SOCIALISM - 28% Unemployment Rate for Greece

In this 2012 photo youth unemployment was "only" 50.4%. 
All the European bailouts only made it worse.

61.4% Greek Youth Unemployment

• Europe is a corrupt blend of big government Socialism and Mussolini Corporatism.  The official policy is to drive governments like Greece deeper and deeper into debt with international bankers, crush their economies and force them, as debt slaves, to obey their Masters in Brussels.   

Greece’s unemployment rate has hit new highs.

Even amid tentative signs of economic recovery in the country, there is no let up in the pace of job shedding.

Economists expect things to get worse in the early part of this year as companies continue to restructure and fire workers reports Euronews.

One Greek jobseeker explained that the only thing available for most people is temporary, government-funded work.

She said: “We certainly don’t see any positive signs, nothing to indicate that there are jobs. Everyone’s looking, but there are just these programmes that last for five months, but then you’re out of work again. You have a break from being on the dole, but it’s just for five, or at most six months depending on the programme.”

The latest figures that have been released are for November 2013.

Overall unemployment inched up to 28 percent. It had been 27 percent a year earlier and 27.7 percent in October.

The youth jobless total reached 61.4 percent in November, up a full two percent from November 2012.

Though life remains extremely difficult for millions, with 14 percent of the Greeks living in extreme poverty according to a survey carried out late last year, Greece’s austerity-fuelled economic slump is starting to ease.

There have been improvements in retail sales, manufacturing activity and construction, but that is a long way from feeding through into substantial job creation.

Symela Touchtidou, the euronews business reporter in Athens, concluded: “The Greek government is preparing to borrow on the international markets for the first time in four years. A successful auction of bonds would mean Greece becoming the latest country to exit the bailout program.

Captured: America in Color from 1939-1943

Shepherd with his horse and dog on Gravelly Range Madison County, Montana, August 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

The 1930s - 40s in Color

These images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations.

Many of the photos in the full collection show Americans with a gaunt, hard look brought by years of suffering through the Great Depression.  These 1930s average Americans have a very different look from the well fed movie stars we are used to seeing from that era. 

Certainly the people from the 30s look nothing like the "modern" Americans who can hardly waddle away from the endless trough of food available to them.

The photographs are the property of the Library of Congress and were included in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color.


Click on photos to enlarge

Distributing surplus commodities. St. Johns, Arizona, October 1940.
Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee.

Farm auction. Derby, Connecticut, September 1940.
Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano.

A crossroads store, bar, "juke joint," and gas station in the cotton plantation area. Melrose, Louisiana, June 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott.

Trucks outside of a starch factory. Caribou, Aroostook County, Maine, October 1940.
Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano

Faro and Doris Caudill, homesteaders. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940.
Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee.

The Faro Caudill family eating dinner in their dugout homestead. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee.

Chopping cotton on rented land near White Plains. White Plains, Greene County, Georgia, June 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano

Barker at the grounds at the state fair. Rutland, Vermont, September 1941.
Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano.

Garden adjacent to the dugout home of Jack Whinery, homesteader. Pie Town, New Mexico, September 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee.

Jack Whinery, homesteader, and his family. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. 
(Their home is in the photo above this one.) 
Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee.

Boys fishing in a bayou. Schriever, Louisiana, June 1940.
Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott.

See more photos at Captured: America in Color from 1939-1943

Extras.Denver Post.com/archive
.

Jeff Sessions - The GOP Should Stand With Struggling Workers Not Illegal Aliens

Senator Jeff Sessions

• "We need to move Americans off of welfare and into good-paying jobs—not replace them with lower-wage workers from abroad."  - - - Jeff Sessions

Senator Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, came to the defense of American workers this week:

“The arguments compiled by FWD.us pushing for a massive surge in new workers from abroad have ignored the overwhelming literature, including broad research by the Congressional Budget Office, demonstrating that such a plan would reduce wages and job prospects for millions of struggling workers living here today. 

The White House and Senate Democrats have embraced a plan that not only allows illegal immigration to continue indefinitely, but proposes to double the flow of new legal immigrant workers and triple the number of mostly lesser-skilled immigrants who will be given green cards. Unfortunately, it seems several House leaders are contemplating a similar approach.  

