2008-10-28. 17:16 Nyomtatóbarát változat
Megosztom!
Hungary is counting the cost of capitalism
Hungary followed the IMF’s advice after the fall of communism. The result? Economic collapse and a new IMF loan
By Neil Clark
It was the ex-communist country that did everything the West and its neo-liberal economic 'experts' said it should do. It privatised vast swathes of its economy. It allowed free and unhindered access to Western multinationals. It filed up obediently to join Nato and the EU and employed Goldman Sachs to give advice on privatisation.
Now, after 20 years of free-market 'reforms', Hungary, together with the Ukraine, sees the results of its policies: an IMF bail-out.
Hungary's economic collapse gives a lie to the dominant narrative that eastern European countries have thrived since the sweeping political changes of 1989.
I lived and worked in Hungary during the 1990s and saw at first hand the way that the economic 'reforms' insisted upon by the IMF, the World Bank and the EU adversely affected the majority of the population.
Ten years on, and times are even tougher. On a recent visit to Hungary I was shocked by the increase in street beggars and the number of old people I saw searching for scraps in trash cans.
Away from the swanky new Budapest bars around Liszt Ferenc Ter and Vaci Ut which cater for foreign businessmen and home-grown yuppies, the capital has a shabbier, poorer look than it did a decade ago. The fall in living standards became even more apparent when I visited other towns and cities in the country.
The statistics paint a depressing picture. Last year, real wages in Hungary fell by seven per cent. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation has reported that 200,000 people in Hungary, including 20,000 children, are under-fed. One in five children are being brought up in poverty, while campaigners predict that recent price hikes of electricity and gas could push a further 3m people into poverty.
The truth is that Hungary, like the Ukraine, has gone backwards, and not forwards since the fall of communism. Even Viktor Orban, the staunchly anti-communist leader of the main conservative opposition party Fidesz, has conceded that for the majority, life was easier in the relatively liberal 'goulash' communism era of the 1970s and 80s.
Despite the selling-off of millions of pounds worth of state assets in the government's mass privatisation programme, Hungary's public finances remain in a poor state. The scale of corruption has been mind-boggling: Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany - whose 'pro-reform' economic policies have been lauded in the West - has an estimated fortune of £10m, made from controversial privatisation deals in the early 1990s.
The new IMF loan, far from being the salvation that Hungary's political elite is claiming, is likely to make things even worse. The IMF is insisting the government pursues 'strong policies' to reduce its deficit - shorthand for yet more swingeing cuts in public spending. That would mean the final nail in the coffin for the country's chronically under-funded health service; my mother-in-law had to bring in her own toilet paper during a hospital stay this summer.
The IMF loan is also likely to mean the enforced privatisation of the few assets remaining in state ownership, regardless of widespread public opposition.
"What's the difference between communism and capitalism?" is the joke currently doing the rounds in Budapest. Answer: "Under communism we had a big government debt but we lived well. Under capitalism we have a big government debt but we don't live well."
(TheFirstPost)
Israel plans to devour the world: Hungarian MP
Re: Israel plans to devour the world: Hungarian MP
this one is funny 
The Honorable Edolphus Towns
UNITED STATES SENATE
Washington, D.C.
March 28, 2007
Dear Sir;
I fullly understand if and when you feel moral revulsion at the manifestation of anti-Semitism.
However, I do not understand if you make such horrendous allegation lightly, nay, without sufficient ground, such as the one you made with regard to Hungarians.
As a Baptist, you should know very well that sin is omnipresent, and it cannot be eradicated.
It is present in your district as well. You could have checked into the veracity of allegations of the worst forms of anti-Semitism in Hungary, including incitation to attacks on Hungarian Jews, before you sprang into action.
If you had done it, you would have come to the conclusion that these forms of anti-Semitism simply do not exist in Hungary. You have been manipulated by your sources, and you have simply fallen into the trap of currying favor with a part of your electorate in showing that you are ready to defend the victims of anti-Semitic attacks.
In doing so, you have, at the same time, caused great harm to another part of your constituency that hauls from Hungary. Whose name and reputation you sullied with your baseless allegations.
You should know that the incumbent government of Hungary, the successor of the erstwhile Communists, constricts democracy, destroys the country's economy, and sides with Vladimir Putin, the autocratic Russian President, instead of the European Union (see the most recent articles on Hungary in The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune by Judy Dempsey).
The governing ex-Communists answered charges in the past by calling their critics "anti-Soviet" with the backing of the repressive state machinery. Today, they use the same tactics by branding their opponents "anti-Semites."
They know that this accusation is never checked, but accepted at face value, and diligently disseminated by innocent journalists.
If you continue to attack a great nation that rose up against their Soviet occupiers in 1956 with the vilest accusations, you can no longer be considered an honest man, and will certainly increase the depth of animosity shown by much of the world against the government and the policies of the United States.
Very truly yours, Katalin Wabrosch
(nemenyi.net)
The Honorable Edolphus Towns
UNITED STATES SENATE
Washington, D.C.
March 28, 2007
Dear Sir;
I fullly understand if and when you feel moral revulsion at the manifestation of anti-Semitism.
However, I do not understand if you make such horrendous allegation lightly, nay, without sufficient ground, such as the one you made with regard to Hungarians.
As a Baptist, you should know very well that sin is omnipresent, and it cannot be eradicated.
