Ukraine is currently a really, really poor country, with a GDP per capita about a third of Poland's, significantly lower than Belarus, and barely higher than prewar Syria's.
But Ukraine has a lot of billionaires. The most recent Forbes global list of billionaires finds ten billionaires in Ukraine (versus four in Poland). According to race / history / evolution notes, six have Eastern European Slavic names. Apparently, they are fairly recent additions to the list.
But Ukraine has a lot of billionaires. The most recent Forbes global list of billionaires finds ten billionaires in Ukraine (versus four in Poland). According to race / history / evolution notes, six have Eastern European Slavic names. Apparently, they are fairly recent additions to the list.
In contrast, five years ago there were only four billionaires. According to a 2009 Jewish Telegraph Agency article:
Three of Ukraine’s four billionaires are Jewish
By Vladimir Matveyev June 11, 2009 10:37pm
KIEV, Ukraine (JTA) — Three of Ukraine’s four billionaires are Jewish, according to the Ukrainian Korrespondent magazine’s annual list.
Igor Kolomoysky, 47, a co-owner of the Privat business group and president of the United Jewish Community of Ukraine, leads the Jewish billionaires on the list with $2.3 billion, down from $6.6 billion in 2008.
Victor Pinchuk, 48, is next at $2.2 billion, down from $8.8 billion, followed by Gennady Bogolyubov, 47, with $1.7 billion, down from $6.2 billion.
 |
| Rinat Akhmetov |
Heading the list is Rinat Akhmetov, who owns FC Shahtar Donetzk, with $9.6 billion — a more than threefold drop from $31.1 billion in 2008.
Interestingly, Akhmetov is a blond Tatar Muslim. He owns the Donetzk soccer team in the industrial east and has been friendly with the overthrown president.
Eduard Dolinsky, executive director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, said the large number of Jews on the Korrespondent list creates a mixture of pride and anxiety within the country’s Jewish community. He said it could strengthen anti-Semitic stereotypes during financial crises in Ukraine, where Jews comprise approximately one half of 1 percent of the population of 46 million.
Since then the number of billionaires has gone up, whether due to economic recovery, a policy of making the oligarchs look more like Ukraine, or additional looting. Whether the new billionaires with Slavic names are Russians, Russophone Ukrainians, Ukrainophone Ukrainians, or something else is beyond me, but is possibly not irrelevant to recent events.
Most of the oligarchs are nimble political operatives with ties to several political camps, so nobody expects the list to change too much.
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Northwestern European 413 28.96
Asian or Pacific Islander 313 21.95
Jewish 252 17.67
Middle Eastern or Central Asian 120 8.42
Eastern European 95 6.66
Southern European 84 5.89
(New World) Hispanic or Brazilian 74 5.19
South Asian 69 4.84
Black 6 0.42
total 1426 100
Interesting to see how Northwestern Euros are so far ahead of Southern and Eastern Europeans.
"Interestingly, Akhmetov is a blond Tatar Muslim. He owns the Donetzk soccer team in the industrial east and has been friendly with the overthrown president."
According to the up to date rules of PC racial classification, he is not White, since being Muslim automatically removes White Privilege.
"Since then the number of billionaires has gone up, whether due to economic recovery"
Those lists of public billionaires tend to include people who are not billionaires but want to borrow money like one and miss billionaires who would rather not be known. So one explanation is Jews either felt secure in admitting their billionaireness (perhaps because it was easier for them to flee) or they were just faking it for business reasons or to pick up chicks.
Steve, are you running scared of the Jews?
Der Spiegel has an article about Akhmetov and Firtash
“How oligarchs in Ukraine Prepared for the Fall of Yanukovych”
[T]he opposition had to reach an understanding with the two men who controlled roughly half of Yanukovych's party: Rinat Akhmetov and Dmitry Firtash, the two most influential oligarchs in the country.
Akhmetov is the more important of the two... He is the de-facto ruler of Donbass... He is also among the leaders of Yanukovych's Party of Regions.
[After the Orange Revolution] Yushchenko, began confiscating parts of [Akhmetov’s] steel conglomerate, accusing him of having obtained them illegally.
