[late]

What interests me in history is the way other disciplines have added to it. I am especially interested in the economic side of things.

The West had been investing in Yugoslavia. When it came out they were cooking the books, we got pissed. So in addition to the collapse of the Soviet, the money that had been coming in from the West stopped.

Bush 1 tried to get them some aid, but like I said, we were pissed. I was in favor of aid, but Bush couldn't get any real support for help.

What happened next was severe hyperinflation. The rate of inflation broke a record for that time. Either extreme, hyperinflation or severe deflation is hell on wheels. If you remember hearing stories about people in Germany (before WW2) taking their life savings to buy groceries, you know what I mean. Governments can't inflate the currency fast enough to even keep up. Meaning police, fire, their salaries fall further and further behind. The economy implodes, and one thing after another simply stops working.

Without the imposition of order, ethnic divisions returned.

The failure of the West, but esp. America, to help the former Soviet Union, and it's member states, make the transition is one of our great failures. But if you actually pay attention to Congress, they're mostly hicks. They have too much to learn, and no great incentive to learn it. So when something like this happens, their reactionary side comes to the surface. They found out Yugoslavia had been taking advantage of us, and that was the end of it.

[noemon]

How was Yugoslavia taking advantage of the US?

[late]

How was Yugoslavia taking advantage of the US?

They got money which was not used for it's intended purposes, the lack of transparency allowed this to continue for a very long time.

"The issuing of unbacked promissory notes is nothing new in Yugoslavia, where that practice and others like it produce what are popularly called

''gray emissions.'' Experts estimate that in a nation where nearly half the businesses lose money and are propped up by state funds, companies regularly bail each other out with loans not backed by cash.

In 1985 more than 750 firms were caught issuing unbacked notes valued at about $7.4 million. Last year, more than 2,000 firms were nabbed, with a total fraud value of about $34 million.

''These so-called gray emissions have been rampant in Yugoslavia for years, but nobody dreamed of doing it on the scale that Agrokomerc did,'' said a Western diplomat."
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct- ... story.html

While, technically, aid was only suspended for 20 days, their situation was akin to the economic collapse of Greece. Meaning they needed a LOT of help.
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1991/05/25/issue.html

German hyperinflation, before WW2, is a good example of how things go to hell when an economy collapses. Whatever is lurking under the surface, it's coming out to play.

[noemon]

It takes a special kind of racist to argue that the US bombed Yugoslavia for an alleged 7.4 million of fraud. When the current and all the previous presidents of the US have defrauded billions.

The Yugoslav companies you referred to include Bosnian, Slovenian and Croatian companies. Countries which were armed and manipulated by the US to initiate an attack against their own Co Nationals exposing your hypocrisy as the pinnacle of pathetic.

There is no comparison between how exposed the Yugoslav and Greek economies were at the time of their collapse, with how exposed the British and American economies currently are and have been for the past two decades.

All western economies are extremely exposed. That does not mean that it grants the US the right to push them over the edge under a coercive philosophy of neo-colonialism.

The Wall street priesthood lecturing foreign companies on capital fraud is quite rich. Lehman was a bigger fraud than the “fraud” in the entire Greek & Yugoslav economies combined.

Using it to justify neocolonial war in Europe pushes the boundaries to extremist & terrorist racism.

Hyperinflation is knocking on your own door.

[MadMonk]

34 million dollars is a drop in the bucket, let alone 7.4 million. I'm assuming that the US really used this money to buy influence? If that is the case, does it really matter where the money ends up? The United States have been bribing goverments, politicians, generals, journalists, terrorists, criminals since forever.

[late]

It takes a special kind of racist to argue that the US bombed Yugoslavia for an alleged 7.4 million of fraud.

What I was talking about happened before conflict began. It's a big reason why conflict began.

[late]

34 million dollars is a drop in the bucket, let alone 7.4 million. I'm assuming that the US really used this money to buy influence? If that is the case, does it really matter where the money ends up? The United States have been bribing governments, politicians, generals, journalists, terrorists, criminals since forever.

We started giving money in the 1950s, and when the truth came out, it turned out they were scamming us for a generation. That was embarrassing, the sort of thing you know will come up again and again in the next election.

So Congress was pissed.

What we needed to do was another Marshall Plan. That was a very expensive plan that helped rebuild Europe after WW2. When you get a big change like that, there is a brief window where you can help. While it takes time to set up a big program, just knowing help has started, and more is coming, is huge.

[noemon]

What I was talking about happened before conflict began. It's a big reason why conflict began.

Using an alleged 7.4 million of fraud by UFO’s to justify neocolonial war in Europe pushes the boundaries to extremist & terrorist racism.