We need to move Americans off of welfare and into good-paying jobs—not replace them with lower-wage workers from abroad. Gene Sperling has said there are three jobseekers for every one job opening. Has anyone asked the American people whether they want these large increases to current record immigration levels now being proposed? 

Lawmakers must decide who they represent: immigration activists and powerful interests, or millions of struggling and unemployed Americans. Republicans have an opportunity to stand alone as the one party dutifully representing the legitimate interests of the American worker. They should seize it. They should boldly and unapologetically articulate policies that end the lawlessness and advance the national interest.”

(National Review)

It's bad politics, Jeff Sessions writes. "In the rush to pass an immigration bill, there has been a near absence of any serious thought about the conditions facing American workers. The last 40 years has been a period of record immigration to the U.S., with the last 10 years seeing more new arrivals than any prior 10- year period in history. This trend has coincided with wage stagnation, enormous growth in welfare programs, and a shrinking workforce participation rate. A sensible, conservative approach would focus on lifting those living here today, both immigrant and native-born, out of poverty and into the middle class—before doubling or tripling the level of immigration into the U.S."

"A sensible immigration policy would also listen to the opinion of the American people. Not the opinions of the paid-for consultants trotted out with their agenda-driven polls to GOP member meetings—but the actual, honest opinion of the people who sent us here. There is a reason why none of the corporate-funded ads for amnesty breathe a word about doubling immigration levels. According to Rasmussen Reports, working and middle class Americans strongly oppose large expansions of our already generous immigration system. Those earning under $30,000 prefer a reduction to an increase by an overwhelming 3-1 margin."

(Weekly Standard)

The GOP could fight for American workers
instead of doing the bidding of Corporations
that want to flood the market with cheap labor.

SOCIALISM - French investments crash by 77%, Poverty at a high

"We want more free crap."

Socialism = Poverty

Overseas investment in France fell by 77 per cent last year as Britain retained its position as the most attractive country in Europe for foreign business.

A report by the United Nations showed just £3.5 billion of foreign money went into France in 2013 – the lowest amount for 27 years. By comparison, foreign investors spent £32 billion in Britain.

This will inevitably add further fuel to ongoing accusations that the French economy has been woefully mismanaged by Socialist President Francois Hollande say the UK Daily Mail.

The UN Conference on Trade and Development, who released the estimated figures on the eve of a trip by Hollande to the UK, said that this vast reduction came as foreign investment in the European Union as a whole increased.

The United Kingdom was the ninth most popular destination for foreign investment last year – and the best in Europe.

Investment in Germany soared 392 per cent to £19.6 billion in 2013, while in Spain it rose by 37 per cent to £22.4 billion.

The increasingly dire performance by France, which is the Eurozone’s second largest economy, is a cause of huge concern for neighbours including Britain.

Other new figures released this week show France’s unemployment and poverty rates soaring to new highs.

Despite the Hollande’s highly publicised ‘promise’ that he would get the jobless figures down in 2013, the number rose by 10,200 in December.

It now stands at 11.1 per cent, or  well over 3.3 million  – a figure which rises to almost 5 million if those in part-time temporary jobs are taken into consideration.

Meanwhile, a damning new survey shows that the poverty rate in France is at 14 per cent – the highest for 17 years.

Researchers from social policy consultants COMPAS found that 8.7 million French people live below the poverty line.


 

Busy Banging the Mistress
Julie Gayet allegedly had an affair with French President Francois Hollande.  Looks like our good Socialist was too busy in bed to give a crap about creating jobs.

Read more: Daily Mail.

The Ugly Face of Socialism
French President Francois Hollande

Socialist Venezuela now feeling the effects of food shortages

 

Socialist Food Shortages

• Communists can't even make toilet paper or grow food.  But they stay in power by bribing the mouth-breathing voters with endless "free" crap stolen from other people.

And so it begins... Old Soviet-style bread lines at Venezuela mercados, stretch around the block 

From Reuters via CNBC, "No flour? No fish? Venezuela's chefs get creative amid shortages":

A sushi bar in Caracas makes tempura with ground oats and cornstarch to replace increasingly scarce wheat flour. 

A Spanish restaurant, seeking to keep its fare affordable, revamps its paella recipe by removing exorbitantly priced prawns. 

