The Children of Soros in Ukraine
Deflationism is the naloxone of truth theories
KYIV. On July 13, about a dozen young employees of the National Bank of Ukraine called for the central bank to remain independent in a YouTube message addressed to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The two-minute clip is a thinly-veiled PR attack on Serhiy Kruglyk's candidacy to replace Yakiv Smolii as NBU governor, featuring self-appointed members of “Children of Soros,” the group of *woke* banking bloggers that has rapidly turned the President’s Office’s NBU governor candidate selection process into a three-ring circus.
Article 85 of Ukraine’s Constitution gives parliament the power to appoint and remove the central bank bank chairman, as well as half the total members of the NBU Council. Articles 99 says the currency unit of Ukraine shall be hryvnia and ensuring the stability of the currency unit “shall be the major function of the central bank.” The NBU Council, according to Article 100, “shall develop the basic principles of monetary and credit policy, and control its implementation.”
The same Truman Agency that has undercut Kruglyk’s candidacy, abetted on Twitter by world famous Ukraine experts Anders Aslund and Timothy Ash, produced the *woke* NBU employees-for-independence advertorial.
Which brings us to the question why Aslund, Ash and Ukrainian media have put Kruglyk into what Ash calls “the old school banking and industrial lobby,” since he is undoubtedly the most progressively independent of the nine candidates for central bank governor shortlisted by the Kyiv-based Zerkalo Nedeli ezine.
Ukraine Economic Outlook economist Grigory Kukuruza explains:
"Competitors threw all their strength into knocking down the favorite - Serhiy Kruglyk – to replace Smolii at the central bank.
A weeks-long 'black' PR campaign has been waged against him on such popular websites as Liga.net, using materials which do not meet journalistic standards," Kukuruza sad.
Indeed. The exact same candidates as in the Zerkalo Nedeli article are mentioned by three journalists from Liga.net in an insider report linking to another Truman Agency advertisement against Kruglyk that appeared last week under the Ukraine Confidential banner.
What Platonic ideal is the Truman Agency is attempting to channel? And then there's the practical question: Does this PR agency want Ukraine’s navigation of banking intuitions to become the stuff of social networking rumors?
So far, eight of the nine candidates identified by Ukrainian western media and banking experts have been unable to demonstrate to western governments and international financial organizations that they have no ties with oligarchs and former NBU Chairwoman Valeria Hontareva and would truly act independently if named to head the central bank.
But Kruglyk has. That’s why he remains the odds-on favorite to become Ukraine's next central bank chairman.
(to be continued)
cf. A Delicate Issue