Jack Rasmus reviews the continuing collapse of global oil prices and its effect on the emerging recession in Russia, continuing economic stagnation in Europe, and the deepening Depression in the Ukraine economy. Rasmus discusses how the global oil price collapse may be entering a second phase soon, further impacting not only the major oil commodity producers (Russia, Venezuela, Nigeria, Norway, Mexico, etc.), but now, increasingly, the economies of other non-oil commodity producers (Brazil, Indonesia, India, Turkey, and others). Additional pressures appear to be building as well on global financial asset markets, especially US and European corporate junk bonds. How this is related to last week’s US Federal Reserve decision to put off raising US interest rates another 2-3 months, and the subsequent latest surge in the US stock market, is explained. Jack then discusses developments in the Russian economy as it clearly enters recession; the feedback effects of Russia’s recession on Germany and other eastern European economies; and the further feedback effects of both in turn on the deepening Depression in the Ukraine. Jack concludes with a detailed review of the negative effects of the IMF bailout on Ukraine, the recent installation of US and EU citizens as economics and finance ministers in Ukraine’s new government, Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk’s pleading for more aid from the west, and latest hard nose demands by the IMF and G7 for Ukraine to impose even more austerity on its people if it wants more loans in 2015.
Oil Deflation, Russia’s Recession, and Ukraine Depression
Jack Rasmus
Dr. Jack Rasmus, Ph.D Political Economy, teaches economics at St. Mary’s College in California. He is the author and producer of the various nonfiction and fictional workers, including the books The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy From Reagan to Bush, Clarity Press, October 2019. Jack is the host of the weekly radio show, Alternative Visions, on the Progressive Radio Network, and a journalist writing on economic, political and labor issues for various magazines, including European Financial Review, World Financial Review, World Review of Political Economy, ‘Z‘ magazine, and others.