Restaurateurs selling "arepas" - the grilled corn pancakes that are a staple across the country - make them a bit smaller to stretch their unsteady supplies of corn flour.

A Spanish restaurant, seeking to keep its fare affordable, revamps its paella recipe by removing exorbitantly priced prawns. 

Restaurateurs selling "arepas" - the grilled corn pancakes that are a staple across the country - make them a bit smaller to stretch their unsteady supplies of corn flour. 

Venezuelan diners continue to eat well despite soaring inflation (56%) and chronic food shortages, largely thanks to Herculean efforts by chefs to obtain prized foodstuffs and juggle menus to slow the rising prices.

Months old, maggot-infested wheat and corn is in many cases, all that's left 

Venezuelan Market
Socialists say, "Chew slowly and make the food last longer."
Capitalists say, "Chow down and come back for thirds."

Continuing:

In working-class canteens and high-end bistros, staff say finding basics such as flour, milk or chicken - all scarce, in large part, because of currency and price controls - requires making repeated trips to markets and harassing providers. 

"I haven't been able to buy wheat flour or corn flour for more than a month. I'm working with what I had last year," said Eduardo Castaneda, 45, owner of La Guayaba Verde, or The Green Guava, in Caracas, which offers a modern spin on traditional Venezuelan food.  (Emphasis added.)

Venezuela's price controls require staple goods be sold at fixed rates that are at times below production cost, which often leaves them scarce because of the reduced incentive for companies to make or import them.

Toilet paper, rice and coffee have long been missing from stores, as the
Venezuelan President blames a CIA plot instead of Communism.

BLACK MARKET PORK 

Chavez's efforts to make food affordable have come at a price: In times of shortage, "unethical" (CNBC's word) entrepreneurs buy discount groceries and resell them on the black market.  Translation - That is called a FREE market. 

Authorities last month detained four people at the Budare del Este restaurant in the chic but gaudy Caracas neighborhood of Las Mercedes on charges of illegally buying subsidized food, including nearly a tonne of pork and half a tonne of chicken. 

"Those products are meant to meet the needs of Venezuelan families, not to line the pockets of scoundrels," wrote the Communist Maduro in a series of incensed tweets announcing the operation. 

Bakers often seek to protect themselves from wheat flour shortages by building up stocks to meet holiday demand for breads and cakes. If they get inspected, however, they risk accusations of hoarding. 

The owner of the lounge-bar restaurant said the combination of product shortages and potential legal pitfalls leaves him feeling like "a bullfighter in the ring waiting to see which beast I'm going to face. 

"You wake up every morning and within around 45 minutes you realize some product has gone scarce, and you'll spend the rest of the day figuring out what to do."

LR PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: If you wish to avoid consumption of maggot-infested food here in the U.S., under Obama's increasingly Venezuela-style socialist state, you may want to check out this website: "Preppers Food Storage Check List" survivalistblog.net. 

Thanks to the Libertarian Republican for a heads up on this story.

Food lines in Socialist Venezuela

Business in a giant push for immigration reform

 

Unemployed?

The politicians could care less

Bend Over  -  Immigration "reform" is coming.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent more than $50 million on lobbying last year as it pushed for action on "immigration reform".

Translation - Business owners are not staying up all night crying over little illegal alien children.  They want to flood the job market with 30 million newly "legalized" workers, totally fuck over American citizens and drive wages down.

Typically the biggest K Street spender in Washington, the business group funneled about $52.7 million toward lobbying efforts in 2013, according to disclosure records. In the last quarter of the year, the group spent almost $16.5 million.

Some of that money went toward lobbying on immigration reform, which is a top legislative priority for the business community reports The Hill.

The Chamber played an instrumental role in getting a comprehensive immigration reform bill through the Senate last year by helping the “Gang of Eight” reach a deal with labor unions on temporary worker visas.

Chamber President and CEO Tom Donohue said earlier this month that the business group “will pull out all the stops” to see that immigration legislation makes it to President Obama’s desk by the end of the year.

"We're determined to make 2014 the year that immigration reform is finally enacted," Dononhue said.

The business lobby is also planning a vigorous campaign to help business-friendly candidates in the midterm elections, and has vowed to protect some incumbent lawmakers from Tea Party challengers.

