Now, Look Here! - For Newspapers - First Quarter

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====>*_NOW, LOOK HERE!_*
===>*_(Publicistics -- Part 2)_*
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-->[ There is no idea about the cover, because in this book are gathered great variety of different journalistic materials, it is not a work of fiction, and such books are usually not illustrated. ]
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==>*_Copyright  Chris MYRSKI,  2001 – 2017_*
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===>*_CONTENTS (of the whole book/*)_*
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-->[ * Here the whole book is divided in 4 Books or parts and has 9 chapters or E-books, where the papers are 69. ]
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-->In the first Part:
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-->Foreword
-->°°°[ Introduction (2001) ]
-->I. For Journals
-->°°°[ These are more serious materials, yet the division is not strict. ]
-->°°°Essay on the common sense
-->°°°°°°[ This is mine first publicistic material in the spirit of perestroika which is left here with retrospective purpose. (1989) ]
-->°°°About the turn to the left
-->°°°°°°[ This paper explains popularly the idea of the swinging of pendulum applied in the sphere of political orientation of a given country. (1995 ?) ]
-->°°°How much has to win a company in order to have /_no_/ gain?
-->°°°°°°[ This paper proves the murderous impact of high inflation (in its time) over Bulgarian small companies. (1996) ]
-->°°°Our people again hoarded goods by higher prices
-->°°°°°°[ The paper contains judgements about the market on the example of Bulgaria from the end of last century. (1996) ]
-->°°°Too good is not good!
-->°°°°°°[ The paper looks at the drawbacks of our botched (as everything by us) introduction of Money Board in the very end of last century; many of them were settled with the time, but nevertheless it is still actual. (1997) ]
-->°°°Are we free, or on the contrary?
-->°°°°°°[ This material is dedicated to the enslavement of Bulgarian people /_with the coming of democracy_/, or more precisely: is it so, why, and is there a way out of the situation (1997) ]
-->°°°Political gratitude
-->°°°°°°[ This is sharp criticism of Bulgarian UDF, Union of Democratic Forces, as chief political cause for the botched transition to democracy. (1998) ]
-->°°°Neo-Malthusianism, or rational judgment
-->°°°°°°[ This paper throws new light on neo-Malthusianism, and looks more close on the question with overpopulation and how to fight with it. (1998) ]
-->°°°Myths about democracy
-->°°°°°°[ This paper lays bare a /_dozen_/ of widely used myths about democracy and, with this, is useful practically for everybody, but some things duplicate other materials of the author. (1998) ]
-->°°°About the ownership and its future
-->°°°°°°[ This paper take unprejudiced, although from left-wing positions, view on the question with property used for exploitation of labour of the others, as well also the necessary measures which have to be taken in order to reach in the future some /_reasonable_/ solution of this main economical problem of the society. (2001) ]
-->°°°Just /_in_/justice
-->°°°°°°[ This material discusses many drawbacks of the system of justice, together with two concrete scientifically motivated (according to the author) propositions: 1) about /_unification of assessment of damages and guilt_/, and 2) one entirely new idea for /_personal modification of punishments_/. The goal is to have objective, simplified and rightful justice. The material is intended first of all for the thoughtful masses, because the jurists alone will not want to cut the branch on which they are sitting. (2001) ]
-->°°°In ovo e veritas
-->°°°°°°[ The paper evolves one original idea about using of the … /_egg_/ as universal money unit! There are given concrete tables for Bulgaria for several years, as well also many comments about out economical paradoxes. The idea is quite original to make the material interesting for everybody. (2001 /2008) ]
-->°°°Oh, 'manci, 'manci –pation!
-->°°°°°°[ The paper discusses a variety of drawbacks of unnecessary movement for emancipation of the women, pointing by this at a big number of /_unwished_/ by the women consequences of this current foolishness of the half of humanity. (2002) ]
-->°°°What we want to tell the world?
-->°°°°°°[ This is quite critical paper, which takes in focus Bulgarian symbols, the spirit of the Bulgarian, and a heap of not rightly understood ideas from our newest history. It is written from the standpoint of a thoughtful person, and because the behaviour of the nations as whole is wide away from the reasonable, then this material may look to some readers as pretty daring and insolent, but many of the judgements exceed the national borders and are applicable also to other nations. (2003) ]
-->°°°In Bulgaria everything is quiet
-->°°°°°°[ This paper is of the /_new_/ ones and observes the political situation in Bulgaria in the end of 2012, which year was characterized with long-lasting lethargy. It is analyzed the stabilization in political life, the centrists parties, the left-wing ones, the leading then right-wing party, and what we have to do (but we don't do it) in order to better the things. (2012) ]
-->°°°Political parties in Bulgaria
-->°°°°°°[ This is my analysis of political parties in Bulgaria in the year 2012. ]
-->°°°About the degradation of morality
-->°°°°°°[ This paper discusses, yet from general or philosophical point of view, the quite painful for more older people question about the degradation of morality, is it so, really, why it has happened so, to what this leads, and what can be expected in the future. (2012) ]
-->°°°Is it possible moderate communism in Bulgaria?
-->°°°°°°[ Here is explained my viewpoint at the moderate communism, backed up by some rough calculations for Bulgaria. In the beginning is talked about what is this, then what kind of money are necessary for the purpose, and at the end is how this can be realized. (2012) ]
-->°°°Essay on the common sense -- II
-->°°°°°°[ This becomes my last publisictic material in this section, which makes complete revision of my first perestroika-stile material, only that this time it goes about the democratic society. The necessity of this material has ripened because the democracy, as a matter of fact, is based on the lack of common sense by the people (with what I do /_not_/ stand that it is badly based, yet it is good to remind also the true situation). (2015) ]
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-->*_In this Part_*:
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-->II. For Newspapers
-->°°°[ These are as if more palatable for the common readers materials, which /_can_/ be met -- yet usually are not -- in newspapers. ]
-->°°°The truth about Bulgaria
-->°°°°°°[ This piece declares quite succinct the truth about Bulgaria, citing five arguments in support of the thesis. (1994) ]
-->°°°About the market and the Bulgarian
-->°°°°°°[ Here are explained popularly several important peculiarities of the free market, which, as it turns, are not quite clear to the Bulgarians (at least at the dawn of market economy, but nowadays, too). (1994 /1998) ]
-->°°°Five years of devastation
-->°°°°°°[ The material resumes the mournful result of first five years on the way to democracy in Bulgaria, related only with destroying of the old but without creating of whatever new. (1994) ]
-->°°°Do you want to lose your 13th pension?
-->°°°°°°[ This material illustrates some simple methods for /_dividing of monetary investments_/ in several banks with the purpose for receiving  of higher interests in conditions of high inflation; it is true that the prices are now pretty old and originate from Bulgaria, yet it is possible to get some orientation if one wishes, because the ideas remain just the same. (1995 ?) ]
-->°°°Time to draw conclusions
-->°°°°°°[ Here is treated the question of the importance of having a center in the political life in Bulgaria and about its lack by us, in 1996, as well also nowadays. (1996 ?) ]
-->°°°About the elections and the demos
-->°°°°°°[ This material is dedicated to the unreasonability of democratic choice, is it so, and how to cope with it. In other words, could there exist "reasonability in the unreasonability", and in what this is expressed? (1996) ]
-->°°°Requiem for one coalition
-->°°°°°°[ This is requiem for the notorious Bulgarian Union of Democratic Forces, UDF, which now more then a dozen of years exists only in order to remind the Bulgarians about our hasty, incompetent, and botched transition to democracy, thanks to which we are standing more than 20 years now in the tail, regarding the living standard, from all former socialist countries. It is pretty old, but if the things are observed from a reasonable standpoint, how I think that approach the matters as a rule, the things don't grow old. (1996 ?) ]
-->°°°Something more about democracy
-->°°°°°°[ Here it goes about the inefficiency of democracy, when it came to power, about the dictatorial moments in it, about movement to the right or the left, and other questions. These are still old things, but under similar circumstances they will again turn actual. (1996) ]
-->°°°What we have messed with the Currency Board
-->°°°°°°[ The object of discussion here is clear. The material is again old and many things have now settled themselves, but this does not mean that I was not right in whatever in those times, and generally. (1998) ]
-->°°°Convergence, what is this?
-->°°°°°°[ This material is dedicated to much acclaimed in its time theory about convergence of capitalism with the communism, which, in principle, turned to be right, yet with some peculiar moments, and my view, as usually, is new and untraditional (i.e. it does not fully correspond to either one of the former extremities). (1998) ]
-->°°°Why the communism has fallen down?
-->°°°°°°[ Here we approach the falling of socialism from an economic point of view, and more precisely in the sense of tying of the members of society in monetary aspect, via savings and loans. (1998) ]
-->°°°And where are we?
-->°°°°°°[ Here is given one comparison from the year 1998 about the economic and other situation in Bulgaria (according data from foreign journals, yet in my parsing), with other ex-communist countries, that is up to date even nowadays, when we are the poorest of all in the United Europe. (1998) ]
-->°°°Predictions for the year 1999
-->°°°°°°[ This paper is a pre-New Year prognosis of the economic and political situation in Bulgaria on the eve of the last century. Like the majority of my things it is actual in broad lines to this day. (1998) ]
-->°°°Can the Bulgarian pay 50 % taxes?
-->°°°°°°[ This material takes in focus the question with the percentage of taxes in Bulgaria, which, although as usually around the world, but is not at all liked by us; the money have now become older, but the situation is the same, especially in connection with our poverty. (1999) ]
-->°°°Reflections on the eve of the "holiday"
-->°°°°°°[ This material is dedicated to the "traditional" for us day of homosexuals (2nd of Feb) and discusses questions related with them. (1999) ]
-->°°°About democracy and melioration
-->°°°°°°[ This material looks at some of the drawbacks of democracy based on the parallel with the treatment of soil, where will it be /_meglio_/ ('meljo', or /_migliore_/) in Italian, i.e.better, depends on the very nation. (1999) ]
-->°°°About democratic phenomenon
-->°°°°°°[ This is continuation of the previous material about the democracy, about the related with it delusions, and how we are to look at it. (1999) ]
-->°°°A step forward and two back
-->°°°°°°[ This paper discusses the introduction of Money Board in Bulgaria in its time and it is aged with more than a dozen of years; nonetheless the things stated there are on the whole actual. (1999) ]
-->°°°Again sharp turn
-->°°°°°°[ The material dwells on the coming to power more than a dozen of years ago of King's party in Bulgaria, though it has long since left the stage. (2001 ) ]
-->°°°Oh God, what we eat!
-->°°°°°°[ Here, as one can well guess, it goes about the unnatural food and how to fight with this. This now is a new material. (2012) ]
-->°°°Why the cocks crow early morning?
-->°°°°°°[ This material proposes some philosophical, etymological, and of other kind, /_un_/professional observations over the birds. (2012 ) ]
-->°°°Does global warming exist?
-->°°°°°°[ When I pose in this way the question, then to all appearance I doubt in this. My view, which I will express in this material, is in this, that there is not so much global warming, as is /_global stirring_/ of the weather. We shall see is it so, in what this is expressed, and what can be done in order to eliminate it, if we want this. (2012) ]
-->°°°The fatal 2013 year in Bulgaria
-->°°°°°°[ This material discusses political and economic situation in Bulgaria in the beginning of fatal 13th year. (2013) ]
-->°°°Why we vote, when we ... don't vote?
-->°°°°°°[ This paper is about this, who took part in the elections in Bulgaria in 2013 godu, who whom from the politicians likes or hates, and, generally, about this how the things turned out there. (2013) ]
-->°°°About the fascism from common sense positions
-->°°°°°°[ This is untraditional look at the contemporary fascism in Bulgaria, and everywhere, from the viewpoint of the reason, as well also about this how to oppose it. (2013) ]
-->°°°About the Social Ministry in Bulgaria
-->°°°°°°[ Here is discussed the question about necessity and the main functions of eventual Social Ministry in Bulgaria (as the poorest country in European Community) and is shown that the expressed here ideas can be used in whatever country. (2013) ]
-->°°°How to improve democratic protests?
-->°°°°°°[ This material takes in focus the question with our inability to correctly conduct democratic protests, so that the population was able to protest, and this helped the governing; there are proposed, naturally, also ways for solving of this very important question, that are valid for all countries. (2014) ]
-->°°°Read Chris Myrski (in the sense of political reviews)
-->°°°°°°[ This paper is dedicated to the political situation in Bulgaria in 2014 and the conducted then elections. There are made interesting and original conclusions, and in the end are given some expert rules for prognosticating of the political situation in Bulgaria, yet not only. (2014) ]
-->°°°Thoughts about Ukraine
-->°°°°°°[ This material is dedicated to the long-lasting confrontation of Ukraine and Russia, why this is bad, and what the Ukrainians have first of all to do. The approach is not typical, these are thoughts, based on the understanding of the situation by the author, yet is used also his sufficient experience in similar in many, chiefly economic, aspects in Bulgaria. (2014) ]
-->°°°Miscellaneous in the year 2016
-->°°°°°°[ Well, here are various things, as it is said, here it goes about the banks' interest rates and the world economic crisis, about cares for the health, also about the bad capitalism and how it can be bettered, especially in poor countries like Bulgaria, this is a new proposition (about communal taxes), and in the end are pictured some funny moments related with bus tickets used as … money equivalent, this in comic terms. (2016) ]
-->°°°Hundred years later (To The Centenary Of October Revolution)
-->°°°°°°[ This is my next, and this time last (at least here) apologetic of communism in my traditional, what means entirely /_un_/traditional style of reasonable and unprejudiced observation. The plan of narration is generally the following: about the Russian Revolution, about Lenin, about Stalin, about the communism, about its future, and some comic moments in the end about the spirit of communism. (2017) ]
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-->In the third Part:
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-->III. Feuilletons
-->°°°[ Here are things written as feuilletons, although sometimes they are not really funny. ]
-->°°°About the sunflower seeds and the people
-->°°°°°°[ This feuilleton deals with the influence of Bulgarian transition to democracy on the consummation of sunflower seeds by the population. (1992 /1995) ]
-->°°°The extremal solution
-->°°°°°°[ In this feuilleton is applied mathematical approach for proving of maximal … stupidity of one concrete political decision in the past (about setting of limits for the price of some product in the conditions of free market). (1994 ?) ]
-->°°°For reforming of Bulgarian language
-->°°°°°°[ This joke is dedicated to the reforming of Bulgarian language in a similar with the English manner, yet is not translated due to the specifics of the text, here is only retold the idea. (1994 /1997) ]
-->°°°To contemporary Bulgarian language
-->°°°°°°[ This feuilleton is similar with the previous, but it treats the massive Americanization of Bulgarian language; here is given also only the idea. (1994 /1997) ]
-->°°°New laws -- old policy
-->°°°°°°[ This feuilleton discusses one variant for social protection of bank deposits, i.e. forced closing of some banks and financial firms during the ruling of communists in the beginning of our democracy. (1996) ]
-->°°°Heads up, Bulgarians!
-->°°°°°°[ This funny piece is dedicated to our next (in 1998) realization of incredible poverty of Bulgarian people, which had begun, obviously, with the coming of democracy in Bulgaria. ]
-->°°°Are you ready for the elections?
-->°°°°°°[ This feuilleton explains some algorithms of democratic (i.e. unreasonable) choice and is permanently actual also today. (1999) ]
-->°°°/_Nomen est numen_/! (to name is to define)
-->°°°°°°[ The feuilleton is dedicated to the exclusive significance of the /_name_/ for the success of prominent political figures; jokes aside, but this really is, and not of small, importance. (2000) ]
-->°°°How to fill the treasury
-->°°°°°°[ How the title shows the feuilleton is written in order to help the financial Ministers and observes various kinds of taxes. It is also always up to day. (2000) ]
-->°°°About the usefulness of cockroaches (scientific feuilleton)
-->°°°°°°[ This feuilleton is obviously dedicated to the cockroaches; the way of narration is quite popular and of use for everybody (2012) ]
-->°°°Better not to live to pension age!
