By Dr. Madhusudan Raj

On January 9, The Telegraph reported,

“Ukraine and the United States are planning to sign a “prosperity” deal to rebuild the country at a gathering of world leaders in Davos.

“The prosperity plan is aimed at bringing in around $800bn (£600bn) over a decade to rebuild Ukraine and kick-start its economy, Ukrainian officials say.

“Mr Zelensky said the deal would provide “for economic recovery, restoring jobs and bringing life back to Ukraine”, in a briefing with reporters late last year.

“It is understood to pave the way for a series of loans, grants and investment opportunities from private companies to deliver the funds.“

A few days after that announcement, on January 23, RT News reported,

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has joined US President Donald Trump’s Ukraine team as a “prosperity adviser,” US envoy Steve Witkoff has announced. After a similar project failed last year, Fink will once more be tasked with pulling Western capital into Ukraine.

This is Trump’s textbook Keynesian plan for Ukraine. It reeks of cronyism. Why Keynesian, and why cronyism? John Maynard Keynes, in his General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, gave the following example to generate employment and income (growth): 

When involuntary unemployment exists, the marginal disutility of labour is necessarily less than the utility of the marginal product. Indeed it may be much less. For a man who has been long unemployed some measure of labour, instead of involving disutility, may have a........

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