When Yanukovych ... become head of state in 2010, the future looked bright for Akhmetov.
A dubious 2009 deal between Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin ruined Firtash's business. He and Tymoshenko became bitter enemies.
[Akhmetov and Firtash] divided the political playing field between them and they control their country's political scene as though it were a business joint venture. Key positions, whether in ministries or in parliament, are all occupied by their people. Yanukovych's economics minister, for example, came from Akhmetov's team while the deputy prime minister, in charge of natural gas issues, answered to Firtash. It is a loveless marriage of convenience, but it has held.
In the last parliamentary elections, Akhmatov filled roughly 60 spots on the Party of Regions list with his people while Firtash chose 30.
“If Yanukovych had attempted to solve the crisis with violence, he would have lost, but the oligarchs would have too," Karasev says. "Tymoshenko would have replaced him immediately and then we would have seen a repeat of what happened after the Orange Revolution: the dispossession of the rich. But all of Ukrainian politics depends on them. The men who became rich thanks to Yanukovych want guarantees for their holdings."
The pair came to the conclusion well before the current crisis that Yanukovych would not be around for much longer. They began carefully looking around for alternatives. Akhmetov, for example, had always gotten along well with Tymoshenko, in contrast with Firtash, and began supporting Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who took over the leadership of her Fatherland alliance when she was incarcerated. Firtash, for his part, backed Vitali Klitschko's party UDAR.
"In reality, Firtash early on placed people in Klitschko's UDAR Party, a former head of secret service, for example," says Vadim Karasev. "The contacts were made via the head of the presidential office."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/how-oligarchs-in-ukraine-prepared-for-the-fall-of-yanukovych-a-955328.html
"Steve, are you running scared of the Jews".
You say this just because he says things that are true and factual?
Victor Pinchuk is the most interesting of the Ukrainian jewish billionaires:
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/155976/ukraines-western-face
As Pro-European Protests Seize Ukraine, Jewish Oligarch Victor Pinchuk Is a Bridge to the West
The steel magnate—son-in-law of the former president and once a symbol of post-Soviet nepotism—now advocates for the rule of law
If you want to understand what really is going on the best place to find it in the Jewish Press.
I'm craving fish sticks for some reason.
Firtash is from Western Ukraine, born in the village of Sinkov (formerly Bogdanivka), Zaleshchiki district, Ternopil oblast, Ukraine.
http://en.dmitryfirtash.com/project/construction_of_holy_trinity_cathedral_of_bancheny_monastery
He has given to both the Ukrainian Greek Catholic and the Russian Orthodox Church… –
“An example of such philanthropic support is his financing of construction of the Ukrainian Catholic University campus in the city of Lviv.” [Myroslav Marynovych, vice rector of this University was quoted in a recent NYT article “Separating from mainly Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine to the east, he added, is “certainly not part of our program, but we have to have a plan B, a plan C and even a plan D.” I imagine Firtash probably has his own plan B, C, and D]
“2011 saw the completion of construction of the Holy Trinity Cathedral at the Holy Ascension Monastery in the village of Bancheny of Chernivtsi region.”
“His Holiness Kirill Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia awarded [Firtash] with the Order of Venerable Serafim Sarowsky, 2nd Degree.”
“[In Sinkov] the local Church of Translation of Relics of St. Nicholas originally built in mid-17th century has been renovated.”
Interestingly a Lviv newspaper linked Firtash with the Svoboda party
http://zik.ua/en/news/2013/09/18/429942
Svoboda demands kickback from Chevron for Dmytro Firtash
The Lviv-based Express accused the nationalist Svoboda party of demanding a $450 mn kickback from Chevron for giving a green light to extract shale gas in the Lviv oblast. The Lviv and Ternopil oblast legislatures are controlled by Svoboda.
However, this is only part of the story, Hroshi NGO says, as the payment was to be made into the accounts of the Bovalon Investments Ltd. The company is owned by Group DF International Real Estate Ltd., the property of Ukraine tycoon Dmytro Firtash.
