wanted to leave because of it..

... but your $1 billion door is a little late.


- I'd say that it's the thought that counts, but that would be bullshit.......