-->°°°°°°[ This last feuilleton explains some curious moments with Bulgarian pensions and is based on personal experience of the author. (2016) ]
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-->In the fourth Part:
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-->IV. Others
-->°°°[ Here are other things which do not belong to any of the previous three sections. ]
-->°°°Actual political dictionary
-->°°°°°°[ What is said. (1993 ?) ]
-->°°°An open question
-->°°°°°°[ This is a standard test for representatives of variety of political forces intended to allow to our population to find themselves better in the views of those persons in complicated contemporary situation. (1994 ?) ]
-->°°°About the trees and the people (forest allegory)
-->°°°°°°[ This miniature is dedicated to the parallel between the reaction of a whole nation by the transition to democracy and the reaction of the wood on bending. (1994 ?) ]
-->°°°Dozen questions for deliberation
-->°°°°°°[ These are questions about the democracy, the capitalism, our transition, and other still important questions. (1996 ?) ]
-->°°°Could one cope with it?!
-->°°°°°°[ Here are discussed the absurd, yet real, social security payments in Bulgaria in that time. (2000) ]
-->°°°Idea about new calendar
-->°°°°°°[ What is said (and this may appear in other place). (2012) ]
-->°°°Reflections about the numbers (popular etymology and more)
-->°°°°°°[ This is a popular booklet (which may be published also on other place) about the names of all digits and more important numbers in /_different_/ languages, about their graphical images, and about various possible /_ideas_/ hidden behind their names. The questions are pretty complicated and lost in the gone centuries, it might be that they are somewhere partially explained, but the author has come to them /_alone_/. These are things interesting for everybody, they, in principle, are not very complicated, but as far as they require some mathematical knowledge and profound etymological researches, then they are practically known to nobody (well, some, say, 2-3 % guess about /_something_/, yet surely not about all moments). So that this is serious scientific paper, only popularly written. (2012) ]
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====>*_FOR NEWSPAPERS_*
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===>*_THE TRUTH ABOUT BULGARIA/*_*
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-->[ * It was published on the 4th page of the newspaper "Anti" for 26 Aug - 01 Sep 1994, almost without abridgments, but under the rubric "Sorrowful results" (author Chris Mirkov), implicating entirely different (of the UDF) meaning. ]
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-->In order to save time of already overloaded with information reader I will share with him (or her) this truth in the very beginning, freeing him in this way of the necessity to read the material at all. So, the truth is that *_we are /_incredibly_/ poor!_*
-->And now, for those who will find five minutes free I will itemize five reasons why I think that this is so.
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-->*_1._* Somewhere about a month earlier was raised the question about *_our national reserve_*, where it turned out that it came up to 32 tonnes of gold (I quote from memory). It is interesting that then I have heard not a single economist, no matter that we have quite a lot such clever people (or, maybe, exactly for that reason?), to have made the simple arithmetic that 30 something tonnes, these are 30 something thousand kilos, or a bit more than 30 million grams, what if we divide to 10 mln Bulgarians (roughly speaking) gives *_by three grams_* and a bit per capita! In other words, the national reserve for each one of Bulgarians equals 1/10 ounce of gold, what, practically, is the smallest golden coin with size a little bigger than that of one /_stotinka_/ /cent, only that made of pure gold (one golden dollar, or other coin is usually about 10 and more grams). More or less as much weighs the simplest wedding ring (about 5 grams), recalculated in 14 carat gold).
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-->*_2._* Many times I hear that they speak about *_international loans_*, which are given to Bulgaria by one or another organization, for this or that occasion, during the ruling of "our" Government, or, respectively, of "other" one. And it usually goes about sums of the order of 80 mln dollars, 150 mln dollars, even, I think, there were talks about 300 mln dollars (here and further I mean US dollars, naturally). As you see I am pretty imprecise with these numbers, because even if we were granted a loan of 500 mln $, than this would have given approximately by 50 dollars for a head, or a dinner in a decent (not luxurious) restaurant in the country giving us the loan. In other words, our creditors do not dare even to "/_pay us one dinner_/", because they doubt that we will succeed to return them the money sometime. And mark, please, that people speak about milliards only when it goes about our tiny /_levs_/ (our national currency), or when this is our whole foreign debt.
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-->*_3._* One of the things, about which is spoken a lot, but never comes time to do it, is the *_privatization_*. In order not to sound unfounded I will make comparison with one of the "ours" (former communist country)-- with the Czech Republic, which has population more or less like in Bulgaria, and a bit smaller territory. From the beginning of the last year (as far as I know), the Czechs have received the corresponding bonds or points for 50,000 crowns per head, which in the previous year were equal to our 50,000 levs, but now they come to 100,000 levs. At the same time we speak about privatization by us for 25,000 levs, and if it will be conducted /_at once_/, then it will be now not four but /_five times_/ less than that in Czech republic (taking into account the bank interest rates for the gone away more than an year), and when it will be performed in Bulgaria then this ratio will be probably 10 times less per capita.
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-->*_4._* In regard of *_working salaries_*, then there these numbers are even more drastic: the minimal taxable salary in Bulgaria is roughly 2,000 lv, or 40 US$, against 1,000 - 1,200 US$ in a "normal" country; and the average salary is 60 - 80 US$, against 2,500 - 3,000 US$ in "normal" countries (the quotes are at the discretion of the reader about this, what is this normal country). In general, the proportion is about *_30 times_*, what is quite real, because after the opening of our market the prices have nearly equalized (although I will not argue if someone will begin to state that our real salary is "only" 25 times less).
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-->*_5._* At the end, the fact that the *_alcohol_* by us is *_7-8 times_* less expensive than in the "normal" countries (what is confirmed by the difference in prices in Bulgaria between our perfumed vodka bearing the name of traditional for us hard drink "rakiya", and the original Scotland /_raki_/ /vodka called whiskey), says that the Bulgarian is so poor, that he even *_"can't get drunk like the other people"_* (for, if he could, you can be sure, the state should have begun to profit from this).
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-->So that the truth, as was said in the beginning, is that we are incredibly (but, alas, you must give credit to the author) poor, though the optimists assert that everything will improve ... if we will have more luck with the politicians, as we have had in the football.
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-->July 1994
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===>*_ABOUT THE MARKET AND THE BULGARIAN/*_*
===>*_(When we have a free market it remains only to learn how to shop)_*
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-->[ * It is published an old and quite shortened version on page 10 of the newspaper "Newspaper for the home" even on 11-18 Nov 1994. Later is published almost full version on page 8 of the newspaper "Kontinent" of 28 Oct 1998. ]
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-->Looking at our market for the last years one can come to the conclusion that it is not such as one would have liked it to be, or, saying it otherwise, not like in the other Western countries. In addition to the economic reasons and levers, with which the state must regulate the production and market, which we shall leave to the specialists, i.e. economists, to discuss (because the existence of market does not mean that it must function entirely unguided), significant influence shows also the psyche of Bulgarian buyer, which still is based on the model of centralized supply from totalitarian times. More precisely, such is the psyche of the people in the age above 50, but they are the major buyers by us, for the reason that those engaged with regular working hours are shopping at least twice less than the unemployed and pensioners. We will focus on five important moments of market economy, that are not enough clear to the masses, or at least are not well realized but are taken for some exceptions. They are the following:
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=>*_1. Each company works for itself,_*
-|with the exception of financed by the state and the so called non-profit organizations, which work for to spend the given to them funds (or according to the well known from our past rule: "the goal is to justify the means"). There is *_/_not_/_* a firm or company that works /_for the client_/, in its disadvantage, with the exception of those cases where the interests of the clients coincide with those of the company, or in some short periods -- of creating of its image! But except a work for gain or without it there is simply not a third way for functioning of a company for prolonged period of time. Such is the market, such is the capitalism, yet that is life.
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=>*_2. Each price is established by the client,_*
-|not the producer, or the intermediary merchant, who may make all possible prognoses and analyses, but until "his majesty" the client says his heavy word these are only "calculations without the innkeeper" (as we in Bulgaria say). This is quite elementary, but not realized by the majority of Bulgarians, especially by the pensioners, who still think that there must be some committee on prices, as it was in the past. In order to convince ourselves in the correctness of our statement let us imagine that is sold such product which nobody can afford the luxury to by (say, space shuttle), and then whatever the companies have done, however scientifically they have set its price, the product would have not found its buyer. The producer or the merchant have the first word, but it is not determinative until the client accepts the product silently (similarly with the family, where the man is the head but the woman is the neck, as we like to say, and without her the head can do nothing). The influence, anyway, is mutual, but it is important to understand what is determinative. The ignorance about this situation not only produces many emotions for the elderly people (this, is some extent, is not so bad for them, because they need emotions, even the negative ones), but also /_inhibits the market_/, for the reason that, creating possibilities for momentary gains for some merchants, this, in fact, worsens their image as a whole (and isn't of advantage for anybody, since it isn't advantageous for the market).
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=>*_3. Each advertisement is paid by the client_*
-|and, of course, *_/_not_/_* by the company, since it works only for gain! This statement is etymologically put in Slavonic word /_reklama_/, i.e. the English word "reclaim", which is decomposed in re + claim, and must mean returning of the invested in it money, what it also means in English (though there this is not exactly an advertisement; yet the Bulgarian word means also returning of some product back). The proper English word "advertisement", for its part, means something added to the price, only that here the root is German /_Vert_/ meaning a value (what leads us to the Latin). This is quite naturally, but it is insulting (for those who come to the idea to give a thought about the matter) that the one who buys some widely advertised product pays, in reality, the advertising also for those who do /_not_/ buy it. Still, every cloud has a silver lining, as the English proverb goes, what in this case reduces to this, that the ads outline the range of goods which are /_not_/ pretty /_necessary_/ for the general public, and, hence, a thoughtful buyer must /_restrain_/ himself from buying them (looking for alternative things). Nobody does advertise bread, or cheese, or potatoes, sunflower oil, sugar, etc. (only if they are very special in something, and in this case also several times more expensive), because everybody knows them and buys in all cases, but are advertised: coca-cola, alcohol, cigarettes, sporting goods, prostitutes (ouch, sorry, "companions"), et cetera. The advertising, unquestionably, is the soul of trade and we can not do without it, but it is useful if the general public knows that the expenditures for it begin with 10 % and reach to one third of the price of the product./**
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-->[ ** It can be added that the contemporary market and economy rely mainly on the ... snobbery of citizens -- but when one can allow himself to be a snob, not in conditions of misery. (From where one can draw the conclusion that -- ha, ha -- that the snobbery is cured in the easiest way with continuous misery!) ]
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=>*_4. The market has no global regularities,_*
-|it has only some local tendencies (or trends), but also for them there is no guaranty how long they will continue, and this is the most important thing that has to be known. More precisely: the only global regularity which the market has is that it has /_no_/ global regularities, which were accessible for the uninitiated (or profane) citizens, for the simple reason that they alone are /_participants_/ in it, and when some regularity becomes obvious and people begin to correct their behaviour according to it, then it already changes, most often turning into its antipode! Even for the enlightened specialists in economics and marketing it, still, remains a phenomenon which can be analyzed (usually post factum), but not predicted sufficiently well. The model of saturated with a given product market correlates in some extent with the question of predicting the droughts, or floods, or flooding of the Nile, where the great (practically unlimited) number of unknowns makes the exact solution of the equation impossible. In addition to this the ads and all sorts of momentous moods of the masses can disturb the calculations (while for the flooding of Nile, for example, is of no importance what is the meaning of the ... crocodiles on the question).
-->For this reason the success comes more often to /_large companies_/, because they apply (if at all, of course) the only right strategy for moderate winnings, known under the name "*_divide and conquer_*" (or /_divide ed impera_/ in Latin), investing in /_different_/ areas, for to make possible that, loosing in one of them, they will gain in some other one. The small scale producer or buyer has practically no chances to win with risky operations as a rule, only as an exception, and for him remains the single possibility to work hard, yet /_not_/ for to win but /_not to lose_/, and in such case he will do well with some minimal profit in a saturated market. The bad thing is that in Bulgaria both, the producers and the buyers, still dream to become rich at once, to grab a lot of money, and ... as a rule they lose. But what to do -- this is characteristic for the stage of "green" capitalism, or for the period of initial accumulating (or /_stealing_/) of capitals, and this pursuit of the "golden calf" has continued in USA, probably, for more than a century, so that why it not to continue by us for at least half a century?
-->
=>*_5. The market is profitable only for those, who can influence it,_*
-|and these are basically the large scale producers and traders, while the smaller producers and common buyers are forced to adjust to it, what in many cases is not in their interest. If our supply under the centralized planning, for example with foodstuffs, was not especially good, then this was explainable, either with some peculiarities of our market, or with our /_unwillingness_/ to make it better (on account of, in the general case, our low living standard, although it is much lower today), because in Czech Republic in the sausage shops earlier were at least a dozen of varieties of sausages, and even in the former ("unbreakable") Soviet Union almost always were at least five sorts of cheeses and about ten assortments of melted cheeses, while in Bulgaria in the best case were two sorts of white cheese and two sorts of cheese. And besides, the abundance of products on the market does not necessarily mean abundance also at the homes, in what we now, on our bitter experience, become convinced. The competition, surely, is a good thing for stimulating of production, but it can be imitated also with a well done planning.
-->The market is good for the buyer when it is /_saturated_/ and people make their purchases evenly and predictably. When this is done "on strips" or stormy, were it because somebody has said that certain product will rise in price (as a result of what it /_really_/ rises), were it because people want to spend their money faster, in order to oppose the rapid devaluation, and then stay half an year "assimilating the food" like a python having devoured a whole lamb, or on the contrary -- don't buy anything because wait until the product drops in price, and while they wait it begins to rise up -- all this only hinders the normal market relations, from what the buyer indisputably loses. Lose as a rule also the sellers (and the producers who stay behind them), because the lack of rhythm confuses all forecasts. As the experienced men say, everything bad on this world comes from irregular relations (meaning intercourses), but the market /_is_/ a kind of "intercourse" between the sellers and the buyers, and if we want that both parts took pleasure in this game (for the market is an interesting game and field for expression of many of us) then this must be done showing more intellect, or (what, as if, comes to the same thing) respect to the partner.
-->
-->If we now want to outline
=>*_the main differences of our market from the Western one,_*
-|we are bound to acknowledge the following two things: the Bulgarian most often *_buys at high prices_*; and the *_production is done_*, usually, *_in packets_*, not evenly! In his desire to buy something cheaper the common buyer continues to make traditional queues, and in this situation the merchants offer him either abnormally high prices (they, surely, have not gone mad for to want to lose), or products of lower quality (again for the same reason). With this behaviour of his the Bulgarian as if alone "muddles the water" and nobody is guilty for the harm that /_he has made to himself_/! The advantages of market economy can show itself when the producer begins to look for a buyer for his goods and with that purpose tries to make them better, not vice versa. Another confusing moment comes from incomprehension of the difference between current shopping by little and some kinds of /_hoarding_/, where the majority of people buy en bloc not because of some reducing of prices (which to propose them there in so way, when they alone hurry to buy in bulk), but because that is what has got into their heads, or they have used to do so. When our people have decided that there has come the season for making of pickles then they, in any case, buy in bulk, and due to this in that time the prices jump up, although tomatoes can be canned in June and July, for example, if then they are cheaper. It is high time to learn to buy this, what they offer us (cheaper) in the moment, not this, what we want to buy, because this approach is more profitable not only for the buyer, but also for the seller, who has put out his goods and has interest to sell them. This is not question of poverty, because the Western people, who are ten times wealthier than us, react better to seasonable or momentous prices, stabilizing them in this way, while by us they "go crazy". And, surely, we must become used to the fact that on the market the goods /_never end_/, because their presence is maintained via the price mechanism!
-->The wish for quick enrichment, for its part, forces the producers to rush to "flood" the market with this, what is the most demanded, forgetting that they are not alone in the market and that the other producers make just the same. For this reason one year the potatoes become very cheaper, in another year these are the peppers, then tomatoes, then onion, then sugar, and so on, because each one bases his calculations on the gains /_in the previous year_/, which calculations are done "without the innkeeper". The market also without this is prone to cyclicity (as each natural process in the world) and there is no necessity to increase it, drawing down the lower positions of prices, and up -- the higher ones. If we don't know in which direction to draw, then it is better not to draw at all, and instead of looking for maximal gain to look for constant and moderate one.
