Source: Facebook

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/12/01/promising-economics-3-years-after-ukraines-maidan-revolution/ДЛЯ МОЇХ ДРУЗІВ В УКРАЇНІ

(for my friends in Ukraine)

Dear Volodymyr Groysman

Prime Minister of Ukraine.

We’re very proud of you. We are proud of Ukraine. But the progress is slow. And the inability to reform the judiciary is the reason for that slow change. Our economy requires credit to expand. We can’t have credit when judicial outcomes are determined by bribes with regularity. We can’t expect the young judges to remain uncorrupted with eight hundred dollar a month salaries.

We all know the problem is the Oligarchical control of the government, much of the common property, the media, and much of the land and resources. We also know that aggressive movement against them could degenerate into civil war – because they are well armed. But our failure to make these two problems the primary topic of public discourse, means that the people continue to blame the the government for their continued poverty.

I live here and the daily pain of ordinary people is difficult to bear when I understand that there is nothing preventing Ukraine from achieving a natural position of one of the great states of Europe, but 40 oligarchical families holding the citizenry hostage, and 10,000 members of the judiciary helping them. So as appreciative as we are of your efforts, and as proud as we are of our men fighting in the east, and the sacrifices of Maidan, and our shift to the west, our people suffer the constant indignity of poverty while we talk about minor changes rather than making the central problem of restoring the common assets of the country to public control.

Curt Doolittle

The Propertarian Institute

Kiev, Ukraine

http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/12/01/promising-economics-3-years-after-ukraines-maidan-revolution/

(posted on forbes.com)