War in Ukraine is becoming a gold mine for American business

Posted January 9, 2023

In Corruption, Endless war, Ukraine, USA, На русском

Photo: A socialist in Canada

By Irina Alksnis,

Published in Russian on RIA Novosti; published in English on A Socialist In Canada, Jan 4, 2023:

Critical reading for understanding why the US wants this war to go on and on… Ukraine is a ‘country is being supported solely by Western financial injections, primarily American. BlackRock is a really big player in the investment market, managing assets worth about eight trillion dollars. The question arises, where the funds will come from for the development of all the “reconstruction road maps” and the future work of the investment company in Ukraine?’
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At the very end of 2022, negotiations were held via videoconference between the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and the CEO of the U.S. investment company BlackRock, Larry Fink. Their conversation was a continuation of very active work during the preceding several months to build cooperation between Kyiv and BlackRock in the field of “coordinating investments for the rebuilding of war-torn Ukraine”.

BlackRock headquarters in New York City

The news caused a stir in Ukrainian media but went nearly unnoticed outside of it. The exception was in certain right-wing media in the United States. The American Conservative, for one, looked at the situation from its own bell tower and they didn’t like what it saw.

Writing of a memorandum of understanding signed by the Ukrainian Ministry of Economy and BlackRock Financial Markets Advisory in Washington, D.C., on November 10, 2022, the publication says the memo is “chock full of hollow corporate speak”. The publication sums up the relationship of the two ‘partners’ as follows: “BlackRock gets paid by U.S. taxpayers, via the Ukrainian government, to devise a plan that ensures the success of their future investments in Ukraine, made from money gained by making American housing unaffordable. With a deal like that for our financial and political elite, why would they ever want peace?”

The bottom line is this: Ukraine is a financial and economic corpse, imitating real life. The country is being supported solely by Western financial injections, primarily American. BlackRock is a really big player in the investment market, managing assets worth about eight trillion dollars. The question arises, where the funds will come from for the development of all the “reconstruction road maps” and the future work of the investment company in Ukraine? The amounts must be enough to make this whole project attractive for such a business monster as BlackRock. The answer to the question looks quite obvious: the funds will be taken from the same place where they have been taken so far, the U.S. government budget.

From this follows a straightforward conclusion: the American investment company BlackRock (actually, a transnational outfit) is interested in continuing hostilities in Ukraine in order to profit from war.

Of course, there is nothing sensational in this. Another mini-scandal happened in Washington in mid-December when four large military-industrial complex corporations – Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Pratt & Whitney and Lockheed Martin – sponsored a reception organized by the Ukrainian embassy on the occasion of the anniversary of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The hype arose not because the weapons manufacturers gave money to the party but because the organizers emphasized this fact as much as possible, including by placing their corporate logos on the invitations. Local commentators then noted how this was in bad taste. It’s not good, it’s indecent, to show how much the conflict in Ukraine is extremely beneficial for the American military-industrial complex.

|The easiest thing in this situation would be to burst into angry denunciation of transnational capital and its death dealers, who warm their hands on the destruction of Ukraine and are interested in maintaining the conflict as long as possible. However, there is a less obvious but much more remarkable side to all that is happening.

In recent decades, it has become commonplace to assert that globalization and transnational business are aimed at the destruction of nation-states, at their subjugation. This also applied to the Western world, but it was assumed that the USA and old Europe would manage to find themselves in a privileged position in the new system due to their centuries-old status as geopolitical, economic and technological leaders of the planet. Ordinary Europeans and Americans similarly acquired privileges from their welfare states thanks to the neo-colonial order built by their states after World War II, especially after the collapse of the USSR.

However, in recent years it has become obvious that events are developing much in the wrong direction than what the theorists of the World Economic Forum planned. The non-Western world has begun began to actively resist the imposition of the intended role on it. This applies not only to great powers-civilizations such as Russia, China or India, from which one could not expect otherwise, but also to countries that the West has for decades (in some cases, for centuries even) been accustomed to perceive as its puppets. They begun to demonstrate independent policies and an increasingly consistent defense of their national interests. Every year, there are more and more such states – in the Middle East, Latin America and Africa. That is why, by the way, the world looks at Ukraine with some bewilderment: is it really necessary to sacrifice one’s country on the altar of Western hegemony – voluntarily, and with a song, no less. And this is in the third decade of the 21st century!

The West, of course, is making efforts to turn events in the direction it needs, but the successes are not impressive. As a result, it finds itself in a situation of a deepening economic crisis and an aggravating shortage of resources. So it has followed the only path left open – to begin to devour itself. Here we see intensifying squabbles between allies, even the closest ones such as Germany-France and the U.S.-Britain. This is why the U.S. broke up relations between Europe and Venezuela and why social spending is under the knife.

There are Western businesses that do not care about the public interest at all, since their only interest is its own profit. Such corporations are stealing entire countries and regions from under the noses of their populations, which they used to consider their fiefdom. They direct their efforts to where the opportunity to earn money remains, and this is primarily in the West itself. After all, even Ukraine, with which the conversation began, performs the function of nothing more than a washing machine for financial flows generated on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

In a normal situation, the state is vigilant so that in the pursuit of profit, business does not go offshore. The only question that arises is how capable Western states are in their current state of performing this function. The broken backbone of Europe was mentioned above. The British leapfrogging of one prime minister after another has exposed to the world a worsening administrative crisis on the island.

Against this background, the United States looks pretty good, but in essence, everything is also very difficult there. A deep, socio-political split is already quite evident in the division of states between ‘red’ and ‘blue’, that is, those dominated by conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. This, in turn, results in an escalating struggle over managerial decisions.

It is quite natural that in a situation where the state administrative system is weakened, business gets additional opportunities to influence it, seeking to pursue the desired policy or at least not hinder the authorities from implementing business projects that run counter to public interests. For example, BlackRock is one of the driving forces that is changing the real estate market in the U.S. The company is devoutly hated by a huge number of Americans.

The BlackRock scheme is as simple as a wrecking ball: investment companies with their colossal working capital are massively buying up residential real estate throughout the country, and as a result, housing prices are skyrocketing. More and more Americans are losing the opportunity to ever own a home and staring at living in rented apartments for the rest of their lives. Moreover, since corporations are becoming the owners of an increasing part of the rented apartments and houses in the country, they get the opportunity to inflate rental prices at their discretion. The alternative to their practices is disappearing before our eyes. That is, not only are investment bankers destroying the American dream in the form of the family home with a lawn, but they also ensnare people into financial pincers and rent slavery. It is almost impossible to escape from this because there is nowhere to go.

Looking at this situation from the outside, someone can say that the West is reaping what it has sown. The problem is that it has at his disposal huge opportunities for causing damage, not only to itself but also to others. A business that uses the weakening of the state machine for its own selfish interests can influence not only the domestic but also the foreign policy of the country. Large corporations in various sectors of the Western economies are keenly interested in Ukraine burning as long as possible and on the largest scale possible. That is, the confrontation between the West and Russia will become even tougher and hotter. There is no doubt that the Western powers will use all the levers at their disposal to achieve this goal. These levers are becoming more and more impressive and effective as the degradation in the West carries on.

The world must reckon with the fact that businessmen who are interested solely in replenishing their accounts with billions of dollars have an influence on issues of war and peace involving nuclear-armed powers. This threat to the world is even more dangerous than what the ‘hawks’ sitting in the White House and the Pentagon have voiced.