(Bulgarian readers can read this post in Bulgarian.)
While anti-government protests in Bulgaria are continuing, yesterday the Prime Minister Oresharski talked to journalists informally (no cameras and voice recorders allowed). Dir.bg (source in Bulgarian) reports about the event:
""All countries in crisis, such as Spain, Greece, Portugal and Italy are tightening the belts and this is leading to mass protests. In Bulgaria, we are relaxing the fiscal system, and the people are protesting. I do not understand this,"" commented Oresharski with surprise... He said also that his colleagues abroad cannot believe that in Bulgaria, at a time of relaxing the fiscal discipline and increasing the budget deficit in order to allow more social spending, people go out to mass protests."
Suprise, indeed! Protesters apparently have some economic background and do not want to roll down the slope to Hell paved with phrases like "relaxing the fiscal discipline", "increasing the budget deficit" and "more social spending". As good and enlightened citizens, they think long-term. While it may be true that in the long run we'll be all dead, these Bulgarians do not want to ruin their children's future in order to spend some extra cents today. And they cannot be bribed by social spending because they do not rely on government to feed them. In a word, they are better economists than Prime Minister Oresharski, who has a degree in economics. Eh well, I am exaggerating. I suppose that Oresharski is pretty aware what he is doing but has sold his soul to the devil.
While prospects for Bulgaria look grim, we can at least be proud that while we have a worse government than other countries, we have better protesters. (Turkey is our rival in both respects.) They do not want to live on the back of someone else (or of future generations) and do not believe in Keynesian pseudo-economic rubbish that austerity is bad. I keep wondering at our pro-government propaganda which has been repeating for almost 2 months, like a non-responding computer programme, that the present protesters (unlike the worthy proletarians in February) are working people with above-average income and education, residents of the big cities. This is an open admission that exactly the best, the nation's elite, are against you! But apparently today's rulers think the best part of society, and the only one with right to protest, are those unable to pay their utility bills and digital TV decoders and to support their children. This is because today's rulers imbibed too much Marxism in their young years.
Oresharski also said yesterday that he would "clear" some government agencies in order to cut expenditures from the inflated administration. This is the definition of arrogance, to say such a thing immediately after creating a new "Ministry of investment projecting" (yes, dear readers) which will have a building and personnel of nearly 900. Unfortunately, this new ministry is expected to do much more damages than its payroll and utility expenditures.
While anti-government protests in Bulgaria are continuing, yesterday the Prime Minister Oresharski talked to journalists informally (no cameras and voice recorders allowed). Dir.bg (source in Bulgarian) reports about the event:
""All countries in crisis, such as Spain, Greece, Portugal and Italy are tightening the belts and this is leading to mass protests. In Bulgaria, we are relaxing the fiscal system, and the people are protesting. I do not understand this,"" commented Oresharski with surprise... He said also that his colleagues abroad cannot believe that in Bulgaria, at a time of relaxing the fiscal discipline and increasing the budget deficit in order to allow more social spending, people go out to mass protests."
Suprise, indeed! Protesters apparently have some economic background and do not want to roll down the slope to Hell paved with phrases like "relaxing the fiscal discipline", "increasing the budget deficit" and "more social spending". As good and enlightened citizens, they think long-term. While it may be true that in the long run we'll be all dead, these Bulgarians do not want to ruin their children's future in order to spend some extra cents today. And they cannot be bribed by social spending because they do not rely on government to feed them. In a word, they are better economists than Prime Minister Oresharski, who has a degree in economics. Eh well, I am exaggerating. I suppose that Oresharski is pretty aware what he is doing but has sold his soul to the devil.
While prospects for Bulgaria look grim, we can at least be proud that while we have a worse government than other countries, we have better protesters. (Turkey is our rival in both respects.) They do not want to live on the back of someone else (or of future generations) and do not believe in Keynesian pseudo-economic rubbish that austerity is bad. I keep wondering at our pro-government propaganda which has been repeating for almost 2 months, like a non-responding computer programme, that the present protesters (unlike the worthy proletarians in February) are working people with above-average income and education, residents of the big cities. This is an open admission that exactly the best, the nation's elite, are against you! But apparently today's rulers think the best part of society, and the only one with right to protest, are those unable to pay their utility bills and digital TV decoders and to support their children. This is because today's rulers imbibed too much Marxism in their young years.
Oresharski also said yesterday that he would "clear" some government agencies in order to cut expenditures from the inflated administration. This is the definition of arrogance, to say such a thing immediately after creating a new "Ministry of investment projecting" (yes, dear readers) which will have a building and personnel of nearly 900. Unfortunately, this new ministry is expected to do much more damages than its payroll and utility expenditures.
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