-->Of course, nobody was born knowing, and we have to adapt to the market long time, but the important thing is to understand that it is common for the whole nation and we are participants in it. The wish for personal win is natural, but the pursuit of mutual pleasure must also become natural for the Bulgarian. At any rate, there is no other way!
-->
-->1994, Oct 1998
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-->*_-- -- -- -- --_*
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===>*_FIVE YEARS OF DEVASTATION/*_*
-->
-->[ * Published on page 2 of the newspaper "Anteni" from 26 Oct 1994, shortened to the half but in this spirit (under a fictitious pseudonym A. Z. S-ov, decoded as Atanas Savov, what is entirely wrong guess). ]
-->
-->There have gone five years from the time when our "Bai Tosho" have come down from the political scene (helped by his fighting comrades), five years when different political powers (parliamentary, extra-parliamentary, and backstage) have ruined everything what was possible to be ruined in our long-suffering homeland, and with "enviable" success! Conscientiously or unintentionally, reasonably or not, aiming at political or personal favours, but these five years (there's one word, by the way in the Slavonic languages, something like "fiveyeary") can be rightfully named *_five years of the biggest devastation_*: devastation in the "Party and Government", devastation in the Trade-unions, devastation in the Church, devastation in the army, as also in the militia-police, devastation in the science, devastation in the culture, devastation in the education, as well as in the healthcare, devastation in the center of Sofia, as also in the periphery, and in other towns, devastation in the villages, devastation in the scientific institutes and in the factories, devastation of the nature, as also in the human souls! Five years of devastation right and left, up and down, devastation amidst young and amidst old! But, still, each rule has its exceptions, namely: there has flourished moral laxity, has flourished crime and corruption, has flourished human stupidity everywhere where possible. From Balkan countries we were, maybe, the most educated, although the poorest state -- now we are only the poorest (after Albania)! We have rejected the totalitarianism with total devastation -- hurrah, gentlemen!
-->It is another question whether was necessary to destroy all this (and what exactly) or not, but the fact is that we have destroyed everything. Many can object that one can not build a new house on the rotten foundations of the old one, that it is necessary first to demolish them (maybe in order to build a new "factory of our life" -- how has put it our poet Nikola Vaptsarov), that all this is valid for all totalitarian institutes, that they could not have reformed from within and it was necessary to crush them down and substitute with new ones, that as our science, so also our education, and medicine, and army, and militia, must have been created anew. This might be so, gentlemen, but when it is necessary to demolish our old house, then where will we live /_until_/ we built the new one? What reasonable owner destroys his old house not having secured at least a temporary home? And our "temporary home" have become the campgrounds -- both, literally and figuratively! We have rejected the red "bright future" in order to substitute it with blue one, but changing of the colour *_/_does not remove_/_* the utopia, it only creates turmoil on the "building site" of our life. The having become proverbial under the totalitarianism pun, that the errors of growth have turned to growth of errors, continues to be valid also today!
-->Whereas in some other countries it *_does not happen_* so! And I am *_/_not_/_* speaking about some distant and exotic countries but about some of our "brotherly", and even Slavonic, if you want, countries. And really, why it did not happen so in Czech Republic or Slovakia, and in Hungary, and in the Baltic countries? Why when in the other countries people have done gentle revolutions, in Bulgaria have happened "rough disorders"? Why when the other countries (well, surely not all of them) have rejected the communism, in order to show that they /_have realized its falsity_/, we have stuck to it as if have grasped a bag with gold coins, and later, when the same countries have begun already a turn to the left, in order to show that they have /_matured enough_/, for not to come to extremities in the negation, we continue to turn to the right and will we continue even more in this direction? Do we, really, like so much the poverty that *_/_still_/_* can not jump over the level from the times of "Bai Tosho" (with our about 50 US$ average monthly working salary nowadays), or are we chasing the level of Somalia? And why the Czech crown for five years has devalued roughly twice, while for this period our lev has done this at least 25 times? Well, we are not like in Russia or in Serbia, but we have also not their problems.
-->So that, if we are /_wise enough to perceive that we are silly_/ (as have said the ancient folks), then we should have looked around first in Bulgaria, for to convince ourselves (if we have still some doubts about this) that everything is collapsing, then abroad, for to convince ourselves that it *_can be_* otherwise; and then to think a bit what a thing we can do in order not to give reasons to the civilized countries to laugh at the "drunkenness" of our whole nation (as has called it in his time our Renaissance writer Ivan Vazov), what has already begun to look like /_chronic alcoholism_/, because continues for such long time.
-->In the moment, in fact, we hesitate in which direction to move: to the left, when the "bright communist future" turned out to be complete utopia and the way to it -- total stagnation, or to choose the right-wing capitalism from the /_beginning_/ of the century, which proved to be quite cruel for our poor nation, and also amoral enough. But who looks for the truth at the ends he will /_not_/ find it there! And the question also is *_/_not_/_* in this to avoid the oscillation (because this is impossible and would have been our next utopia), but to lessen its amplitude, to search for the state of equilibrium, to stick to the axial line of the way, to float in the middle of the river, or how you want to name this centralizing, what is just a *_question of reasonability_*. Otherwise it becomes free oscillation. Such oscillation, what we would have had if we take a wooden plank, fix it motionless at one end, deflect its other end to the left (for example) and leave it -- then the free end will move initially in the right end position, then will return to the left, then again will move to the right, and so on many times, where most slowly it will move and most longer it will stay /_exactly_/ in the end positions, which are the worst, while with greatest speed it will pass exactly the state of equilibrium, where it must finally stop. So that this is what would have done a /_wood_/ or a tree, but we are not trees, gentlemen! ... Or, maybe, we, still, are trees?
-->
-->Oct 1994
-->
-->*_-- -- -- -- --_*
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===>*_DO YOU WANT TO LOSE YOUR 13TH PENSION?_*
-->
-->It is true that our people have become poor, the money does not suffice, and the more it does not suffice to those who have less then the others -- this can't be denied. Yet the question is in this that the inertial thinking from the stagnation times hinders many pensioners (but also working people) to act adequately to the situation of high inflation and leads to loss of a thirteenth pension each year, putting it shortly. And the loss is /_pure_/, because you get nothing in return. Let us look at the things in more details.
-->An averagely taken pensioner receives 2,000 levs as pension and earns additionally in various ways about 1,000 lv, what gives approximately 3,000 lv income in a month. But then, the harder the Bulgarian is living the more he tries to economize -- the so called "white money for black day" --, so that in the end of the month he, usually, puts about 1,000 lv in some saving account. Despite the possible objections of many pensioners, that they can't save so much money in month, I personally think that this calculations are valid for at least 2/3 of the pensioners in Bulgaria, but even if they were true only for 1/3 of them, and for the left part -- for twice smaller sums, then it, still, is worthy to pay the necessary attention to what is said here (because it is not to be scorned at half of a pension, right?).
-->The middle between 3,000 and 1,000 is exactly 2,000 levs, i.e. each pensioner *_keeps at home on the average about 2,000 lv_* during the whole month (where similar is the situation also with the working people, who receive on the average 4,000 lv pure and come to zero before the next salary, or averagely again 2,000 lv). By the existing lowest possible interest rates (for termless deposits in DSK -- 56 % yearly, or 4.66 % monthly) this gives about 90 lv lost in month, or for entire year -- about 1,000 lv, i.e. *_half a pension_* till here.
-->An average pensioner has in his accounts *_saved money about 70,000 lv_* (i.e. about two yearly salaries, what is quite real). At the same time *_the difference in the compound interests_* between one-month deposits and six-months such is about /_1.5 % on the average_/ for all banks, and this gives *_another half_* of a pension. And mark, please, that I don't speak how much you would have economized if you have bought shares of the company A&B, for example, because with the shares one may win, but may also lose; neither am I speaking about imaginary gains (say, if you buy each month by kilo meat less, then this will save you 200 lv, and if you don't buy 10 kilos, then this makes a whole pension "gained").
-->So that the 13th pension, the lost one, is a fact! It remains only to see what we gain at the expense of this loss, and this is the comfort to have money at hand in any moment. But isn't it possible to make so, that your money were accessible and you still received high interest, i.e. that "the wolf was satiated and the lamb remained alive"? It turns out that this is quite possible and we propose here the following simple scheme of distribution of deposits *_on the basis of 100 thousand levs_*, namely:
-->*_a)_* In DSK (State's Saving Bank), as the most secure place (which can go bankrupt only together with the State) you keep roughly half of your money, and more precisely: *_in two places by 20,000 lv for a term of one year_*, but shifted by six months and even on a fixed day of the month, whichever you choose. (As far as the queues in banks are the biggest respectively between the 5th and 15th day of the month, because in this period are paid the pensions; between 20th and 30th, when are paid the salaries; as well as in the first pair of days of each month, especially in the beginning of half of the year -- then we propose to use some day between 15th and 20th). Let us accept as an example 15 Jan and 15 July respectively.
-->*_b) In five different banks_* (for the reason that, in the end, /_each_/ bank can go bankrupt) you make deposits by *_10,000 lv each month_*, from the months /_between_/ the yearly deposits, *_for a term of six months_* (say, from 15th Feb to 15th June inclusive, by a month).
-->*_c)_* In the nearest to your home branch of DSK (or another bank) you make an usual current, *_termless deposit_* of maximum *_10,000 levs_*.
-->*_d)_* At home you keep maximum *_1,000 lv_* (half of a pension).
-->By this arrangement you have in your disposition the following sums: in every moment -- roughly 500 lv (half of the 1,000 lv, as a middle); each working day -- up to 10,000 lv; once in a month, summed -- 20,000 lv (10,000 from the 6-month deposit, plus 10,000 from the current one); and twice in an year -- the sum of 30,000 levs.
-->This distribution of you money meets the basic requirements of the strategy "/_divide and conquer_/" (dividing of the banks and periods). For greater completeness could be added one more rule for minimization of the risk, namely "/_the rule of the fearful_/" what says: the greater the proposed to you win (here, the interest), the less you allow to be "caught on the bait" (here, to put your money there)! In other words, *_counteract the advertisement_*.
-->A small detail: there exist some banks which allow you to "return the time back", counting each month for 30 days, respectively also for bigger periods, what for an year gives difference of five days. So that if you want to shift the maturity of some deposit with a pair of days back make use of these banks. Naturally, this is not significant, but it is always good to have less to remember, so that if all your deposits fall on one day of the month this turns to be pretty convenient.
-->So that: to lose or not your 13th pension -- the choice is yours!
-->
-->1995 ?
-->
-->*_P.S._* By an average interest rate of about 5 %, as it is in Bulgaria somewhere since 1998, it is clear that with such tricks one will never come to a whole pension, but to only about  50-100 levs (in 2005), yet this also is money which should not be thrown to the wind. In addition, it is correct to divide your money in (at least) two different hard currencies. All these are obvious things, but the main reason why people avoid to do this is that they just don't like to be moderate (no matter what the ancient Greeks have said on that question).
-->2008
-->
-->*_-- -- -- -- --_*
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===>*_TIME TO DRAW CONCLUSIONS_*
-->
-->Briefly said, the situation in Bulgaria is clear -- there is no center. But the point is: *_/_why_/_* there is no center? Why there are by us very small number of politicians with influence, who have succeeded to restrain themselves not to become "red" (meant are the former communists), neither "blue" (the "only" democrats, according to them), more than "needed", when already the ancient Greeks have written on the temple of Apollo at Delphi the slogan "Nothing above measure"? And if we ask ourselves this question then it is difficult not to come to the conclusion that moderation, worldly experience, and wisdom, these notions are to a great extent synonyms and are associated primarily with the mature age. And really, in our dissolved Parliament, according to my modest opinion, the average age was about 40 years, where in the times of our "Bai Tosho" the average age tended to 65 years, or our Parliament has become *_/_significantly_/_* younger.
-->Surely, in sports, sciences, and in many other activities, existed age barrier, and even if it is not obligatory, still, the top achievements are possible most often up to 35 (rarely to 40) years. But these are activities for which usually fast reflexes are necessary, while in the politics, in practice, is /_exactly on the contrary_/ -- important is not the speed, but the reasonability of the decisions, which comes /_after_/ the age of the "dashing" youth, or up 40 and above. And in our Parliament, maybe, only a third of the members were on age above 45 and, I think, again more or less as many were below 35. This, exactly, has determined the colour of our former Parliament *_/_not_/_* as blue or red, but as *_/_green_/_*, in sense of *_unripe_*! Precisely this was our trouble. In this was our main unnecessary striving and if we can realize this even now -- it is still good.
-->The next moment is related with the *_way of centering_* of political powers, what are pretending to be doing both, the red and the blue ones. But I can allow myself to have some doubts in this, because we are coming to the old proverb about the wolf and its skin, and, besides, centering can't be done from one side only, it requires /_simultaneous movement_/ from the both ends, otherwise not the Parliament is centering, but the center of Parliament is shifting, what is not the same thing.
-->We must remind ourselves that the blue party have emerged because there existed the red one, similarly to the emergence of communism in the beginning of the century, and of the fascism, too, in order to oppose the cruel capitalism of that time, and also one another. Now the right-wing powers in the Parliament have returned us so successfully in the wild and cruel capitalism from the beginning of the century, has happened such stratification in the society, and such impoverishment, that the voters with good reason turn again to the left, i.e. the history as if begins to repeat. But this is not centering, this is battle of ideas! On the other hand, our people must be glad, that /_only for five years_/ they have succeeded to convince themselves that /_neither_/ the left-wing reality (45 years is enough -- the well known slogan of UDF, the Union of Democratic Forces), /_nor_/ the right-wing alternative (there have passed less than 45 months, and this also is enough) are good. The ideas sound very nice, but their *_realization is limping_*, for the reason that the truth is not at the ends, it is in the middle, and, hence, *_both poles_* just *_must converge_*!
-->In worldwide scale it happened exactly so: the capitalism, as more adaptive, has succeeded for more than half a century to move quite to the left and to socialize itself to such extent, that in a number of contemporary countries this socialism, about which we have talked so much, is largely built; the socialism, for its part, has tried to turn to the right, but because of "right-wing phobia" and organic incapability it just collapsed. Somehow or other, however, both ends have met, regardless of the terminology. It remains only to hope that in our Parliament, too, will happen some similar movement from both ends, as they say, "with the help of God".
-->One question, which our Parliament has not succeeded to solve to the end, because it has /_not wanted_/ to do this, was to change the minimal barrier for participation of political powers in it to the really minimal, i.e. to one person, or, say, to three persons, in order to avoid some occasional errors. As far as both political colossi stand at both poles, the existing system is directed to elimination of /_all levels of moderation_/. But we should not forget that a river does not consist of its left, neither of its right, bank, it is what is /_between_/ them! Otherwise the river splits in two arms, and when one nation divides itself in two parts it is obvious what happens, so that if our readers want that there were, still, one river in our political life, then they are just compelled to look for party in the middle. Even if the chances for putting of such party in our Parliament are very small, nevertheless we must try to do this. This is simply the only /_reasonable alternative_/ for our country.
-->But let us also not forget the piquant idiosyncrasy, that everybody learns /_from the mistakes of the *_others_*_/, but from his or her own -- does not want! Because of this our political powers cal learn *_only when they stay in opposition_* (for then they can not make errors alone for the reason that they don't take whatever decisions, and the errors of the others are so many that they can be, as we say, shoveled with a spade)! In this situation the only way for some party or coalition to straighten and improve itself (if it is really viable) is to go in opposition. From what follows, my honorable readers, that if you truly care for parties at both poles, then the single way to /_help_/ them is *_not to vote for them_*! If this happens then, you can be sure, in the next elections they will shine in a new light, else they will continue to "smear", either themselves, or one another.