It is present in your district as well. You could have checked into the veracity of allegations of the worst forms of anti-Semitism in Hungary, including incitation to attacks on Hungarian Jews, before you sprang into action.
If you had done it, you would have come to the conclusion that these forms of anti-Semitism simply do not exist in Hungary. You have been manipulated by your sources, and you have simply fallen into the trap of currying favor with a part of your electorate in showing that you are ready to defend the victims of anti-Semitic attacks.
In doing so, you have, at the same time, caused great harm to another part of your constituency that hauls from Hungary. Whose name and reputation you sullied with your baseless allegations.
You should know that the incumbent government of Hungary, the successor of the erstwhile Communists, constricts democracy, destroys the country's economy, and sides with Vladimir Putin, the autocratic Russian President, instead of the European Union (see the most recent articles on Hungary in The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune by Judy Dempsey).
The governing ex-Communists answered charges in the past by calling their critics "anti-Soviet" with the backing of the repressive state machinery. Today, they use the same tactics by branding their opponents "anti-Semites."
They know that this accusation is never checked, but accepted at face value, and diligently disseminated by innocent journalists.
If you continue to attack a great nation that rose up against their Soviet occupiers in 1956 with the vilest accusations, you can no longer be considered an honest man, and will certainly increase the depth of animosity shown by much of the world against the government and the policies of the United States.
Very truly yours, Katalin Wabrosch
(nemenyi.net)
Re: Israel plans to devour the world: Hungarian MP
We lied to win, says Hungary PM
Analysts say Ferenc Gyurcsany may have sanctioned the tape leak
Hungary's prime minister has admitted saying that his party lied to the public to win April's general election.
Ferenc Gyurcsany's admission came after Hungarian radio played a tape of a meeting he had with his Socialist MPs a few weeks after the election.
On it he says the party had lied to the public and his "boneheaded" government failed to introduce any real policies.
About 3,000 people gathered outside parliament on Sunday calling for him to resign but Mr Gyurcsany has refused.
Economic reforms
The meeting concerned was on 26 May, about a month after the governing coalition had won 210 of the 386 parliamentary seats.
A brief excerpt was played on Hungarian state radio and others appeared on web sites. It is not clear how they were leaked.
If we have to give account to the country about what we did for four years, then what do we say
Ferenc Gyurcsany
Send us your views
In the excerpts, Mr Gyurcsany says harsh economic reforms are needed.
"There is not much choice. There is not, because we screwed up. Not a little, a lot. No European country has done something as boneheaded as we have.
"Evidently, we lied throughout the last year-and-a-half, two years. It was totally clear that what we are saying is not true.
"You cannot quote any significant government measure we can be proud of, other than at the end we managed to bring the government back from the brink. Nothing. If we have to give account to the country about what we did for four years, then what do we say?"
Mr Gyurcsany thanks "divine providence, the abundance of cash in the world economy and hundreds of tricks" for keeping the economy above board.
In a speech sprinkled with obscenities, he says: "We lied in the morning, we lied in the evening."
Some analysts suggest the leak may be with the prime minister's permission as he posted a full transcript on his own web blog.
Mr Gyurcsany may be trying to emphasise the need for tough reforms, they say. Local elections are set for 1 October.
Mr Gyurcsany went on television on Sunday amid the row and said the "lies" he referred to were those politicians told citizens, who now believed they could have "happiness as a gift".
"We have to stop the deluge of lies which have covered the country for many years," he said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5354972.stm
Analysts say Ferenc Gyurcsany may have sanctioned the tape leak
Hungary's prime minister has admitted saying that his party lied to the public to win April's general election.
Ferenc Gyurcsany's admission came after Hungarian radio played a tape of a meeting he had with his Socialist MPs a few weeks after the election.
On it he says the party had lied to the public and his "boneheaded" government failed to introduce any real policies.
About 3,000 people gathered outside parliament on Sunday calling for him to resign but Mr Gyurcsany has refused.
Economic reforms
The meeting concerned was on 26 May, about a month after the governing coalition had won 210 of the 386 parliamentary seats.
A brief excerpt was played on Hungarian state radio and others appeared on web sites. It is not clear how they were leaked.
If we have to give account to the country about what we did for four years, then what do we say
Ferenc Gyurcsany
Send us your views
In the excerpts, Mr Gyurcsany says harsh economic reforms are needed.
"There is not much choice. There is not, because we screwed up. Not a little, a lot. No European country has done something as boneheaded as we have.
"Evidently, we lied throughout the last year-and-a-half, two years. It was totally clear that what we are saying is not true.
"You cannot quote any significant government measure we can be proud of, other than at the end we managed to bring the government back from the brink. Nothing. If we have to give account to the country about what we did for four years, then what do we say?"
Mr Gyurcsany thanks "divine providence, the abundance of cash in the world economy and hundreds of tricks" for keeping the economy above board.
In a speech sprinkled with obscenities, he says: "We lied in the morning, we lied in the evening."
Some analysts suggest the leak may be with the prime minister's permission as he posted a full transcript on his own web blog.
Mr Gyurcsany may be trying to emphasise the need for tough reforms, they say. Local elections are set for 1 October.
Mr Gyurcsany went on television on Sunday amid the row and said the "lies" he referred to were those politicians told citizens, who now believed they could have "happiness as a gift".
"We have to stop the deluge of lies which have covered the country for many years," he said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5354972.stm