To show Chevron it was playing for keeps, Svoboda Ternopil oblast lawmakers voted against the shale gas extraction project. This was a message for Chevron to pay up, Hroshi said.
Pinchuk's wife is attractive. I wonder who his daughter is going to resemble more.
I just re-watched the Right Sector propaganda video. They come out for the election of judges, for family values and against skanky pop singers. Interestingly, the word Oligarch is never mentioned. As everyone knows what's been holding Ukraine back for the last 20 years are gay marriage and Brittney Spears.
If I'm understanding Right Sector correctly in their Oligarch avoidance recognition system, I'd conclude that the Nazis have been coopted by the Nasis.
"Is there a country on earth where Jews are not among the top few billionaires?"
China, Japan, S. Korea, the Gulf States. SE Asia too probably.
The Governor of Kharkiv Province Mikhail Dobkin--likely the Russophone east's sacrificial lamb in the coming elections and noted proponent of eastern autonomy--is of Jewish descent. How Jewish is unclear, since unlike his buddy the mayor of Kharkiv Genadiy Kernes, he doesn't look at all Jewish, and intermarriage is very common. Kernes, on the other hand, looks like somebody out of a Der Strumer cartoon.
Kernes looks like he'd kick Tony Weiner's, umm, ass.
http://www.kyivpost.com/media/images/2013/03/19/p17m1a2hfi1q2mnsv1m0ta7196u4/big.JPG
I was only in Kiev for about a week, but I had a great time. I was with this Russian girl I was dating; the racism was atrocious. They'd pretend they couldn't understand her Russian, but could understand mine just fine. Yeah, sure, she was from Almaty, Kazakhstan----but I'm from Houston, Texas.
Taking a woman to Kiev, even a good looking woman, was the first time I ever really understood the expression "Coal to Newcastle."
We went to a wedding---her boss's----and the next day, out on an island on the Dniepr, the bride's grandmother had the BEST homebrew white lightning I have ever tasted in my life: it was like water, only 100 proof or thereabouts.
I'd be happier sitting here philosophizing about the civil wars over there if I didn't have such good memories of the people over there, people who I am sure are now on both (or more) sides of the conflict.
""Is there a country on earth where Jews are not among the top few billionaires?"
China, Japan, S. Korea, the Gulf States. SE Asia too probably."
In SE Asia, you will find that the chinese pretty much perform the same role as the jews do/did in europe.
I'm still wondering if this isn't all about land:
"Land Grabs in the Black Earth: Ukrainian Oligarchs and International Investors"
"...the phenomenon represents a disturbing case of controlling, capturing and concentrating decisions regarding Ukraine’s land use and agricultural model in few private hands...
...fertile black soil – it possesses 25 percent of the world’s so-called Chernozem... ... 2008–2009 Ukraine was the third largest exporter of grain worldwide... in 2010 it ranked second among exporters of barley...
... privatisation of agricultural land... led to the current wave of land grabs, with foreign and national agri-business obtaining control over Ukrainian agriculture. ...a moratorium on the sale and purchase of farmland was introduced. This has been extended several times and is now in place until 1 January 2016 ...major obstacles for the rural population.
... Ukraine’s richest man, Rinat Achmetov, recently became involved in agriculture as the owner of the agro-holding HarvEas... Ukraine’s current largest agro-holding, Ukrlandfarming, controls over 500,000 ha.
...Among the proponents of the land market are international organisations and foreign experts as well as government officials. The latter always advocate for this while they are in power because they stand to profit from its privatisation..."
I've known three Jewish women who emigrated from Ukraine to the US when the USSR collapsed. They all had the same story to tell: when the USSR broke apart, people who they'd always taken to be friends and neighbors emerged as anti-semites. What did they have against Jews? They envied their success. I asked one of the women why the Ukraineans didn't do better themselves. "They're lazy," she laughed.
"Ban on the Sale of Ukraine’s Black Earth Extended", The Ukrainian Week, Jan 12, 2013.
"The existing moratorium on the sale of agricultural lands has been extended until as late as 2016. ...