-->In the end let us imagine some cowboy from the Wild West having lots of guns: one has served him faithfully more than 45 years but lately has begun to fail and shoots much to the left, in spite of all smearing and the changing of its whole hammer mechanism; another gun has emerged not long ago, it has modern design and is with dark-blue colour, it was recommended to him by the best Western weapon experts, but it shoots much to the right; the other guns he has not yet tried, trough some of them he has even not once shot. But time has not to be lost and expert commissions to be appointed, he must shoot because he is encircled and the bullets are running out. How you think, dear readers, the cowboy will behave?
-->
-->1996 ?
-->
-->*_P.S._* In 2008 is seen quite clear (but it was seen also ten years earlier) that the question about the center is highly important, and because the left- and right-wing poles are centering itself very slowly it remains only the possibility of emerging of new parties, which have to be centered as much as possible, or at least that they wouldn't have reasons for fundamental tensions between them only because of this that, hmm, one of them cry "uhh" and the others "hurrah" (in what, as if, consists the main difference between our UDF and BSP -- the latter are the former communists). The new more or less centrist party was the emerged in the very beginning of 21st century "Tsarist" party, because, at least in theory, our people thought that the Tsar will think about them (and not about his land holdings, as it, basically, turned out to be). Well (if we take aside the question with his lands, which just "pocks the eyes" of the Bulgarian), they are up to some extent a center, if not for other reasons then at least because during their mandate they were "anti" both, the blue and the red ones, so that they have no other choice left to them, but this is not exactly that center, which the author has in mind, and which our people seek.
-->The proper centrist party, of course, is, before, as well as now, the Turkish party, MRF (Movement for Rights and Freedoms), without which no one Parliament can do, which, it turns out, is just /_forced_/ to be centrist, for the simple reason that it is not party in the conventional meaning of the word! It is not classical party because this about the rights and freedoms is no special platform or idea; its single platform is that it is ethnical, and in this case it must be liked by all Turks in Bulgaria. Yeah, but all Turks are like /_all Bulgarians_/ -- there are among them poor and wealthy, intelligent and simple, and so on, so that their leaders can't avoid to try to please, as far as this is possible, all of them, and the easiest way to do this is via moderation (by which nobody wins much, but also nobody loses much). So that it turns out that the ethnicity is not such a bad platform for a political party, as many in Bulgaria present this; and also, in the end, maybe it is better if we were taken by the Turks (not that they show special desire to do this, because this, what they most of all want, and this for more than a century now, is to enter in Europe, so that everything that can spoil their image is obviously undesirable for them), than the Chinese or Americans, because with the Turks we have at least common tastes (and understand their, hmm, curses, where with the Chinese we have still no experience, and what concerns the Americans -- for them we are simply the next "white Negroes").
-->But in addition to this BSP (Bulgarian Socialist Party), as much as it succeeds in this, also centers (even the ... /_causa perduta_/, UDF, too), and then what else remains to this party, when it has entered in incredible coalition with "Royal courtiers" and "Ottomans". The bad thing in this process of centering is only ... our nation, because the common people are those who /_require_/ their extremes, even if some of them "smell" of fascists, what impression have made, at least in the beginning, the comrades of "Haiduk Sider" (i.e. Volen Siderov, but "/_volen_/" means free, like a haiduk); they can also not be downright fascist, for the reason that the ideas of this movement, at least according to the author, have no ground by us, but this is another topic (it, looking soberly, in a poor country like our, can exist ground only for the socialism, but we are all running away from it like "the devil from the incense", so that let us not count us for big experts on "soil science").
-->At least on the question of age we are moving in the right direction to the average one and above it, but there may be simple explanation of this -- the "youngsters" in the politics have grown up now (if we do not count the attacking "storm troopers" of "Ataka" of just mentioned Siderov, but they also will grow old with the time).
-->And generally, it is easy to make conclusions, everybody can make them having a bit of common sense (and people do them, if we judge by this that now half of the population does not vote), the bad thing is only that the voice of people is usually vulgar (what are nearly synonyms for the Western world).
-->
-->2008
-->
-->*_-- -- -- -- --_*
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===>*_ABOUT THE ELECTIONS AND THE DEMOS_*
-->
-->*_Every election_*, performed in a big group of people and by incomplete information, *_is_*, as a rule, *_unreasonable_* and represents itself, in fact, a *_/_procedure for confirming of the unreasonability_/_*! Although at a first sight this sounds like a paradox the allegation is true. By many nations exist sayings in the sense that the choice is a torment, but our assertion is that in the majority of cases this tormentation is also meaningless! It is another question when one thinks to buy, say, mince meat or cheese, or to buy nothing at all, because it is cheaper so (with the current prices). Or when /_a handful_/ of people -- a Board of Directors, or some Bureau, or Commission, and so on -- chose between several candidates, because then the choice is used to average the voices, and the very commission in this case is /_competent_/ enough and has the necessary information. The more, however, the group grows, or the information becomes insufficient, the more unreasonable the choice turns out to be.
-->This has to be obvious, by this formulation, because the reason is something objective, something that can't be consequence of the /_meanings_/ of a group of people, and if there existed some exact procedure or consequence of actions (algorithm, if we make use of this more contemporary terminology), applying which we can get the right decision, then there is no need to conduct a choice, using which we may even miss the right decision! Said otherwise, this means that the admission of existence of reasonableness in a multi-parametric choice, under conditions that we are not clear about neither the methods of assessment of each different parameter, nor the ways for "weighing" of all parameters together, seems quite doubtful, but if this could have been evaluated, then it is /_necessary_/ this to be done. Yet if such evaluation can be performed, then our choice becomes entirely redundant, for the reason that must be applied exactly this algorithm for evaluation and not the common choice.
-->So for example, who can formulate exactly how long the nose of a given President must be or how high he must cock up his nose; or also what is more important: the number of his shoes or his tertiary education; as also what is preferable: that he was gynecologist, or meteorologist, or musicologist, or to be, as usually is said, man of the people, i.e. the tertiary education is of no importance? Surely, when one gathers together many people it happens averaging of the opinions, what many people wrongly accept for reasonable, but this is just an /_averaging of the stupidity_/, and can't add more reasonability!
-->Together with this, but looked from another side, it turns that the choice is an *_alternative variant of the lot or divination_* (and it doesn't matter whether on coffee grounds, or on legume beans, entrails of sacrificial animals, or in some other way) -- methods applied from deep antiquity in cases when one is not in condition to take reasonable decision, were it because one has not all necessary information, were it because one is not able to process it in the right manner. This is in sense that here and there we are confronted with unreasonable decision, but in many cases it is just necessary to take /_some_/ decision, even not quite reasonable, and, naturally, that in such cases one chooses the lesser evil or the less unreasonable decision.
-->This phenomenon, let us call it "/_reasonable unreasonability_/", was marked in ancient times, for to make possible the coming to us of the fable about Buridan's ass, what animal (not what some of you might have thought), posed before two entirely equal haystacks, could not have made his choice to begin eating from the biggest one, and being, after all, an /_ass_/ and as obstinate as an ass, at the end simply died of hunger. We cite these judgements in order to convince the reader that in many cases (i.e. in the majority of everyday situations) /_the reasonable consists in the unreasonable_/, but what are we to do -- such is our world! In other words, some "higher reasonability" ("divine" intervention, or a lot) can change some unreasonableness into its antipode, so that, generally, we are not to be much bothered by the not-reasonableness of our, or of the others, behaviour, but, still, the very ascertainment of this fact is useful.
-->If we now look at the general democratic elections, where *_/_people who do not understand_/_* (i.e. they don't know the subject area, were it of the governing, were if of the jurisprudence, or economy, etc.) chose *_/_people who they don't know_/_* (one lives with somebody a dozen of years and in the end it turns out that one does not know the other well enough, and what remains when one has never been able to ask the other one personally about something what interests him or her) and this *_/_not requiring_/_* whatever *_/_document for their qualification_/_* (for there is no obligatory tertiary or even college political education), then it is quite normal to agree with the above-said about the obvious unreasonability of such elections!
-->And in addition to everything else these elections are pretty expensive (at least for our poor country) and practically unnecessary because each more or less good sociological research (where are computed also the percentages of errors via using of several control groups) costs at least /_thousand_/ times less and can do the same work. The /_higher reasonability_/ in this case is purely psychological: *_nothing "shuts the mouths" of the people so good as the opportunity to express their meanings_* (despite the fact that the common people are not very competent)! This was clear to the more wiser rulers already at the dawn of democracy in Ancient Greece and is stated that the it (the democracy), in fact, was introduced initially by the tyrant Pisistratos, not by the very people.
-->However, it must be stressed that the fact of unreasonability of the democratic elections does *_/_not_/_* mean that they are unnecessary and have to be boycotted, or that it is necessary to leave the others to vote instead of us (because this, at least in our view, will make them even more unreasonable, for one usually does not doubt that /_he_/ alone behaves reasonable), but that one has to take them with the necessary dose (unreasonable) reasonableness. In the end, it is not so important for whom you will vote, because, anyway: *_/_according with the demos goes the -cracy!_/_*
-->I would like to evolve a little my thought with the known sentence of the /_Shopp_/ (they are living around Sofia), that "the wife must be cheated, for otherwise she will go to some other to be cheated". This wisdom is valid even stronger for the politicians and the people (or for the pastor, meant as shepherd, and the flock), so that one political figure "must be able to cheat (or deceive, delude, bamboozle, etc.) the people" ("But he is surely able!" -- will say our Shopp) and here is necessary to mention that the point isn't in this are the people manipulated (if we use this contemporary, also in the Bulgarian, word), but is this done to their advantage, and, first of all, is this delusion well thought or the people find it very easy (because we all /_know_/, reading some book or watching a film, that this isn't the actual reality but only some fiction or fable, yet this is interesting for us and we are satisfied if the fable or manipulation makes us happy).
-->And not only the politician, each one of us, in a democratic society has the right (well, not that also the obligation) to deceive, bamboozle or manipulate, ones neighbour (and what else is the commercial advertising, if not the next manipulation of the people?), even only in one's own interest (although this is not explicitly written in our, or in some other one, Constitution)! This may not be much reasonable, because if everybody deceives then life becomes very complicated, but it /_already is such_/ and the higher reason in this case is in this, not to stand strongly against the human nature. Anyway, instead of citing our Shopp we could have quoted the similar Latin sentence which says that: /_Mundus vult decipi_/, or, translated in English, that "The world /_wants_/ to be deceived!".
-->But let us return to the elections and remind you that, as alternative of the arbitrary choice, if the situation is very complicated (and in Bulgaria it, as if very often, is such) they can be simplified with some other alternative method. For example, it is necessary to vote and you see that as the left-wing, so also the right-ones, are not capable to better the things (or as have put it our eminent compatriot /_Bai Ganyu_/, from the novel by Aleko Konstantinov: "all are swindlers and scoundrels"), the "non-ethnic" (at least in their own view) center has not enough influence over the people, the peasants, as usual, can not live without "field boundaries" and always have not succeeded to divide something between them, and non-UDF democrats (at least according to them) do not exist, or else they don't succeed to enter the "/_Talking shop_/" (translation of the word Parliament). So if the situation is so entangled can be proposed one quite attractive method, which, however, can turn to be very suitable for Bulgarian bipolar political model.
-->The recipe is as follows: *_a)_* if you are man, and have to vote, then in the election day you stay up, wash yourself, shave, breakfast (or not -- according to your income), put your new clothes for the occasion, go out on the street and move to the premises where have to give your voice, but before to come there you look to what side you have positioned ... your "instrument" in this special day, and if it is in the left trouser leg you vote for the left-wing, else if it is in the right one -- for the right-wing (and surely the probability that it has stuck exactly in the middle is practically equal to zero); *_b)_* if you are woman then the procedure in the beginning is the same (without the shaving, is supposed), and then you cast a look at the symbol of masculinity of your husband or lover (as it befits a woman), or choose yourself some man on the street (as it also befits a woman) and vote in accordance with what you find to be the case. Who knows whether in this procedure some "higher" reason is not hidden?
-->If this method does not suit you then you can apply one rule known, possibly, since Roman times, which we will call for shortness the "rule of the husband"/*. It is based on the method of /_elimination_/ and is the following: if you are married husband and have to make some important choice, which you can't do alone, then you ask your wife and act as possibly *_/_on the contrary_/_* to this, what she has advised you; if you are man but unmarried -- use your girl friend or neighbour woman for the purpose; and if you are woman then just make the opposite of what you have /_thought_/ to do (as it also often happens with the women). It is surprisingly how good results this method can give in a wide number of cases.
-->
-->[ * The algorithms of choice are elaborated in more details in the feuilleton "Are you ready for the elections?". ]
-->
-->October 1996
-->
-->*_-- -- -- -- --_*
-->
===>*_REQUIEM FOR ONE COALITION_*
-->
-->When somebody decides to build a new home, or to demolish the old, he usually calls his friends (and followers) and makes a /_coalition_/, scientifically speaking. After building the house, or, respectively, demolishing it, he may drink his drink with these friends, or make new coalition (for building or destroying, say, of a summer cottage), but the old coalition, in any case, does no longer exist. It has been so from tines immemorial, it is so now, and it will be the same in the future! Otherwise, coalition that stays too long monolithic, begins to be like an irritable old man, for whom all pray to God to take him faster to the other world (how it really was with our well known Fatherland Front in the recent Bulgarian past).
-->In other words, *_the only evolvement_*, which some coalition can endure, is to *_its disintegration_*! Like we this or not, it doesn't matter, for such is the life! And the only things that can be said about somebody who leaves the life are good words. So that let us forget the bad and recall us only the good about our not unknown coalition called UDF (Union of Democratic Forces), because it has done many good things for Bulgaria.
-->
-->*_The first thing_*, about which we have to thank the UDF, is that it has *_/_helped_/_* the troubled and inflexible BCP (Bulgarian Communist Party) from the times of our "Bai Tosho" to change to a modern left-wing party, what without help from outside was very difficult and almost beyond the power of BCP. The main advantage of multi-party system is this, that it does not soften the critic of opposition, and UDF was strong and young opposition: so strong for to be able to take the power, and so young for /_... not to be able_/ to keep it! Exactly such uncompromising opposition was necessary for BCP in order to reform it in the initial moment.
-->
-->*_Further_*, we must express our gratitude to the UDF for this that *_it_*, really, *_was a coalition_*, and in this case it has begun very rapidly (even /_before_/ its coming to power) to disintegrate. It now also does not want to become a party and continues to disintegrate, freeing in this way quite painlessly Bulgaria from the useless bipolar model, leaving only one pole and a group of modern young opposition parties for its balancing! UDF is a modern opposition, more then this, it is the /_eternal opposition to *_all_* left-wing_/ parties, no matter is this good or bad for the country in the given moment, and in the same time it is sufficiently weak for to change something, what is pretty good. In this sense UDF is *_the ideal opposition_* and, when in a near future it will fall down to roughly 15 % of the seats in the Parliament, it might become necessary to take some measures for its preservation and conservation for the future!
-->
-->*_On the third place_*, but this is as if the most important issue, we must thank the UDF for this, that it has helped to a big number of people to *_perceive the benefits of left-wing idea_* and understand that the socialism, really, is the only future of the mankind! Yet not socialism of fascist or communist type, but exactly /_social-democratic socialism_/ as the best, at least for the moment, variant of compromise between the immoral capitalism and the utopian communism. This ripening of Bulgarian people could have been reached in two ways: either allowing mass emigration, which after a time will unavoidably show to the emigrated that Bulgarian proverb "you have a cow -- you drink milk, you haven't one -- you only look" is not justified for Bulgarian nation (as it isn't justified also for many wealthier nations in the world); or trying to built in /_our_/ country the rough capitalism from the beginning of 20th century, in order to allow the whole nation in shorten terms to become convinced in this. Our UDF has done /_even both_/ this things! In this sense UDF providently has "dug its own grave", where, however, it will take its /_honourable place_/ in political life.
-->
-->And *_finally_*, UDF has given the main push for establishing of *_multi-party system and democracy_* in Bulgaria, conditions which best of all show the /_advantages of the real socialism_/, reached in many Western countries! No other political power except UDF has had the necessary influence to show that *_only ideas_* (say, about democracy, multi-party system, lawfulness, freedom, etc.) *_are not enough_*, due to what is often said that the way to hell is strewn with good intentions! Anyway, in addition to the good ideas is necessary also a good party which can achieve this, else it happens that the freedom, for example, is expressed mainly in freedom of pornography and criminality. In other words, the awareness of the need of freedom, as /_balanced middle point_/, has become possible only owing to the bad example of realization of (otherwise good) blue idea.
