Posted on 04/14/2014 8:00:00 AM PDT by tcrlaf
With Ukraine no longer paying for Russian gaz, and with Gazprom making it clear Kiev has to a) first pay the overdue $2+ billion in invoice and then b) prepay some $5 billion in gas until the end of the year of Europe gets it, it was only a matter of time before the US Treasury stepped in and paid off part or all of Gazprom's demands. That time is now, when moments ago Jack Lew announced a $1 billion loan guarantee for Ukraine - very much the same way that the US provided billions in loan guarnatees for the now long overthrown Mursi regime in Egypt. And in other news, many more "costly" and "damaging" US sanctions are surely headed Russia's way any second now.
From the Treasury:
Treasury Secretary Lew Announces Signing Of $1 Billion U.S. Loan Guarantee Agreement For Ukraine
WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew announced the signing of a $1 billion loan guarantee agreement for Ukraine. This guarantee, when completed, will complement the Government of Ukraine's International Monetary Fund (IMF) reform program and underscores the United States' commitment to Ukraine.
So we are paying Ukraine’s gas bill, to make sure Europe doesn’t face an interruption of its gas supplies? Why are we paying Europe’s gas bill?
Regime change sure is fun. 5 billion to fund the Maidan revolt, now another few billion for gas, and other assistance. Pouring it down a rat hole. Add in the money weve spent on Syria, Egypt, Libya, etc,, I bet we are at least 25 billion into this BS.
Same reason we are paying for their defense...We're suckers.
Now that spring is here, how many of America’s poor just had their gas and utilities shut off due to non-payment?
Russia’s gas is priced in US dollars already. No need to convert to Rubles. And this is the next thing to expect when the McCain/Obama/EU sanctions hit Russia.
Russia might decide they need to be paid in a gold backed trade currency. Then the end of the dollar begins.
Like Putin said, “a monkey with a hand grenade”.
Makes sense....pay Ukraine’s gas bill when we can’t pay our own bills. Someday these chickens must come home to roost. They may have to roost on the ground,tho.
Insane in normal times, and utterly crazed when we are nearly insolvent,,
“Like Putin said, “a monkey with a hand grenade”.”
Actually, that was said by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. But your point is well taken...
As foretold by ZeroHedge (Tyler Durden) a couple of weeks ago. And if anyone thinks DC is the only fool in town, the EU foreign ministers are sitting at a meeting just now, talking about possible aid to hand over to Kiev. Money that will either directly or indirectly end up in Moscow. As someone suggested above, why not pay Putin directly and cut out the middle man?
You don’t have to become an isolationist to avoid being a sucker.
At some point, we have to wake up and realize we are not the USA we all knew, even as recently as the 80s.
We are now a sick variant of what the USSR was. Instead of spreading communism, we spread depravity and sodomy with the same zeal. We are funding terrorism everywhere we can find a way. The Nazis that took over the maidan protests,, Syrian jihadis, moslem brotherhood in Egypt, Al qeida in Libya, insane spending on Karzai in Afghanistan, and others are all world nightmares we spend our fortune on, and fly fighter cover for. We are expanding NATO right up to the border of Russia and have recently had our NGOs ejected from there for pushing movements in Russia.
We did our best to ruin the Olympics in our homosexual zeal.
I think a sane Russian leader should shove back somewhere around this point. And that is exactly what we are seeing.
““Like Putin said, “a monkey with a hand grenade”.”
Actually, that was said by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. But your point is well taken...”
Thanks! And I wish I could have watched when the white house learned that he called Obama a monkey.
Interesting; a few on FR seem to want to send us into a war there, to enable the Ukrainians to join the EU.
They decry evil Russia who is “annexing” Ukraine. We need to go to war !
Russia is owed by Ukraine billions for gas.
Ukraine supposedly can’t afford to pay right away.
Western companies are doing business in Ukraine to beat the band. Hundreds of them. Billions of dollars being earned by Ukrainian and foreign companies operating in Ukraine.
Ukraine, one would think, should have some tax revenue coming in from all that business activity.
The US State Department (Victoria Nuland) is on video record bragging that the US spent $5 BILLION on “helping Ukraine realize its European aspirations”.
In light of the billions already flowing for all the political organizing, propaganda, billions in investment capital buying up land, building factories, selling goods in Ukraine, putting Ukrainians to work making goods for export, etc.,......
can someone just pay the stinking gas bill ?
It’s like we’re at a high-priced New York City restaurant with a bunch of jetsetter elites, blabbering on about how rich they all are...
and then no one wants to pick up the check for the meal !
Somebody pay the gas bill !
Oh, I would think that it would be cash-pay-as-you-go from here on out.
Maybe we can avoid this nasty arrears problem forever in the future.
Next, on joining the EU...
the EU is yet another globalist union.
Since you’re already doing global trade and finance, you’re already working for the global financial elites.
Do you really want to go into that extra step of submission ?
Many conservative Americans seem like they’re ready for the US to give up its sovereignty and join in some kind of Pan-American union with Canada and Mexico.
NAFTA is just the precursor to that.
Just how stupid are the sheeple ?
We were for Putin before we were against him before we were for him again, but not really for him, but for Ukraine, or Gazprom, or something.
Here's a billion we'll never see again. On the other hand, you know, it's just a billion, so what difference does it make?
This is payment in lieu of fulfilling our treaty. Nobody in the press is picking this up, but the EU is on the hook for half the treaty and I haven’t seen what it is they are putting up.
100 years from now, they are going to write books about just this Obama villain, and they will require entire course to plumb the depth of the perfidy of it.
So happy to work hard to bail out every dysfunctional part of the world!
The Kenyan sure loves looting America!
We are borrowing one billion from China, that US taxpayers are on the hook for, to give to Ukraine, so Ukraine can pay Russia, so the EU doesn’t get its gas cut off.
Why doesn’t the EU pay the bill?
Anyone who has listened to establishment tools, from Dick Cheney to IMF chief Christine Legarde, speak recently about the “dangerous” trend of “isolation” in America has heard them say something like “America must not turn back on its duty of global leadership.” What they mean by that is “the American taxpayer must not stop being the world’s piggybank.”
Better be Lend/Lease...
Why the hell is all this money going to other countries?
Noting your choice of quotation marks. How would you describe what Russia is doing? Or is the use of quotation marks your indication that Russia is acting in a "globalist" fashion?
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