...Some people with knowledge of the situation view the decision as coming from influential groups that aim to hinder the Family from adding agricultural land to the other attractive Ukrainian assets it has acquired. ...
In any case, land remains one of the hottest issues in Ukraine and could trigger major confrontations both within the current government and between the government and the opposition parties as well as market participants, while prompting unpredictable reactions from millions of land-owning farmers.
...Ukraine still lacks an adequate legal framework for transactions involving agricultural land, while they are strictly regulated in developed market economies.
...Ukrainian land is greatly undervalued. Experts say that if agricultural land had gone on sale starting on 1 January 2013, a hectare of chernozem would cost USD 1,000 on average, much less than $12,500 in France...
Non-oligarchic capital is not being invested in Ukrainian agricultural land..."
Director said “If I'm understanding Right Sector correctly in their Oligarch avoidance recognition system, I'd conclude that the Nazis have been coopted by the Nasis.”
In other words “If there's no water in the tap, it's because the Jews drank it.” If you were really interested in understanding anything maybe you would realize that ethnicity, nationalism and anti-semitism can be used to manipulate the masses by unscrupulous players with their own agenda.
Of course certain people just want to view everything as a football match, so much easier to root for/against a team than understanding.
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/.premium-1.576372
The new dilemma for Jews in Ukraine
Anti-Semitism, though a real threat, is being used by the Kremlin as a political football.
"It's lucky Akhmetov is a Tatar" is the kind of wry joke you often hear nowadays in conversations with Ukrainian Jews.
“For years, Russian President Vladimir Putin's government has been trying to portray Ukrainian leaders he disfavored as allowing anti-Semitism to run rampant. This can be viewed as a cynical ploy which seems to be based on a belief that Jews wield inordinate influence in the west.”
“This attitude has caused much dismay among Ukrainian Jewish leaders who feel their community's safety is being used as a political football between Moscow and Kiev.”
I wonder what EU integration would do to Ukrainian agriculture. The earth in the Ukraine is so rich you have to be an idiot not to do well, but they're not doing that great. The capitalist in me says that having a Western, organized, efficient system of agricultural property rights would do wonders for Ukrainian agriculture, but for some reason, I'm skeptical.
"The earth in the Ukraine is so rich you have to be an idiot not to do well"
After Russia conquered the steppe they invited Mennonite farmers from the Vistula delta (originally from the Netherlands and Germany) to settle in Ukraine. For a time they did very well indeed. They figured out how to profitably farm the steppe, exporting grain to Western Europe. (They were previously big players in the Baltic grain trade)
"After Cornies had demonstrated on his estates what progress could be made in the raising of cattle, horses, sheep and trees, he exercised a tremendous influence on the surrounding Mennonite and non-Mennonite population not only through his example, but also through the Agricultural Association, which was sponsored and supervised by the Guardians' Committee, a government agency. In 1845 he had on two estates 22,000 merinos, and in 1847 his herd of horses on one estate alone numbered five hundred. His sheep, cattle and horses were sought far and near. Through the introduction of the summer fallow, fall plowing, rotation of crops and other means, he demonstrated the successful raising of grain on the steppes. Neither of his estates bore a trace of a tree when Cornies acquired them. By 1845 he had some thirty-five acres of shade trees, about sixteen acres of fruit trees and a large nursery."
"After 1860 Russian grain came more and more into demand in western European countries. In the early 1850s the arable land on all average Mennonite farms of the Molotschna settlement had been about sixty acres, while in 1875 it averaged about ninety acres, and in 1888 it amounted to about 120 acres per farm, and the land prices had increased considerably. The expansion of the area of cultivation had now nearly reached its limit."
...