-->
-->So that let us take the hats down and bow our heads before the heroism and self-sacrifice of the UFD, sirs and comrades. Amen!
-->
-->1996 ?
-->
-->*_P.S._* As every politically engaged work this material also is unavoidably prejudiced, but in broad outlines it is true and indicative for this, that each coin has its two sides. The mentioned tendencies continue to exist. But there is one peculiar moment for the thoughtful people (though the whole population isn't such), namely: even though the people from UDF are idealists, they have /_no idea_/, because nobody does deny now the principles of democracy (only their particular realization), nor the inflexibility (not to say the ossification) of old communists, et cetera, so that when the novelty of their movement passes away even the "green" young enthusiasts already begin to abandon them.
-->Surely, it can be raised also the dual question, especially after the flowed time of the red Zhan Videnov, but the truth in his case is such, that he tried, as far as this was possible, to restrain the devaluation of our lev with /_our own_/ means, and up to significant extent he succeeded, because all, who have had some money in the gone bankrupt (or, rather, /_made_/ bankrupt) banks, have received their money, and if there were not the winter marches of the supporters of UDF we could have done without the /_untimely introduced_/ currency Board. Well, it is true that (under the influence of UDF) also the BSP (Bulgarian Socialist Party, the former communists) have not succeeded to find the decent average age for its politicians, because "Zhancho" was simply Komsomolets. And also other, as we say, "wooden chips for cutting". But there are already enough  requiems for BCP (resp. BSP), so that this is not interesting topic. Instead of this the author has something like apologetics of the communism as a new /_atheistic religion_/, but this is in a separate booklet.
-->Anyway, if one begins to comment all his earlier thoughts there will be no end of this, so that it is time to stop here.
-->2001
-->
-->*_-- -- -- -- --_*
-->
===>*_SOMETHING MORE ABOUT DEMOCRACY_*
-->
-->*_The democracy is_* the *_maximally /_in_/effective_* form of ruling and this must have been clear to everybody who has asked himself this question, while on the other pole -- the most effective ruling -- obviously, stays the autocracy. As much as we do not want to accept such view this was known from deep antiquity, and this is the most important reason for existing of all: tyrannies, despotic rulings, absolute monarchies, and various forms of dictatorship (where the question is not, excuses them the author or not, but why they have existed and still exist).
-->This, that the democracy is the most ineffective form of ruling of some state, naturally, does /_*_not_* mean_/ that it is a bad form, because every event must correspond with its time and place, and must be applied in the /_necessary extent_/! Otherwise all looks pretty naive and childish. For if the democracy was the best possible thing in the world and if it has had /_no drawbacks_/ at all, then for 25 centuries since its instituting in Ancient Greece (by the tyrant Pisistratos, as the historians say) there would have been today not a single state where it were not the single and unquestionable form of ruling, because people, even if they are uneducated, never forget to look after their interest.
-->If we take a more precise look at the contemporary democracies we will see that in them exist /_elements_/ both, of democracy (Parliament, or /_Talking Shop_/ in translation), as well as of dictatorship (Monarch or President). Exactly these dictatorial elements in the democracy allow the contemporary democracies to exist for several centuries and be not mutually exclusive neither with the strong institute of Presidency, nor with the Monarchy. While at the same time in Ancient Greece, at the dawn of democracy, there have simply alternated 5-10 years of democratic ruling with a similar if not longer period of tyranny. In other words, *_the subtlety is in the /_compromise_/_* between these two extremities. And if a person or a nation can't find the necessary level of compromise, then this level ... /_again_/ is met, only *_/_in the time_/_*, i.e. via fluttering between both ends!
-->The history of every nation, in one or another extent, shows that authoritarian ruling was set only then, when the nation was confronted with some serious danger, were this foreign enemies, were it internal disorders, were it natural disasters, and in the expiring century because of global economic problems endangering the nation -- in brief: then, when was necessary that the nation was united and pursued some /_vital_/ goal. And then *_when there is no_* such *_main goal_*, or, put it otherwise, when the main goal is just /_to live well_/, *_then was established_* some form of *_democracy_*, or at least of more liberal ruling. Exactly in such cases the democracy was and remains preferred, because together with more freedoms for the personality it provides more amusements for the people.
-->It is so not only in Bulgaria today, it is so in every other democratic country where each new elections give the people new chances the make various bets about politicians, in the same way as with the horse races. In the end, it is known long ago that, as the English say, people want bread and circuses (what we translate in Bulgarian not quite correct, according to the author, as "bread and entertainment"). And when the people want their "circuses" then why not give them to the people? Yeah, but when the bread is guarantied.
-->"But the bread is scarce, the bread is not enough, children", as has said our poet Nikola Vaptsarov in a time not much different from this very moment. And when there is not enough bread for everybody then emerges an important goal *_to survive_*, keeping the standard of life from at least the times of our "uncle Tosho", no matter that it was significantly lower than that in the "normal" democracies. And when an important goal exists then the people can't endure this ineffective form of ruling. The Western Parliaments can allow themselves to discuss questions like, say, this: should homosexuals be allowed to conclude marriage contracts or not, but by us such debates are not necessary (not because we have no homosexuals, of course). Speaking more clearly: in heavy for the nation moments must be strengthened dictatorial elements in the ruling.
-->This can be achieved legally: either by choosing Parliament and President of one colour (in these elections we have not agreed to go entirely to the left, but, as the UDF like to say, the future time is ours, so that it may happen that relatively soon we will move completely to the right), or else strengthening the Presidential power (a thing that we always can, and possibly must, do, although this requires changes in the Constitution).
-->Some of the Western commentators state that we are the first of ex-communist countries having finished the first oscillatory motion and having gone to the second period (i.e. they take for true that we are moving like /_damped pendulum_/, what is a model quite near to the reality, though in Bulgaria this thesis is not received with special enthusiasm, either by the politicians, or by the people, but maybe from a distance one sees better), only that very fast movement happens to be characteristic for bigger lability of the system/* (put in technical language), or for /_hopelessness_/ of the situation (put in common language).
-->
-->[ * This point is elaborated good by the author in the paper "About the turn to the left (or pulse political science)". ]
-->
-->Our /_Shopp_/ (from around the capital Sofia) has one clever thought, namely: "what must be done, it begs to be done". I don't want to be a prophet, but if we do not succeed to reach some stable, united ruling in the critical moment, in which we are now (no matter whether we will call it crisis of catastrophe), then ... well, we will again reach this, but in some more /_turbulent_/ way. And as far as *_/_according with the demos goes the –cracy_/_*, then only we alone will be guilty in this process!
-->
-->Nov. 1996
-->
-->*_-- -- -- -- --_*
-->
===>*_WHAT WE HAVE MESSED WITH THE CURRENCY BOARD?/*_*
-->
-->[ * It is published practically entirely (without illustrations) on the 8th page of the newspaper "Kontinent" from 07 Oct 1998 (with a little varied title, but in this spirit). ]
-->
-->[ Idea about an illustration: a dam with high wall, where with capital letters is written "Money Board Dam", and in which on the top float different Bulgarian banknotes of 1, 2, 5, and also 10 thousand Bulgarian levs, and from the bottom flow small rivulet with banknotes of 5, 10, 20, and 50 German marks, maybe also some coins. ]
-->
==>*_1. If we should have had Money Board in Bulgaria, then we have chosen the most inappropriate moment for this,_*
-|where every other moment, were it earlier, were it later, would have been significantly more advantageous for us! If we have introduced the Board 12 months earlier, for example, then our lev would have costed /_12 times more_/, than it costs now, and similar would have been the situation also several years earlier. And if we have introduced it now (end of 1998), then one lev would have been about 1,300 levs, because such is its /_real_/ price now, if we take as basis the prices from the times of our "Bai Tosho", when one lev was equal to one US$ (not in its official price but via some consumer basket, how it has to be done), and multiply them by this coefficient. At a price of 1,750 lv for one US$ the price of kilogram sheep white cheese must have been about 6,300 lv, of good cheese, milk butter or meet -- about 10,000 lv, of white sugar -- 1,700 lv, of white bread -- 700 lv, of an egg -- 230 lv, and so on, but they are lower! This, that there are some exceptions, is explained in different ways and does not contradict the thesis for the correct proportions between the prices of major foodstuffs under the totalitarianism (to what we, anyway, are aiming), with a correction for some highly subsidized earlier branches, like the transport.
-->The sunflower oil in the moment is exactly as much as it must be, but this is due to the harvest of sunflower and its price will fall down in the winter to 1,500 lv; the cow white cheese now is close to its correct price of 4,500 lv, but it has fallen down significantly and will again fall down up to 3,500 lv; a bottle of raki of 750 ml must be 7,300 lv, and a pack of cigarettes "Arda" with filter -- 1,000 lv (and they will become again as much), but our population is now so poor, that the rulers are just afraid to raise the prices on excise goods (as they are maintained in all Western countries), and we come even to such anomalies that one can buy a liter of vodka or raki on tap for 1,000 lv, but a liter of fresh milk "Verea" -- for 950.
-->The prices of major food products in the moment are quite lessened, for the reason that the Board, fixing the salaries, does not allow the prices to grow (because in a market economy the prices of products are established by the /_buyers_/, not by the sellers, how thinks almost every Bulgarian), but there is nothing good in this for our economy and, furthermore, from this follows the unavoidable conclusion that in the next one or two years they will only rise up, in what there is nothing good this time for our people! The lower prices of products hinder our own production, which also without this barely "crawls" compared with the stagnation years. Before the Board many food products of domestic fabrication were exported outside the borders because of currency hunger on the part of the companies, but now they have no interest at all to do this (on dumping prices, of course, for our former markets have disappeared, or "gone to the movies", as we say, since we have set our feet on the path to democracy, and to conquer new ones, in conditions of fierce competition with the other developed countries, though also with the former brothers of fate like Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Baltic countries, etc., with which we are forced to compare, we have simply not enough strength). With the necessary unavoidably slow raising of the salaries must flow possibly ten years until we reach again the condition from the end of our totalitarian years, and what are we to produce till that time -- isn't pretty clear. Our balance of trade may look good on paper, but in this can believe only such a person, who has not lived at least six months in Bulgaria for to see that we are conjurers in fitting the calculations to the desired results, because it is clear that we produce nothing serious, and all our home appliances are imported, what means that we buy them.
-->The expected influx of foreign capitals (because by this poverty everything in our country is cheaper and can easily be bought by wealthy Western companies) still does not come, and even the tourism on which we have set big hopes (and which has brought us big income during the totalitarian years) is very poor in this year -- as it seems, the foreigners prefer more quiet and "moderately poor" countries. In any event, now we are on the second place in poverty from our former socialist neighbouring countries after Albania (what, maybe, is justified because our name begins with the second character in the alphabet?). It happened so that
-->cent|*_The Board only fixed our poverty,_*
-|because before it we have just begun to restore the price of our lev and have succeeded to achieve /_the impossible_/, having beaten even the American dollar /_twice_/, and there were all reasons to expect to lessen a bit more its rate (as we try to do now through the deflation of the lev), but alas, we will never again succeed to do this. This involuntary reminds me one anecdote from a pair of years ago about a question to Radio Yerevan "Do you know what happened with the Bulgarians, have they reached the bottom?", to what they answer "Sure thing they have reached it", and then they again ask them "Well, and what are they doing now?" -- "Well, they dig further!" was the answer. Thanks to the Board we have at last /_stopped to dig further_/, but instead of this we now
-->cent|*_have stuck in the mud!_*
-->Our money crisis till that moment was a natural process of searching of hard covering for our unreliable lev and it has passes by itself when our money have begun to be spent little by little (something like the youth acne which, however one smears them, nothing helps, but then comes time and they disappear by themselves). It can boldly be stated that also without the Board the dollar would have been either cheaper, or better commensurable with our salaries. Anyway, the minimal salary in Bulgaria is still less than 30 US$, what is, maybe, the level of Rwanda.
-->If our politicians have not put again, by old habit, the /_politics above the economy_/ and have invented something more reasonable than winter marches on the streets, in order to cause the next jump up of the dollar (because the price of some national currency in market conditions is established, first of all, by the /_credit_/ or trust which one can give to the country, what means that in a stable political climate in it, which in its turn depends at least on the leading to their end of the electoral mandates), then the dollar should have jumped up to some level of about 1,000 - 1,200 levs and should have stopped its growth, by the simple reason that people would have had no more money to buy it, and now, maybe, little by little, we should have emerged to the surface (i.e. to the totalitarian level of living standard), while now with the Board we have so strongly stuck to the bottom, that are not in position to come loose.
-->
==>*_2. If there was necessary in a rough way to stop the devaluation of our lev, then we alone could have made ourselves currency board,_*
-|which should have led to limitation and elimination of the money market of our lev (for that is what the Board, in fact, has done!) and to fixing it at some reasonably low level. Because, as we say, "the hunger has big eyes", some hard currency had to be given to the people, but it would have sufficed small quantity of it to pacify them, due to the fact that this currency is necessary for them only as means for savings, yet on the background of our poverty one could have hardly saved more than 20 per cent of his or her income. One simple proposition is the following: all salaries, pensions, and other monetary assistance have to be paid /_partially_/ in hard currency, where this part is, say, 1/3 of the amount (at worst 1/4). Such quantity could have been found by every decent company, because the salary fund is usually about 5 to 10 % of all expenses, so that it goes about literally 2-3 % in hard currency. A bit more complicated would have been the case with the pensions, which come to not a small sum, but there could have been searched for some loans or other help, or even to issue some certificates, like for the state securities, for round sums of 100 money units, for example (and if the part is smaller then it can be accumulated), and their real payment could have been performed after a pair of years. The kind of currency could have been chosen by everyone and it could have been changed each six months, and if somebody could not find cents for bread or milk then he could sell this currency to whom he wishes, and in this way for 3-4 months would have been established a complete standstill on the money market (with some yearly inflation of about 10-20 %, what is quite normal for our ailing economy), as also peacefulness among 90 % of the population.
-->If, despite these measures, the things do not become stable, then could have been used some reasonable blocking of the deposits in foreign currency, for example by the next scheme: free for operation are all deposits up to 250 US$ (or equivalent in other currency), from accounts of up to 1,500 US$ can be taken monthly by 50 US$ (where it is not necessary that this happened each month, and if somebody has not visited the bank for 4 months he can take on the 5th at once 250 US$ -- with purpose to buy, say, a TV set), and from deposits with bigger amounts one can withdraw only portions of 1/10 of the amount at three months. Surely there must be allowed exceptions of this rule in cases of need for urgent medical treatment. This is not at all something unheard in the world and the /_social price_/ of this measure would have been much less than our "system" of sevenfold annual inflation and two to three times compensation with the interest rate.
-->
==>*_3. The Currency Board has not at all solved our main problem for bettering of standard of life of the population,_*
-|because it has not raised the salaries of working people (even on the contrary -- has frozen them), neither has created conditions for intensification of our domestic industry (because it has taken no protective measures for defending of Bulgarian products on the market -- introducing high taxes on import goods, to give an example), neither has lessened our foreign debt (but on the contrary -- fixing one worse than real rate of our lev it has, in fact, /_increased_/ the debt, for the reason that its payment is produced in our country, i.e. in levs, but paid outside the borders, i.e. in hard currency), nor has even pacified the people who have succeeded to save some coins for "black" days (due to the fact that by this symbolic interest rate and the unavoidable gradual increasing of the salaries, and the prices which follow them, it turns that the money savings continue to melt -- slow but steady)! But it, if one gives a thought to the question, the Board has never set itself the task to solve any of these questions (because it can not solve them!), but simply to accumulate some advantages for one of the political powers, which can hide behind the fact of stabilizing of our lev. Yet such rigid fixing of the price of one currency is direct violation of market mechanism (and we as if state that the market is /_always_/ a good thing), and in the times of our "Bai Tosho" there also was constant price for the lev (and now we say that the situation then was not correct).