Endless Immigration  -  The GOP does not get it.

An insane GOP House bill a year ago would give 55,000 green cards a year to import doctoral and masters graduates into the US to take jobs from American citizens.

Idiot House Republicans worried about their poor showing among Hispanics in the U.S. presidential election are planning a vote next week on immigration legislation that would both expand visas for foreign science and technology students  The bill would also make it easier for those with green cards to bring their immediate families to the U.S.

Apparently the agony of tens of millions of unemployed American citizens in serious pain did not enter into the minds of the moron GOP leadership.

See our article

 The GOP comes out for more unemployment.

and our other article

Cheesecake Factory, Hallmark, Disney, and Others Now Pushing Amnesty.

 

"Black Americans need not apply."
The youth unemployment rate for African Americans is 28.2% and for Hispanic American youth it is 21%.  But politicians from both parties ignore Black and Hispanic Americans and import workers who are citizens of foreign nations.

The real unemployment rate is 23%.
The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate (blue line) reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.
.

The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.

(Shadowstats.com)

Obama Recovery - 1,600 apply for 36 job openings

1,600 Desperate Job Seekers

• Leftist Socialist Democrat economic stupidity crushes business.
• Add to the mix that Democrats want to import millions of new poor voters (who need jobs) and Republicans bow down to their corporate masters and work to import cheap labor to drive down wages. 
• If you are an American citizen you are fucked no matter who you vote for.

Working at an ice cream plant does not pay very well.  But at least it beats flipping burgers or stocking shelves at Wal-Mart.  And in this economy, there is no shortage of desperate workers that are willing to take just about any job that they can find.

Thanks to persistent unemployment and low availability of low-skill jobs, Shenandoah Family Farms’ ice cream plant in Hagerstown, Maryland has received over 1,600 applicants for a grand total of 36 jobs.

Many of those applicants are former workers at the Good Humor plant that was bought by Shenandoah Family Farms.

“You’d think that after 20-some-years working someplace at least somebody would think you area a good person, that you’d show up on time every day, and that would be worth something,” Luther Brooks, a 50-year-old former worker at the plant told the Washington Post.  “I can’t get nothing. I’ve tried.”

Wall Street is booming, the Federal Reserve is paring back its stimulus, there are bidding wars for houses again, but for blue-collar workers in places like Hagerstown the economic recovery has yet to materialize, and many around town worry that it won’t. Laid-off workers are living week-to-week on unemployment. They’re working temp jobs and trying to reeducate themselves. They are trying to save their houses from foreclosure.

A handful of former workers have gotten lucky, returning to their old jobs as the plant begins production later this month. They won’t earn as much as they did before, but they aren’t complaining. One rehired worker — and his boss — spoke on the condition of anonymity. He is being inundated with pleas for help landing jobs from former colleagues.

The country lost 6 million factory jobs between 2000 and 2009, and in Maryland, the job losses have been catastrophic. There were about 172,000 manufacturing jobs in the state in 2000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics; today there are about 104,000, a nearly 40 percent drop.

In the Hagerstown area, which once produced airplanes, pipe organs and leather car seats, there were roughly 14,000 factory jobs in 2000. Today: about 8,000.

.
Coming Soon - Immigration "Reform"
American citizens of all racial groups go un or under employed by the tens of millions.  But the political liars from both parties prepare to fuck over our people in an insane rush to legalize 30 million illegal aliens to compete directly with our citizens for a limited number of jobs.
.
See our article:
Clueless in Wisconsin - Paul Ryan pushes amnesty for illegal aliens

A New Chinese Ghost City - Locals Fear Radiation Poisoning

Where is everyone?
The complex in Huizhou in Guangdong province in the southeast of
China is one of the country's largest white elephants.

Command & Control Meets Business  -  Socialist central planners snap their fingers and entire cities are built almost overnight.  Often empty cities with empty business districts and empty shopping malls.

This is the biggest real estate bubble in the history of the world.  When it bursts it might take down the entire economy of China and have a devastating domino impact on the world. . . . . or China may find a way to import people into these cities.

This is one of China's ghost towns - a 14 square mile development where no-one wants to live.

When China's real estate bubble bursts
will it domino around the world
taking down other nations?