"The added land under cultivation was chiefly used for bread grains to an almost total exclusion of forage crops. Simultaneously grain production on these farms became more and more commercialized, that is, an ever-increasing amount of grain was produced for the market instead of home consumption. By 1880 wheat had become the predominant crop. Originally mostly summer wheat was raised by the Mennonites. Gradually hard winter wheat was introduced and soon became prominent. This was the native variety grown along the coast of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. About 1850 the London market began to appreciate the quality of this wheat because of the nutritive content of the flour it produced. A growing demand for this wheat, the concentration of the Mennonites and others on wheat farming, and the opening of ports along the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov soon made the Ukraine the granary of Europe. According to H. D. Seymour the ports of Berdyansk and Mariupol near the Molotschna colony shipped the best quality of wheat. Cornelius Jansen stated that the Mennonites of the Molotschna settlement in 1855 produced about half a million bushels of wheat. The hard red winter wheat variety raised by the Mennonites was known under the name Krimka. In America it became known as the Hard Red Turkey variety. It was rust resistant, winter hardy, and very suitable for baking. When the Mennonites coming to Kansas in 1874 brought with them this variety of wheat, Bernhard Warkentin and Mark A. Carlton imported it in larger quantities for seed. Thus the prairie states and provinces became the breadbasket of America as the Ukraine had become the breadbasket of Europe."
...
"It is estimated that at the outbreak of World War I, Mennonites of Russia owned about three million acres of land and the total number of Mennonites was over 100,000"
http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Agriculture%20among%20the%20Mennonites%20of%20Russia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Cornies
Anyways, just like everything else in Ukraine it ended tragically.
https://libcom.org/history/makhnovists-mennonites-war-peace-ukrainian-civil-war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Mennonite
Thomas Jefferson put a lot of effort into laying a strong legal basis for widespread ownership of family farms in the U.S. It helped make the U.S. different from Latin America where the land tends to wind up in the hands of a handful of families.
As for modern day farming in Ukraine-
http://agronomyukraine.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-problem-with-ukraine-is.html?m=1
"The problem with Ukraine is...
Ukraine has land, lots of it; 32 million hectares of large flat arable fields.
Ukraine has a great climate; an intense growing season that turns the country from drab winter greys to a vibrant green jungle inside of a week and allows all the major commodities to flourish.
Ukraine has soil; deep, fertile, easily worked stuff...
Ukraine is perfectly located to market; 400m next door in soon to be annexed Europe, 140m in the former colony Russia and a further 500m hungry souls just though the Bosporus in the Mediterranean and North African countries.
So why does Ukraine's agricultural productivity not reach the much hyped potential?"
The blog written by a Brit who runs an agri-business in Ukraine. He's pro Maidan, EU integration of course.
More of his stuff here-
https://twitter.com/AgronomyUkraine
There are also several over-leveraged Swedish companies with large agri holdings in Ukraine and Russia.
http://www.farmlandgrab.org/post/view/21779-swedish-black-earth
The last attempt by the Swedes to grab this much land in Eastern Europe ended with the Battle of Poltava in the Ukraine.
"It is estimated that at the outbreak of World War I, Mennonites of Russia owned about three million acres of land and the total number of Mennonites was over 100,000"
Wow, that makes things a lot clearer.
Kulaks = a tight-knit, cohesive, successful, ethno-sectarian competitor group.
"Thomas Jefferson put a lot of effort into laying a strong legal basis for widespread ownership of family farms in the U.S. It helped make the U.S. different from Latin America where the land tends to wind up in the hands of a handful of families."
This is/was one of the most critical foundations of early modern prosperity imo like the 100 year leases on family farms in England.
.
"Ukraine is currently a really, really poor country, with a GDP per capita about a third of Poland's...But Ukraine has a lot of billionaires"
This goes together.
Option1: 10% rich with 90% of wealth, 90% poor
Option2: 10% rich with 20% of wealth, 90% middle class
In option 1 the velocity of money is very low because the 90% have no disposable income and the rich, although they have vast amounts of disposable income only need to spend small amounts at a time so most sits stagnant in the form of stored wealth.
In option 2 the velocity of money is very fast because the 90% middle class have a lot of disposable income between them and they spend most of it every month. The rich spend about the same as they did in option 1.
The huge increase in the velocity of money in option 2 generates a much higher GDP so even though the rich have only 20% of the total wealth, in absolute terms they are richer than they were in option 1.