-->The only good result of the Board's activity is that it has created a stable atmosphere for good accounting and maintaining of constant prices in our national currency. But who has said that the accounting reports /_must_/ be performed in our own currency, when the main principle in creation of European economic community is exactly the unified bookkeeping in ecus (and after the 1st January in 11 countries will be operated officially in euros)? This does not affect national interests of the countries in community, neither requires real existing of such banknotes in circulation in the domestic market in each of the countries, and their printing and using is planned only for the year 2002. The bookkeeping could have been done in each of the hard currencies, and all calculations could have been converted from levs in such currency (what anyway is done by money transactions in the companies, but in reversed direction).
-->The prices of the products could have been actualized according with the daily exchange rate or set in ecus, for example, and be recalculated at the moment of purchase, if the rate is pretty unstable, in the same way as it was done unofficially in a number of companies somewhere since 1991, only that they have used usually US dollars. The salaries must have been established in some hard currency, bur paid according with the averaged rate for the past month.
-->Similar situation has existed in our history, where soon after the Liberation from Ottoman yoke we were tied to the French franc (and our first post stamps were in centimes, not in stotinkis), and this has lasted for many years. And what was our currency under the totalitarianism if not tied to the rouble, where our lev differed with a pair of stotinkis? All "subtlety", obviously, is in this to tie ourselves to strong currency, not to weak one (and when the rouble has "weakened" we tied ourselves unofficially to the dollar (as also the Russians, by the way).
-->Only that our politicians have had /_misapprehended feeling_/ of national pride and have thought that it is expressed in working with Bulgarian levs (and this is fixed in art. 4 of our law on bookkeeping). And while they have thought so the proud Bulgarian lion-lev has reduced itself to the dimensions of a ... louse (if we take that a lion of an average size is long about 1.80 m, or 1,800 mm, from the head to the tail, if you do not pull the latter -- but it isn't advisable to pull a lion on the tail --, and a louse is about 1 mm, or 1,800 times less). So that if there exists something that has impaired our prestige this is the /_diminution_/ of our lev, not the official currency in the bookkeeping
-->
==>*_4. Even if we have ridiculed ourselves with the Currency Board, we will make a bigger error if now renounce it,_*
-|because by a thoughtless change from one level to another the /_moment of transition_/ turns to be worse than each of the levels! And under "thoughtless" or "unreasonable" here is meant not by exponent, i.e. not smoothly, but with presence of strong sinusoidal, i.e. wavelike, fluctuations, that exceed the new level at both sides, and our transition to democracy happened to be exactly of that kind and accompanied by strong and fast changes, once to the left, and once to the right, that are rather similar to a muscle tremor of an old man than to a reasonable control from central neural system.
-->At the end, one can get used to everything, so that we can also accustom ourselves to the Money Board (and what other choice remains to us?), and after, so, 5-6 years the things may become better. The bad thing is that we have done this in one quite unsuitable way, and in the most unsuitable moment only for political motives, not from the standpoint of our national interests. But this also has its advantages (as a Scotsman has said after his house has burned down -- for his wife, too, has burned with it), because in this way we at last
-->cent|*_have realized our poverty_*
-|(after we have fixed it for long time ahead), and perceiving of one's own faults and problems is the principal prerequisite for their amending. Let us hope that we will become a bit more bright to succeed to amend them.
-->
-->Sep. 1998
-->
-->*_-- -- -- -- --_*
-->
===>*_CONVERGENCE, WHAT IS THIS?/* (or about the difference between social capitalism and capitalistic socialism)_*
-->
-->[ * It was published almost without changes on page 8 of the newspaper "Kontinent" from 16 Nov 1998. ]
-->
-->In literal translation the term "convergence" means joining of two tendencies in one, or two ways in one -- something like the joining of two parallel lines in the infinity. The theory of convergence of capitalism to the socialism was very acclaimed about 20, and even more, years back, but at that time the communists very resolutely denied it as reactionary. It isn't that one can't understand them, because then one of the fundamental assertions of Marxism-Leninism was the thesis that the socialism is a qualitatively new /_step_/ in the evolution of society, and if so a new step has no rights to merge sometime with the previous one, for it will become then that there are no steps at all in this social staircase and, what is even worse, that the socialism can begin at the end to slide down to the capitalism.
-->From the height of the passed almost 10 years from the transition to democracy it is obvious that our socialism definitely has slid down to the capitalism. And there is an easy explanation of this, because the socialism, or communism (like also fascism), are just variations of capitalistic form of economic organization of society and, no matter that there exist differences, they are not exactly new steps but rather sides (more or less left) of one and the same step. Now this causes no doubts in anyone, but it is, still, necessary to focus on some points of this convergence, which in each of the former communist countries proceeds in different way.
-->The first peculiarity that strikes the eye is the nearly instantaneous speed of our convergence to the West, so that we
-->cent|*_have simply stuck to the capitalism,_*
-|and so strongly, that the developed capitalist countries now just wonder how to get rid of us! There have passed only 4-5 years from the time of demolishing of Berlin Wall and it has already become necessary to raise the Schengen one, which, although not made of bricks or concrete, is not less strong than the former. What means that now is imposed to us the question: whom mostly has the Berlin Wall protected -- the East from the West, or vice versa? Similar was the situation also with the "mass swimming across" the Adriatic, and with the "Regattas" Cuba - Miami Beach. From a formal standpoint this is not pure convergence but a /_degenerated_/ form, in which the one straight line has just broken towards the other. Something of the kind could have been expected due to the more powerful "gravitation" of developed Western economies, but the real extent surpassed the forecasts of the very West.
-->Another characteristic moment, especially for our country, is the
-->cent|*_returning back in the time_*
-|to the period of rough or green capitalism from the beginning of the century. It is true that for the existing of capitalism are needed capitals, i.e. much money in few hands, and as far as nobody wanted to give his (or her) totalitarian savings (for they, however unseriously small, but were the only savings by us), then the "more capable" were forced to take them away from the others, once in legal, once in illegal ways. It is true also that one can't build a new home without destroying the old one, only that we lived pretty long time "in tents". It is entirely clear, at least from the examples of some of the other "former" or ex- socialist countries, that we could have converged a bit more smoothly and not going back in the time -- as in regard of our standard of life, so also in the sense of moral values, which we had earlier -- but we out of strong "partisan" predilections, stubbornness, unjustified pride, fraudulence, and so on, have not done this. Not that we have not heard that the capitalism is like a medlar and while green is not to be eaten, but we apparently had little brains, from what follows that now we have to have strong backs, else we shall see no advantages.
-->Our degenerated convergence, however, does not mean that the West has stayed with arms crossed during the existence of former Socialist Bloc. While our nearing to the West was impeded by our totalitarian governing in the developed capitalist countries there were no obstacles for
-->cent|*_gradual convergence to the socialist ideas._*
-->And the West has converged, only more smoothly and moderately, what means reasonably! For what are the various social-democratic Western flows during the last at least half a century if not attempts (and quite successful) for creating of one more humane and socially rightful capitalism? What else if not deliberate convergence, i.e. borrowing of the positive and avoiding of the negative of the real socialism? Each self-respecting Western country has some pension, healthcare or for labour accidents insurance, as also accessible by all, i.e. free of charge in the moment of receiving it, education, while in the past century it was not at all so.
-->It can't be that the major part of the readers have not heard the phrase that
-->cent|*_the main gain from the communism was that it has made the capitalism better,_*
-|only that many of those who have heard it still take it for an extravagant declaration, while it is the naked truth, in a global historical perspective! Because the real socialism, anyway, was one global experiment for this how to cope with the shortcomings of capitalism. This, that it turned not to be very fortunate, does not mean that it has not produced results. And in addition, one should not ignore the local economic and social peculiarities and think that if in United States, for example, there was no socialism, then it was unnecessary also in Russia, because the tsarist Russia was very backward in almost every respect country. When the Reds stormed the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, in United States were nearly 100-storey skyscrapers and the conveyor of Ford has throwing out cars in ceaseless stream, in France loomed the Eiffel Tower, In Germany was long ago built the Cologne Cathedral, in Czech Republic the castle of Hradcany, and so on.
-->And one should also not forget that the "ghost of communism" has emerged for the first time not at all in Russia, but has succeeded to get around the entire globe and has remained there, where in that time were good living conditions for it. But it affects all countries and causes unavoidable convergence of all kinds of capitalism to one more humane and contemporary social order with stronger social elements in it. Yet will we call it social capitalism, or capitalistic socialism, or just capitalism, or in some other way, is not quite substantial. This ghost is now traveling somewhere in the Third World countries, but it has not entirely disappeared, for the simple reason that the ideas about socially just society exist since Ancient Greece, from the times of Platon, or they coincide with the dawn of democracy.
-->Interesting for mentioning is the fact that while
-->cent|*_the residents of Western countries are convinced that the capitalism in /_not_/ a good order,_*
-|and exactly because of this they incessantly try to better it and make it more up-to-date, we behave on the contrary and think that now we have reached the paradise on the Earth. That is the reason why our capitalism will for a long time remain green! Maybe this is consequence of our totalitarian past, to think that this, what we are doing, is the best, but we have pretty fast forgotten that the capitalism is always accompanied by series of crises and needs precise centralized regulation in order to work properly. It is inadmissible to forget about the world economic crisis of 1929, which has prolonged itself for such a big time that has resulted later in the World War II, yet we as if have forgotten this. We have forgotten even the quite recent crisis, which has begun in the beginning of 80ies, but which, at any rate, has added the last touch to the atmosphere of disarmament between the East and the West, forcing the developed countries at last to change the /_policy of stick with that of carrot_/ (from your "stick and carrot approach"). The collapse of socialist system has solved for a time this crisis, because there emerged new markets for the Western, not only new but also outdated for them, or second hand, goods. But we are already witnesses of several crises in the Far East, of unsolved problems in the ex-communist countries, led by Russia, know also our own problems, so that it is high time to come to the Western view that the capitalism is a bad order, but there is not known a better one (or said in the reversed direction).
-->The recognition of the real situation could have helped us to find also a cure for it. Otherwise we are left with nothing else than to think that the democracy is to be blamed for our accursed situation. What isn't entirely true, because
-->cent|*_the democracy is one contemporary tool for reaching of the goal,_*
-|but will we use it correctly depends on our entire population. Denying the natural processes of convergence between the capitalism and the socialism, what in our case means denying of all our achievements from the period of socialism, and rushing headlong to the green capitalism with paid education and healthcare and myths about fast and easy enrichment, can bring us nothing but troubles for the country!
-->It is hard to find a western country in which at least one of the three leading parties were not pro-socialist, or at the least had not a properly developed social platform. The name is not the most important thing in this case, and in many countries they still are running away from the word socialism, so to say, as "the devil from the incense", but throughout the Western world is spread one or another from of socialism, one or another symbiosis of capitalism with the ideas of socialism and communism.
-->In one strongly developed and "highly" European country like Austria, for example, by tradition is celebrated the first of May as day, how they call it, of "planting of the May tree", which is one quite interesting custom and I will allow myself to explain it briefly. It goes about raising of one high, at least 10 but maybe also up to 20 meters, pine-tree, decorated with garlands and flowers, which is fixed at the level of ground in some special contraption -- something like a carriage mount -- so that it can move in one plane only and there were no danger that it will fall to the side. The very raising is performed with united efforts of about twenty common citizens in entirely /_primitive_/ way, namely using poles and beams, with propping and shifting forward the beams, accompanied by shouts like "c'mon, go" (or "hey-uhnem" of Volga boatmen), until the tree is raised vertically and then it is fixed in this position and stays so about two weeks. During the raising, which continues maybe an hour, all the local people are gathered together, devour grilled chicken, drink beer and rejoice. But what else is this custom if not a holiday of creative labour, or one typically socialist holiday, which we in Bulgaria were so foolish (for this can't be named otherwise) to reject as a relic of totalitarianism?
-->And one last touch, which we would like to underline: the joining of two poles, or the convergence between capitalism and socialism must unavoidably be expressed in
-->cent|*_bringing of the left- and right- wing parties one to the other._*
-->This must not be very difficult for us because the main part of our political figures consist of diverged in their time members of former communist party, who have simply decided to seize the opportunity for making of political career. Yet for this, that they are still not doing this, are to be blamed not they alone, but our nation, which makes them to play this game and even take pleasure to shout at mass meetings "uhh" or "down". The politicians are kind of artists and they can't "play" on an empty stage, and when so then they willy-nilly "dance to the flute" of people. If sometime out people grow so wise to become tolerant to the meanings of the others and to look at the democracy as at some attraction, /_only then_/ it will cease to be just an attraction! However strange this may sound it is true, because it is confirmed by the practice of Western democracies.
-->
-->Nov 1998
-->
-->*_P.S._* Ten years later this is still absolutely true. Will it be so after hundred? Let us hope it will. But it is important that our nation succeeds to grasp this elementary truths /_before_/ the elapsing of a century (when for a decade has not yet understood them well).
-->2008
-->
-->*_-- -- -- -- --_*
-->
===>*_WHY THE COMMUNISM HAS FALLEN DOWN?/*(unorthodox version)_*
-->
-->[ * It was published almost without changes on  page 8 of the newspaper "Kontinent" from 15 Dec 1998. ]
-->
-->The capitalism is society of capitals and from that standpoint it is justified to divide people in three major groups, namely: *_a)_* such who spend less than they have earned, or who mainly save money, or are *_creditors_* of the society; *_b)_* such who have spent more than they have earned till the moment, or live on money received in advance for their future work, or are *_debtors_* of the society; and *_c)_* such who have *_good balance_* of the received and spent, or who live from day to day, or as we also say "whatever was won has quickly gone". This is untraditional dividing of people, different from commonly used in poor, of middle affluence, and very rich, but it allows us to make interesting analyses. Creditors can be not only wealthy persons but also relatively poor, who save, as our people say, "white money for black days". Debtors can also be more or less affluent, and those with balance on the zero -- too.
-->cent|*_Important for our view to the things is the relation between every citizen and the society._*
-->It is important because, no matter whether one gives or takes from the society, he (or she) is /_tied_/ with the others, while the one who lives with the purpose to spend everything won is the weakly dependent on the others, or the mostly autonomous. But a society can't exist without good ties between its members, or without some level of /_compulsion_/. In the development of human civilization until now we have moved in direction of higher freedom of the ties, where in the situation of capitalism the compulsion for performing of some socially useful labour activity is first of all economic, but it exists. It is like the remote control in the electronics, but we can't do without it. The same is true also in our case -- if one wants to live fulfilling life one must keep strong economic ties with the society, otherwise it begins to dissolve and this leads to anarchy. Freedom does not mean total independence and laxity, a thing in which we more and more convince ourselves on the basis of our ailing transition to normal capitalism, but it will never become normal until suitable relations between its members are established.
-->In the developed Western countries the above mentioned division is naturally performed based on the differences of each individual, which depend first of all on his age. When the young people begin some work with initial salary of, say, 3,000 US$ monthly the company or the banks try to offer them sufficiently big loans of the amount of about one yearly salary, in order to help them to secure for themselves decent home and means of transport, .which money they will repay for ten or more years. In this manner one, willingly or not, becomes debtor to the society until he (or she) reaches some age of approximately 40 years. Then begins the reverse tendency, when he tries to put aside more from what he earns, in order to save for his old age something in addition to the pension. Even if the person in question is daughter or son of a millionaire the situation is similar, because such is the human nature and one should not move against it.
-->This, naturally, does not mean that there don't happen exceptions, or that a debtor can not invest money in something else while he pays out his debts, or that a creditor can not take loans. He must maintain some zero balance for the period, as does every company, but this does not disturb his ties with the society and rather strengthens them. While that who spends only this what he wins is maximally free in financial terms, but also maximally unbecoming for the capitalism as social order. In other words, this, what is the best for the individual, isn't good for the society, and vice versa, but this is logical as far as the capitalism, and our whole life, is only a set of compromises with the others around us.