The complex in Huizhou in Guangdong province in the southeast of China is one of the country's largest white elephants.  

Named Dayawan, the buildings stand near to a nuclear power plant reports the UK Daily Mail.

Locals fear radiation poisoning and have kept away. 

The development is also at least an hour's drive from the nearby major metropolis of Shenzhen, another factor for keeping it empty of residents.

Despite the fact that the homes are low cost, developers have been unable to sell them.  Recently at night lights were seen on in only two out of 2,328 apartments.

'I will never buy a home here. It’s so scary at night,' said Wen Lin.

But it is not much better in daylight.  

Despite developers promising attractive terms and a free lunch just to look around, there are few takers.
  

Changzhou, China Ghost City?

The Wujin district of Changzhou has been called a Ghost City by the China Youth

Daily and other Chinese and international publications.  But the Chinese appear to

be finding ways to slowly get people to move in.

Named Dayawan, the buildings stand near to a nuclear power plant
which has put people off buying properties on the site.

Rows upon rows of apartment blocks stand empty in
Huizhou in Guangdong province.

Dead
Recently at night lights were seen on in only two out of 2,328 apartments in
Huizhou in Guangdong province in the southeast of China.

Empty
The Tianducheng development in Hangzhou is designed to accommodate at
least 10,000 people but it has instead been labelled as a ghost town.

Castro cracks down on private movie theaters

Communists ban home movie theaters

• After legalizing some businesses, Communist Cuba has banned home movie theaters, the re-selling imported hardware and clothing because they were too successful.
• Big Government Leftists in all nations are frightened to death of free men and women daring to live their lives without the 24 hour a day watchful eye of Big Brother telling them what to do, eat, watch, read or think.

President Raul Castro issued a stern warning to entrepreneurs pushing the boundaries of Cuba's economic reform, telling parliament on Saturday that "those pressuring us to move faster are moving us toward failure."

Castro has legalized small-scale, private businesses in nearly 200 fields since 2010, but has issued tighter regulations on businesses seen as going too far or competing excessively with state enterprises. In recent months, the government has banned the resale of imported hardware and clothing and cracked down on unlicensed private videogame and movie salons.

Many Cubans have enthusiastically seized opportunities to make more money with their own businesses, but new entrepreneurs and outside experts alike complain that the government has been sending mixed messages about its openness to private enterprise reports the Associated Press.

President Raul Castro
"Too much freedom is bad for Communism."

The conflicting signals were apparent in Cuba's handling of the dozens of private home cinemas and video game salons that sprung up around the country this year, drawing crowds of young people willing to spend a few dollars for access to the latest home entertainment technology imported, purportedly for private use, by Cubans returning from the U.S., Canada or other countries.

 

The government denounced the cinemas as spreading uncultured drivel to the young, and ordered them closed last month for stretching the boundaries on the kinds of private businesses allowed under reforms instituted by Castro. Then came the backlash, with entrepreneurs bemoaning thousands of dollars in lost investment and moviegoers saying they were exasperated by heavy-handedness toward a harmless diversion. The official reaction was swift, and unprecedented.

 

An article in the Communist Party newspaper Granma on last month acknowledged there was wide disapproval of the ban, and hinted it was being rethought. The same Granma article also offered a full-throated defense of the ban on the reselling of imported hardware and clothes.

 

Castro appeared to justify all of the recent moves to clamp down on private enterprise.

 

"We're not ignorant of the fact that those pressuring to move faster are moving us toward failure, toward disunity, and are damaging the people's confidence and support for the construction of socialism and the independence and sovereignty of Cuba."

 

Banned from selling imported clothes.

Several people buy clothing at a private shop set up in the

colonnade of an old building in Havana.

See our article:  Communist Cuba embraces Capitalism while the USA embraces Communism

Castro threw his full weight behind measures of the communist legislature to control business, saying "every step we take must be accompanied by the establishment of a sense of order."

 

"Inadequate controls by government institutions in the face of illegal activities by private businesspeople weren't resolved in a timely fashion, creating an environment of impunity and stimulating the accelerated growth of activities that were never authorized for certain occupations," Castro said.

Accelerated growth . . . can't have that can we?

Several Cubans interviewed on the streets of Havana said they generally approved of Castro's speech but wanted more details on economic reforms, and a softer line toward the U.S.