The trouble in paradise is that in option 1 the rich having 90% of the wealth - even if in absolute terms it is less than in option 2 - means the rich have 90% of the power whereas in option 2 they only have 20% of the power.
What exists in Ukraine today is where the West is heading because of the oligarchs and their control of the media-politics-finance complex.
"Is there a country on earth where Jews are not among the top few billionaires?"
After the collapse of the Soviet Union the IMF and World Bank sent a lot of "advisers" to "help" the ex-Soviet countries develop a free market. What these advisers did instead is sell looting rights to the ex Soviet Union to their Soviet cousins.
Putin chased some of these oligarchs out and that is why their US cousins who run US foreign policy are so anti-Putin.
Quite simply really once you realize this is basically a family business like the Sopranos.
Tatars are a very interesting bunch. There exists a small, old and very well integrated Tatar minority in Finland. Sometimes it is called oldest continuosly existing Muslim minority in Western Europe (depending on what you mean by Western Europe). Those Finnish Tatars are rather wealthy and well educated. They are not a "visible minority"; although some have bit darker complexion and hair than average Finns, many other are blond and completely physically similar to general population.
Sorry for not paying attention in class. So, the Soviet Union fell because those advantageously positioned saw that the place was ripe for looting?
Tatars are very patriotic, my friend's is an MP in the Russia Duma for the nationalists although his daughter is even more nationalistic.
Another friend was father was an 'advisor' to Lazorenko and is right hand man to the biggest mob boss in Russia, both jewish. On the FBI's most wanted but thriving back in Russia.
"The problem with Ukraine is...
Those with initiative were mostly exterminated by the Bolsheviks and couldn't pass on their genes?
"Quite simply really once you realize this is basically a family business like the Sopranos."
Scot-Irishism is basically a supermafia
Anonymous:"After the collapse of the Soviet Union the IMF and World Bank sent a lot of "advisers" to "help" the ex-Soviet countries develop a free market. What these advisers did instead is sell looting rights to the ex Soviet Union to their Soviet cousins.
Putin chased some of these oligarchs out and that is why their US cousins who run US foreign policy are so anti-Putin.
Quite simply really once you realize this is basically a family business like the Sopranos."
Or maybe Eastern Europeans, unlike Northwestern Europeans, are just bad at business.Cf this comparison of billionaires:
Northwestern European 413 28.96
Asian or Pacific Islander 313 21.95
Jewish 252 17.67
Middle Eastern or Central Asian 120 8.42
Eastern European 95 6.66
Southern European 84 5.89
(New World) Hispanic or Brazilian 74 5.19
South Asian 69 4.84
Black 6 0.42
total 1426 100
Blogger Ray Sawhill said...
I've known three Jewish women who emigrated from Ukraine to the US when the USSR collapsed. They all had the same story to tell: when the USSR broke apart, people who they'd always taken to be friends and neighbors emerged as anti-semites. What did they have against Jews? They envied their success. I asked one of the women why the Ukraineans didn't do better themselves. "They're lazy," she laughed.
She was shocked that people whose ethnic group she delights in calling lazy and envious were not big fans of her own ethnic group? She seems kind of stupid.
"Is there a country on earth where Jews are not among the top few billionaires?"
Germany. There are probably 2 or 3 in the top100: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_500_reichsten_Deutschen
"This can be viewed as a cynical ploy which seems to be based on a belief that Jews wield inordinate influence in the west".
What slander!
I am offended.
One of the Ukrainian oligarchs who always cracked me up was Pakistani expat Mohammad Zahoor:
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/richest-expats-mohammad-zahoor-85493.html
Seemed he made his fortune being able to run steel mills without using cash. Barter economy was responsible for many fortunes in the former Soviet Union.
Of course, the coolest foreign oligarch in Ukraine is the founder of Donetsk; Welshman, John Hughes (and sons).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hughes_%28businessman%29
I've always said, it's a pity the Austrians left. From looking at the architecture, it's pretty obvious the Austrians and German expats built most of the good stuff in Ukraine. Though there are a few nice Norman and Genoan castles in Crimea: a German's a German.
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