-->But by our socialism the things were not so, because
-->cent|*_about 80 % of the population have lived by the principle "what was gained was spent"._*
-->Surely there were debtors and creditors, but they have not felt themselves as such, for the reason that neither the bank interests were normal, nor decent loans were allowed, nor also one could have remained for long time unemployed. It is possible that for the young ones this might sound strange, but in the totalitarian times the majority of people, really, were /_more free_/ in economic regard. In order to have been maintained then a stable society this freedom was compensated in some extent with a number of other compulsions and "cares of the Party and Government", but with the time they have ceased to provide the necessary result. More than this, all citizens have turned in the end to major creditors of the state, while our industry has taken the place of the major debtor, due to its low efficiency. This, in fact, has happened to be the main economic reason for disintegration of the socialist community -- the lack of reliable stimuli for personal expression of everybody, as well also for his tying to the others. That is why the Gorbachev's perestroika in economic aspect has begun with efforts to raise the economic dependency of the workers and separation of the state from the economy. But these tries have come with some delay and the economic levers were inadequate with the requirements of a developed society.
-->The irony of our current situation, however, is that we
-->cent|*_have not succeeded to find better economic tying between the people,_*
-|because, thanks to our extremely low living standard during the time of our transition to democracy, we have boycotted all ways for crediting in advance of the young people, as also were denied all tries for crediting of society on the part its old members, who have suffered in the highest extent by these changes. Taken really our lev has devalued roughly 1,800 times, while the compensation which all previous governments have succeeded to propose via the bank interest are reduced to approximately 30 times, what means that
-->cent|*_the creditors have remained with about /_1/60 part_/ of their savings,_*
-|and hardly will make another try to sponsor the state. The young one, on the other hand, can't hope to receive some significant credits due to the same poverty, so that we again live on the principle of consuming of everything earned. But this isn't, and can't be, a way to a developed capitalist society!
-->Our paradoxical understanding of capitalism was reduced to the thesis of higher freedom and /_fragmentation_/ of economy and agriculture, but this is /_exactly the opposite_/ to the requirements of developed capitalist society! It will be good if the political powers draw the necessary conclusions, but in our efforts to make total negation of the totalitarianism we have come to nothing good (if we don't count the /_realization_/ that we have come to nothing good!).
-->The socialism in the former communist countries has collapsed everywhere and logically, while the succeeding capitalism falls down only in some countries like our, where the politics continues to stay above the economy. In a certain sense this is also logically.
-->
-->Dec 1998
-->
-->*_P.S._* That earlier, in conditions of "muddy water" in regard to our currency, the banks have not released loans is understandable, but even today (in 2008) the things don't look very good, yet this time for the people. Somewhere about 2005 begun "frantic race" between the banks in offering credits to whom they only can, because nobody wanted to take (even companies, probably), for the reason that there is no work and no normal market, but the banks can not only receive money, they must give it away, else the buying and selling can't be performed. Judging by the incessant race in offering loans it seems that people, still, mainly invest money (not that they have much, though the people are not a few), but probably exist also quite enough citizens (and companies, too) who are enslaved to pay back while are living. This, what is bad for the people, is that the /_slavery_/ of capital is now widespread everywhere, because we are immoderate in whatever, and now have thrown ourselves to live in loans (who can afford it). All the same, in the spirit of the material, the things are moving in the right direction tying the people (if we don't count our excessive efforts).
-->And one more remark, regarding the /_wild_/ inflation, when people have looked how for one whole former saved salary they can't now buy even a loaf of bread, and first of all regarding the practically laughable compensation of the inflation via the bank interest. The author still intends sometime to make comparison of the compensation of savings in several ex-communist countries and does not do this because of the difficult access to the inflation rates and bank interests for the countries for at least ten years, but he is practically convinced that worst of all they were compensated /_in Bulgaria_/ (even in Russia was better, to say nothing about Czech Republic, Poland, or Hungary). Bad is not the very high inflation but its practically zero compensation, and these 60 times losses the today's young people, who have not been witnesses of this, they just /_don't believe_/ it! Today every day we are deceived so bold from all sides and about everything (chiefly through the ads, but the politicians, too, try not to remain behind), that some young people (let us call them "contemporaries of the freedom") now don't believe reliable and questioned by nobody historical facts, as for example the author has once heard from a young boy that this about the fascists and Hebrews and the gas chambers was not true (because the common sense does not accepts it -- but also a country in which the population was "duped" 60 times, without some intervention on the part of the Government, also contradicts to the common sense, yet it is, alas, true).
-->2008
-->
-->*_-- -- -- -- --_*
-->
===>*_AND WHERE ARE WE?/* (mirthless comparison)_*
-->
-->[ * It was published retold version on page 7 of the newspaper "Kontinent" from 20 Jan 1999 without the table at the end, as also without the graphs, which we shall allow ourselves here also to /_skip_/. ]
-->
-->When one takes part in some race (and what is life if not a race for the best place under the sun?) is befitting from time to time to look around, in order to see how he is moving amongst the others. Unless one is at the tail and there's no sense to turn because, anyway, all the others are before him (or her). In this aspect we are significantly relieved because we pretend for the outsider place between the ex-communist countries. But because some of you may doubt in this let us look directly at the facts.
-->Very suitable for this purpose is the Western journal /_Business Central Europe_/ (BCE), on the last pages of which each month are published some statistical materials about 12 such countries. Not going into profound economic analyses we shall give here some of the most important characteristics, namely: the gross domestic product (GDP), the unemployment level, the average working salary, and the foreign debt. In the shaded cells of Table 1. the cited data is according to the mentioned journal, while the white cells are computed based on this data. This information, surely, is based on national sources, so that we have the right to question them sometimes, especially what regards Bulgaria, because it is widely known that we are right "jugglers" in the fitting of calculations.
-->And so
-->cent|*_let us begin with the gross domestic product_*
-|(or, as we called it earlier, gross national product). The common data for each country must be maximally correct, for the reason that it lies at the bottom of all calculations and plans on national level, but in order to be in position to compare countries with different number of population we must use some measure per capita of the nation. On the Graph 1./** is shown the ranging of all countries on the GDP per capita, only that here is meant the occupied with labour population (what, though, is not explicitly said), because it is this part of the population that generates the gross product. According to the graph it turns out that we are not entirely at the end, where Latvia is a little worse than us, and we are staying even quite near to Lithuania, Romania, and Russia.
-->
-->[ ** Don't look for it, as said, there are no graphs given here. ]
-->
-->It is, though, very doubtful that there can exist some country which is worse than us (even with 10 percents), so that let us compute now one different GDP per capita of all population of the countries. They don't use such characteristic on the West, because it is not much indicative for the economy of the countries, but then it is quite indicative for the living standard, and, besides, it can hardly be "fitted" to the needs. This is shown on Graph 2., where is seen that we are not only worse than all others, but also the differences between us and the nearest to us countries are pretty big, and even
-->cent|*_we are three times worse than the average,_*
-|to say nothing about the best countries. Then, convinced that there is something "rotten" in the Table 1., let us take the trouble to check how this data was got. When the GDP on capita is received dividing the national GDP by the employed population (or at least that is how the figures on the third line of Table 1. have to have been calculated), then let us now do the reversed -- let us divide the whole GDP by that on capita of employed population, what will give us exactly the working population in different countries. This is done on line 5 of the table, and on the sixth is given the percentage of occupied with work population (of the whole) for all countries. These results are shown on Graph 3., where is seen that if the data for GDP on head of the employed population is correct then
-->cent|*_we stay again in the end regarding the working employment._*
-->This graph is especially indicative because employment less than 1/3 of the whole population is directly tragical. This can not be explained with the official unemployment level, because with our 10.8 % of it we stay very near to the average level of 9.8 % for the region. Besides, the record high level of 17 % is that of Croatia, and after it stay Slovenia and Slovakia, but they are between the first according to Graph 1. (and also Graph 2.). The only explanation is that we have used "another method", such that would have compromised us less (for it is clear that the data is taken from national sources). Only that they show us in even worse light, because when the things are very bad however one twists them they always look bad. And, moreover, we alone contradict ourselves, because in statistical reference books we give approximately 3,2 mln people working population for 1997, what is with 21 % more that the received on the basis of GDP per capita employed people. These about 20 percents are exactly as much as needed to put us also in Graph 1. at the very end with 3,100 - 3,200 US$. But this, still, does not mean that the employed population in Bulgaria is enough, for the reason that the real unemployment by us widely exceeds this about 10 percents, and in totalitarian years the working population was somewhere about four millions. The average for the region of 56.7 % is one really average number, at which we must aim/***.
-->
-->[ *** Here, most probably, exist some misunderstanding also in the journal BCE because later (maybe after my letter to them) for the GDP per capita they have begun to write /_ppp_/ (purchasing power parity), what means that everything is recalculated in purchasing power, but this does not change the things substantially, because we, in any event, are at the end by all indicators. And in regard of the unemployment level, then the author is unemployed for a dozen of years now but stays in no lists because receives not a cent, otherwise he must go to sign each month for no reason. This is not at all the single case and a lot of IE (individual entrepreneurs) are /_nearly_/ unemployed, but are contented with incomes several times less than earlier. ]
-->
-->Let us now see where are we in comparison with the developed European countries, like Germany, France, Italy, England, and others, in regard of the GDP on employed population. Again in this journal but in another number is cited that Slovenia and Czech Republic for 1997 have reached 63 % of the average for the Western European countries, what means that this average level must be about 18,000 US$ per capita of the employed population (the numbers vary a little for different periods). If we compare this number with the corrected and more real for us 3,100 US$ it turns out that we are /_five to six times_/ worse. And now let us look when we will catch up with them?
-->If our GDP grows each year with five percents, what is consistent with the official, our and foreign, forecasts (although this is now only in the sphere of good intentions because for 1997 it has /_fallen_/ with nearly 5 %), and apply the formula for compound interest, then we will get that this will happen somewhere after /_35_/ years. Yeah, but this is as if to make your bill without "the innkeeper", because during this time the other countries will not stay on one and the same place. One real forecast of a person born and living in our country is that this may as well occur /_till the end of twenty first century_/, but this is not obligatory! Well, in his time our Georgi Dimitrov has succeeded to pacify us with the slogan, that we shall reach for 10-20 years this, what other countries have done for centuries, and the only thing that we have succeeded to reach was the level of Russia and Romania, but now we are worse than them! Surely today also will be found such politicians because, although for the economy there are many problems, for the politics and the politicians there is nothing impossible.
-->Let us now take in focus
-->cent|*_the average monthly salary._*
-|The ordering of the countries here (given on Graph 4.) shows that we are
-->cent|*_three times worse than the average for the region_*
-|and 8-9 times worse than the best, to say nothing about the "normal" Western countries where the amount of "times" becomes from 20 to 30. And this tragic situation is worsen even more due to the fact that our minimal salary is only one third of the average, or a dollar a day. By the existing now taxation laws if one receives the average salary he pays about 15 % taxes on the whole amount, while in totalitarian years this number was around and a bit less than 10 % of the /_then_/ average salary. Today a significant part of the population lives at the expense of foreign help, while nobody helped us before and we still lived good.
-->It has remained only to speak about the ranging of the countries in regard of their
-->cent|*_foreign debt._*
-|It is accepted that it was computed as percentage of gross domestic product, because it is paid via it. This relationship is shown on Graph 5., where we are again at the tail with our 87 %, what is two and a half times worse than the average. It is interesting to see this debt also as number of average working salaries of the employed population (on Graph 6.), only that there we are
-->cent|*_nearly four times worse than the average._*
-->If we take for granted that our working population will increase with 20 %, as we have spoken above, then our debt will take /_only_/ 25,5 working salaries, or thrice worse than the average. The things are really tragical, but what is important is that we should not throw all the guilt so much at our totalitarian legacy, as at out botched transitional period! And really, shortly before the November coup of 1989 our foreign debt was nearly 8 mlrd US$, what by 4 mlrd working people has given roughly by 2,000 US$ on a worker. Yeah, but then the average working salary was about 350 to 400 levs, but they can freely be taken for dollars, because such was the purchasing power of the lev, so that our debt was approximately 5, at the worst 6, average salaries, or even less than the average debt for the region now (8.6 salaries)! As the folks say: what one (and here read state) alone does oneself -- nobody can do to him! Or also: if somebody has little brains than his back has to be stronger!
-->From all this said, however, should not follow that we are now in the very worst position from all ex-communist countries, for the simple reason that in these statistics is not included one highly important (for us) country -- Albania. It is not included in the review of the journal in question because it is unquestionably accepted for the poorest European country. If we include it too, then we will not be at the end, what can serve us as consolation. And if we add also Bangladesh there will be two countries behind us. Eventually we can think also about Rwanda. The important thing is not to fall in desperation and to believe in the democracy. If not after 30 years, then after half a century or even a whole one we will enter the European Community. It is true that at least two generations will be lost, but then: what are a pair of generations compared with the eternity?
-->
-->Dec 1998
-->
-->*_P.S._* Well, we have entered in the European Community, but otherwise we have directly "blossomed and brought fruit". All these 10 years old comparisons remain valid (with small shifting to some average level). In other words, we have settled us, as we have long ago formulated this, in the "basement of European House".
-->2008
-->
-->      
-->     |     INDICATORS     || Seq.No | BULGARIA | ESTONIA | LATVIA |LITHUANIA| POLAND |
-->     -->  # | Population (mln)        || 1 | 8.4 | 1.5 | 2.5 | 3.7 | 38.6 |
-->  # | Gross domestic product (mlrd US$) || 2 | 10.2 | 4.5 | 5.4 | 9.0 | 135.8 |
-->  # | Gross domestic product per capita of the employed population (US$) || 3 | 3,860 | 4,444 | 3,421 | 4,255 | 6,406 |
-->     | Gross domestic product per capita of the whole population (US$) || 4 | 1,214 | 3,000 | 2,160 | 2,432 | 3,518 |
-->     | Employed population (mln) || 5 | 2.642 | 1.013 | 1.578 | 2.115 | 21.199 |
-->     | Percent of the employed population || 6 | 31.5 | 67.5 | 63.1 | 57.2 | 54.9 |
-->  # | Unemployment in percents     || 7 | 10.8 | 3.3 | 7.6 | 5.6 | 9.7 |
-->  # | Average monthly salary (US$) || 8 | 109.0 | 296.6 | 222.4 | 227.8 | 373.0 |
-->  # | Total foreign debt (mlrd US$)|| 9 | 8.9 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 1.5 | 38.0 |
-->     | Foreign debt as percent of the gross domestic product   || 10 | 87.3 | 8.9 | 7.4 | 16.7 | 28.0 |
-->     | Foreign debt per capita of the employed population (US$) || 11 | 3,368 | 395 | 253 | 709 | 1,793 |
-->     | Foreign debt as number of average salaries of the employed population|| 12 | 30.9 | 1.3 | 1.1 | 3.1 | 4.8 |
-->
-->     *_Table 1A._* Comparative data for the ex-communist countries (the rows marked with #, without the column "average" are from journal Business Central Europe, 11/98)
-->
-->    
-->     Seq.No | ROMANIA | RUSSIA | SLOVAKIA | SLOVENIA | HUNGARY | CROATIA |CZECH REP.| AVERAGE |
-->     -->  # | 1 | 22.7 | 148.2 | 5.4 | 2.0 | 10.2 | 4.8 | 10.3 |     |
-->  # | 2 | 34.8 | 462.5 | 19.5 | 17.5 | 44.9 | 19.3 | 52.9 |     |
-->  # | 3 | 4,356 | 4,378 | 8,585 | 11,724 | 7,318 | 5,108 | 11,566 | 6,285 |
-->     | 4 | 1,533 | 3,121 | 3,611 | 8,750 | 4,402 | 4,021 | 5,136 | 3,575 |
-->     | 5 | 7.989 | 105.642 | 2.271 | 1.493 | 6.136 | 3.778 | 4.574 |     |
-->     | 6 | 35.2 | 71.3 | 42.1 | 74.6 | 60.2 | 78.7 | 44.4 | 56.7 |
-->  # | 7 | 8.7 | 11.4 | 13.8 | 14.2 | 8.9 | 17.0 | 6.8 | 9.8 |
-->  # | 8 | 149.0 | 160.0 | 309.0 | 936.0 | 293.2 | 644.0 | 384.0 | 342.0 |
-->  # | 9 | 8.1 | 120.0 | 11.9 | 4.3 | 23.3 | 6.8 | 21.9 |     |
-->     |10 | 23.3 | 25.9 | 61.0 | 24.6 | 51.9 | 35.2 | 41.4 | 34.3 |
-->     |11 | 1,014 | 1,136 | 5,239 | 2,881 | 3,798 | 1,800 | 4,788 |     |
-->     |12 | 6.8 | 7.1 | 17.0 | 3.1 | 13.0 | 2.8 | 12.5 | 8.6 |
-->
-->     *_Table 1B._* Continuation (the column "average" is added by the author).
