Michael Hudson - IMF pushes Ukraine to ‘voluntarily commit suicide'

`` Lower budget deficits cause even deeper austerity and unemployment. The result is a downward economic spiral. Lower incomes mean lower tax revenues. So governments are told to balance their budgets by selling off public assets -- mainly natural monopolies whose buyers can raise excess prices to extract economic rent. The effect is to turn the economy into a renting "tollbooth economy." Hitherto free public roads are turned into toll roads, and other transportation, water and sewer systems also are privatized. This raises the cost of living, and hence the cost of labor -- while overall wage levels are squeezed by the financial austerity that shrinks markets and raises unemployment.''