 

"I would have liked to know exactly what pace of reform we're going to follow," said Daniel Mora, a 72-year-old retired state worker. "And he told the United States that we're ready for another 55 years of blockade, but I'm not ready for that. I'm 72 and I'd like to see the light at the end of the tunnel before I die."

"You a Communist?"
.
"You a communist? Huh? How'd you like it, man? They tell you all the time what to do, what to think, what to feel. Do you wanna be like a sheep? Like all those other people? Baah! Baah!

You wanna work eight, ten fucking hours? You own nothing, you got nothing! Do you want a chivato on every corner looking after you? Watching everything you do? Everything you say, man? Do you know I eat octopus three times a day? I got fucking octopus coming out of my fucking ears. I got the fuckin' Russian shoes my feet's comin' through. How you like that? What, you want me to stay there and do nothing? Hey, I'm no fuckin' criminal, man. I'm no puta or thief. I'm Tony Montana, a political prisoner from Cuba. And I want my fuckin' human rights, now!

You know somethin'? You can send me anywhere. Here, there, this, that; it don't matter. There's nothing you can do to me that Castro has not done."
Tony Montana

Putin bails out the Ukraine - Russia extends influence

Russia's President Vladimir Putin (R) talks with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych
during a signing ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow.
(AFP PHOTO/ALEXANDER NEMENOV)

One Big Bail Out By Russia

• Two decades after the collapse of communism broke a centuries-old link between Kiev and Moscow, Ukraine's GDP per head is not just well below that of Russia but is only half that of Bulgaria, the poorest country in the European Union.

President Vladimir Putin has taken a gamble with Russia's own fragile economy by bailing out Ukraine for the sake of keeping it in Moscow's orbit and out of the European Union's embrace.

.

His finance minister, Anton Siluanov, defended Tuesday's deal in the Kremlin with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, which offered Kiev $15 billion in credits and slashed a third off the price it pays for vital Russian gas supplies.

"I believe that Russia only won," Siluanov told Reuters on Wednesday, dismissing as baseless concerns the accord might damage Moscow's own credibility with investors.

The deal has boosted demand for Ukrainian government debt and its currency, the hryvnia reports Reuters News.

But Russia has had to tap into a rainy-day fund to afford the bailout at a time when its own economy, driven by energy exports, is in trouble. And it is not clear what it gets in return bar influence over the second most populous ex-Soviet state, whose 46-million population is a third that of Russia but whose ailing economy is less than a tenth the size.

 

 

More clashes as protests continue against suspension of EU trade talks

The Ukraine is split by language and culture.

Ukraine's leaders also face risks. Although Ukraine's prime minister hailed as historic a deal which offers his indebted nation at least temporary economic respite, it could swell numbers at anti-government, pro-EU protests in the capital.

About 3,000 protesters were camped behind high barricades in a central Kiev square after opposition leaders called for mass rallies to bring down Yanukovich for "selling out" Ukraine's national interests and independence to its historic overlord Moscow - and spurning a free trade pact with the EU.

The $15 billion, to be spent on purchasing Ukrainian government debt, may seem like small change for a vast, resource-rich country that sits on half a trillion dollars in foreign exchange reserves and has a strong ability to borrow.

But with Putin himself acknowledging that Russia's more than $2-trillion economy is too dependent on oil and gas and is heading for short-term stagnation, there could soon be economic and political costs: "It is a drop in the ocean," a Russian government source said. "But it could become a painful drop."

The latest official economic forecasts envisage Russia's gross domestic product growing at an average annual rate of 2.5 percent over the next two decades, less than the global average and much slower than some of its emerging-market peers.

Putin regards Ukraine, with its large population, mineral resources and ability to act as a bridge to the EU market, as vital to the success of a Eurasian Union he wants to create to match the economic might of the United States and China.

But two decades after the collapse of communism broke a centuries-old link between Kiev and Moscow, Ukraine's GDP per head is not just well below that of Russia but is only half that of Bulgaria, the poorest country in the European Union.

Protesters warmed themselves around a fire in Independent Square in Kiev, Ukraine, Saturday, Dec. 7, 2013.  Thousands of antigovernment protesters kept their vigil in Ukraine's capital.