-->
-->*_-- -- -- -- --_*
-->
===>*_PREDICTIONS FOR THE YEAR 1999/* (or what one can expect in Bulgaria from common sense positions)_*
-->
-->[ * It is published slightly shortened on page 8 of the newspaper "Kontinent" from 12 Jan 1999. ]
-->
-->Also in the next year
-->cent|*_we will continue to remain poor,_*
-|what means that the poor will become even more poor and the wealthy -- more wealthy, because such is the tendency in each normal capitalist society, for the reason that it is so in the free world, as also in the nature, the big sharks eat up the small fishes! This is a natural tendency which does not at all upset people in the Western countries, and you can hear it also by CNN, but with a smile and slight irony. If in Bulgaria this does not cause smile this is so only because we are not enough wealthy yet. This isn't, though, result of the communist ancestry, but is consequence of a whole complex of natural and economic conditions in the country, as also of our low organization as a nation, because we are not the only ex-communist country, and have sufficient basis for comparison with the others.
-->But together with this unavoidable impoverishment will happen also the opposite tendency of
-->cent|*_increasing of living minimum of the population_*
-|and improving of social acquisitions, or strengthening of the socialization of society. There are chances that our minimal salary will at last reach at least 40 US$ till the end of the next year (all the more if the dollar happens to fall down a bit more). This tendency of increasing of lower level of poverty is inherent not only to the communist ruling, but as well also to each developed capitalist country, and it is /_not_/ expression of some special cares of the wealthy for the poorer, but of necessary amount of common sense, to ensure crisis-free development (i.e. enrichment of the already reach!). It is high time that the Bulgarian has grasped these two opposites and has ceased to ascribe them only to the political powers. And really, as the right-wing can have their social platform, so also the left-wing can take measures for development of the large scale business, because there can't exist capitalism without capitals, or without their concentration in the hands of some minority. The capitalism is a game of compromises, and the democracy offers good opportunities for their achieving.
-->Our politicians, for their part, will continue to lead their
-->cent|*_partial or /_prejudiced_/ line of ruling_*
-|(because the word "party" comes from the root "part"), and, when so, will be again wide away from the right decision, due to the fact that the democratic ruling is based on the /_lack of best party_/ (for, if such party existed, then all further discussions and elections would have remained obsolete, what was exactly the concept of totalitarianism)! Slowly and with difficulties our people begin to understand this, so that it is hardly possible that in the next year we will have early elections, though /_not_/ because under the current ruling we have "blossomed and brought fruit", but because is necessary to /_slow down the speed of changes_/, if we want that remained some time also for development!
-->In the next year, too,
-->cent|*_the prices of basic foodstuff will remain low,_*
-->because our people, who actually establish the prices in a market economy, are poor enough to be able to pay more. In this situation these prices will remain somewhere twice lower than in the Western countries, and one and a half times less than in other ex-communist countries (if we do not count Romania and Albania, with which only we can compare us). Despite the record low retail prices for the region we don't succeed to attract the necessary inflow of tourists, although the relationship here is rather in the reversed direction, i.e. our prices are so low because we have not a big influx of tourists and in the moment we are even more isolated from the world than in the totalitarian years.
-->Together with this, however, the industrial goods and especially
-->cent|*_the communal expenses will grow faster/**,_*
-->
-->[ ** And in 2008 they still continue to raise, where in the previous and in this year they are restrained only by the following nearly two times increase of prices of some basic foodstuffs, due to our inclusion in the European Union (what is the next shocking therapy for us, because there is no other way to show influence over us, if not with shocks). ]
-->
-|because, no matter of the spread between people view to this, they are significantly lower than necessary. Reason for such assertion gives us, of course, the comparison with the West, or else with the situation in Bulgaria before the November coup. Every comparisons of the prices with the salaries are ungrounded, because only our market is open to the world, while the labour force market is still limited in our state borders (if we do not take into account some 5-6 % lucky guys and girls working abroad). Our market will not become saturated, and good regulator of production, until the prices will not set somewhere around their cost price, so that in the next year will again exist some anomalies, or speculatively raised or lowered (say, of intellectual work) prices. In regard of communal expenses and transport they must jump up /_at least twice_/ in the next year, regardless of whether we like this or not.
-->There, if one gives some thought to the matter, will turn out that the only gain from the Currency board was in this to appoint ourselves foreign bosses, when we did not want to trust our own. So now in Bulgaria not only the salaries are low, but the bank interest is roughly five times less than the level of inflation, and in spite of this we are more quiet than earlier and don't strike. Not that this should not be so, but this speaks about certain perversity of Bulgarian psyche, because we could have achieved all these effects alone, if we have proved to have some national accord.
-->cent|*_More precisely_*
-|can be expected that in the next year the pieces of sunflower oil and sugar will at last become equal, at approximately 1,300 - 1,400 lv, because it was so earlier in Bulgaria, and also now they are equal all around the world (roughly to one US$, but for our market this can be accepted to be 0.7 US$). The prices on white cheese will normalize when will be equalized the taxes on cow and sheep cheese and people begin to buy, like before, mainly the sheep one, what will lead to some decrease in the price of milk to about 300 lv (due to the lessening of its consumption in form of cow cheese and curd). Then can be expected that the cow white cheese will become 4,000, and the sheep one -- 6,000 levs/***. It is not excluded that to the end of the year will disappear our "democratic" practice instead of minced meat to sell nearly twice cheaper minced and painted entrails, and then the real mincemeat will become about 5,000 lv, and the chicken feet and heads, the duck "lanterns", and the bare bones will disappear from the market (and the menu of the Bulgarian). If not in this year, then in the beginning of the next century this will also be settled/****.
-->
-->[ *** This, why the milk by us does not become cheaper, is not very clear to me, but in 2008 it at least entered in international "ruts", and the proportion: 1 l of cow milk to 1 kg sheep cheese became 1:5 (while on the West it is 1:7, and earlier by us it was 1:12 because of the subsidizing of the milk). ]
-->
-->[ **** It almost happened so before our entering in the European Union, but in 2008 we again "light" with these lanterns, and as to the mincemeat -- there emerged such with addition of soya beans which are again cheaper. ]
-->
-->At the same time one should not think that in the next year the pepper, tomatoes, and onion will be sold in the season again by 200-300 levs, because who has planted this year such vegetables he will change them in the next to something else, say, to potatoes. So that the minimal predicted prices on onion and peppers are 400 lv, on tomatoes -- at least 500, on potatoes -- 250 levs. The desire of the Bulgarian always to deceive his neighbour will continue to return ricocheting back to him, until he learns to plant this, what grows better on his soil, to alternate it how it has to be done, and not to chase only after the profit.
-->The passed first wave of privatization has shown that one share of 1,000 lv, which should have now, because of the inflation, have nominal of more than 10 thousands, has brought on the average 250 lv dividends, what means 2.5 % annual profit, or twice less than the ridiculously low bank interest, so that there are no reasons for big "pressure" by next similar action. Besides, those funds, that were mostly advertised, they have brought the lowest dividends (about hundred levs per share), so that, maybe, the Bulgarian will draw some lesson for the next year -- for example, that the commercial ads are much bigger manipulation than the former of the communists. Not that there is no sense to take part in the next privatization, but more clever, what means that not everything must be put in one place, where it will bring, supposedly, the biggest gain, but that the sums must be distributed in 3-4 portions in those industries where one feels necessity of development.
-->What concerns personal medical insurance it seems that we will not succeed to solve this question till the end of the century, having in mind that it was necessary to solve first exactly it, and then to allow private and paid for health care, but there is nothing to be done: the dashing youth (political) can't wait! There will continue also the confusion with paid education, because the Bulgarian still can't grasp that in the most European countries a prevailing number of those receiving tertiary education (to say nothing about the secondary) do not pay for it in advance, i.e. it is how it was in Bulgaria before, and even there where it is paid, like in United States, then this is done not by the very students or their parents, but by different funds and enterprises and this in accordance with the results shown in entrance examinations or in the process of learning, not just so -- want to study then pay for it. And if the people don't understand this there are no reasons to want that the politicians have understood it, because their function, above all, is to express the will of the masses.
-->And still, little by little, the things better themselves, though not because of some merits of the present Government, but for the simple reason that at last we have "reached the bottom". Now there is nothing else left to us except to "hold the air" until we emerge on the surface.
-->
-->Dec 1998
-->
-->*_-- -- -- -- --_*
-->
===>*_CAN THE BULGARIAN PAY 50 % TAXES?/*_*
-->
-->[ * It is published on page 7 of the newspaper "Kontinent" from 04 Feb 1999 with slight corrections. Shortly after this the newspaper went bankrupt because -- well, could something decent survive nowadays in Bulgaria? ]
-->
-->Our question is entirely justified because they are really so much, at least for the average Bulgarian with the average in the moment salary of roughly 110 US$ monthly, or 180,000 "democratic" levs. And that the taxes are in reality such we can convince ourselves by way of elementary calculations. Firstly, this average citizen receives for the month not clear 180 thousands but they subtract him about 16 % income tax, or speaking in thousands, about *_30_* pieces. Then secondly, because with this money he has no chances to save something for the "bright /_democratic_/ future", he succeeds almost instantly to spend them in the shops, where for every product he pays also 22 % VAT (value added tax), what based on his salary makes *_40_* thousands./**
-->
-->[ ** Here exists some inaccuracy, because from his salary now have remained 150,000, so that we have cheated you with 7,000, but the calculations are made with such reserve that this does not change our conclusion. ]
-->
-->And thirdly here come the excises, which build another 60 - 70 % of the price of excise goods, a thing that can be verified in our legislation, but we will be satisfied with one simple checking which comes from the commercial practice. Let us recall that 4-5 years ago, when there were no excises on these goods (and even worse if there were some then) a bottle of raki /vodka (0.7 l, sealed) was sold for nearly as much as costed one liter milk. Let us accept that a liter raki, vodka, or whatever other cheap /_ment`e_/-forgery, costs as much as two liters milk (by retail prices), in order not to be accused in partiality. According with the contemporary prices, however, a liter raki costs at least 3,000 lv, while the cheapest milk (sufficiently diluted) costs 500 lv, from what follows that now we pay three times more, or that 2/3 of the price (i.e. 66 %) go for excises. We will assume as basis 60 %. The expenses of the average Bulgarian with his meager salary can be very modest, so that let us take that he buys only by a pack of cheaper cigarettes (about 500 lv) daily and one bottle of cheaper raki weekly (or 2,500 lv). In this way we get that the cigarettes make about 15 thousand and the drinks -- 10 ths, or together 25,000, 60 % from which give *_15 thousand_* for excises. But because it is inhuman if the Bulgarian has not money for a bottle of beer (0.5 l) per day, then let us add also 30 of the cheapest (by 350 lv) bottles of beer, what gives another 10,000, but because the excises on beer are less we will add only the half of this or *_5,000_*. Adding all this together we achieve: 30 + 40 + 15 + 5 = 90 ths democratic levs (which are not equal even to one totalitarian /_stotinka_/-cent), what is exactly the half of his salary of 180 ths levs. Well, this is the situation:
-->cent|*_half of the income -- for the state!_*
-->And mark that the author does not try to inflate the calculations, which in some other media could have been raised to 60 and even more percents, because here we observe the average salary, not some, say, 300 ths, where the deductions could have reached 60 ths (and they grow not linearly), neither speak about at least one bottle of branded alcohol (what gives another, say, 20 ths), not about imported cigarettes for 2 ths per pack. We do not add also the taxes for the car, because a person with income of only one average salary can not afford himself to drive a car, as it was before.
-->More than this, the author does not intend to explain to you that such high taxes are not right (compared with the Church tenth from the Middle ages, for example), because there is not a developed country in the world where the personal deductions from the income were less than about 15 percent, by the same 20 % VAT, but at the expense of this with significantly higher excises (for nowhere a pack of cigarettes is less than a dollar, neither a bottle of hard drink is less than 5-6 US$). Besides, the people there pay also their health insurance, which we have still not settled how it is in the majority of countries in the Western Europe and continue basically by the old socialistic pattern. Alas, the contemporary states are not like those of the Middle ages and with 10 - 20 % taxes can't be supported the police and the army, and have decent health care, and education, and so on. Only that our state (again regretfully) has become worse than a medieval one, what is the other side of the coin.
-->Looked otherwise these taxes are justified, where even for this year the table for income taxation is quite simplified, in comparison with previous years, and has only four lines. Though it is still not clear why the percents are given "for sums greater than" and not on the whole amount, in what, exactly, one is interested (unless it is by old totalitarian habit, to make something so complicated that one could become entangled in it). As it is it turns out that for the first 8 working days in the month, for example, the income is taxfree, then for the next 3 days it is taxed with 20 %, then for the next 7 -- with 26 %, and further with 32 %. But in broad lines the things are correct, only that they are /_not acceptable_/ for our people, who have returned, thanks to our democratic transition, with half a century back in the time, for it has to be clear to everybody now that such low living standard we have had neither in the 80ies, nor in the 70ies, nor even in the 50ies. It might be that somewhere in the 45th - 46th the situation was very grave, but this was after a series of wars and devastations, while our "gentle revolution" of the 90ies turned out to be quite "brutal" in practice.
-->Our people are now so sunk in poverty that they don't understand at all what is good and what is bad for them. The poverty is so strong a distortion in a given country that it confuses all normal relations in the society. If this has not been true then the ghost of communism (which has not at all disappeared from the world arena) would not have emerged in its time, nor would it have generated the humorous phrase, that the poverty is not a sin but a beastly thing. The not unknown Jean Bertrand Aristide has recently said: "we are moving from misery to poverty with dignity". The author does not know in what this movement is expressed, but if people start from misery then whatever movement for them is positive. Only that in Bulgaria happened exactly the opposite, i.e.
-->cent|*_we are moving now from poverty to misery, having lost every dignity!_*
-->One can not speak about normal capitalist relations under condition that we are not a normal capitalist country! We /_were_/ normal socialist country and the nations around the world have respected us and we have had no need of foreign merciful help. Now even with the foreign help we are living again worse! Our people are worried because of the future tax on bread and cow white cheese, for example, thinking that it has not to be introduced, while the truth is that there should not at all be made a difference between cow and sheep cheese. For people from the normal Western countries sounds like anecdote this, that if someone bakes bread and sells it he should not include in its price VAT, but if he makes cakes or patties then without this tax is forbidden. This is real anachronism, and the sooner we get rid of it the better, because it distorts the pricing.
-->If there should have at all existed tax deductions then they should have affected *_/_all_/_* food stuffs, not only some of them. In the current situation arises the paradox that those, who have not money to buy decent food, pay also some part of the cost of luxurious products for those (not many) who have enough money to buy special piquant sausages and good meat (not minced entrails), where the producers (and traders) win most of all from the cheapest products. When the people are hungry then they must be fed, but not to put obstacles before the market economy. One decent coupon system would have been better then the current situation, and our masters from the Currency Board are right in their requirements.
-->They are right, those people, in any case (but starting from their interests!), also when they want that we were selling everything what can be sold because otherwise we will not become better. It is our job that we also look after our own interests, not only at the politics! Nobody is guilty that we
-->cent|*_have chosen bad model of capitalism,_*
-|which might have been good for the West, even for Hungary, Czech republic, Poland, etc., but not for us. The competition is a good thing but when it can be achieved, only that by us there is practically no competition, because the popular masses look not for the best product (as it was, for example, under the totalitarianism), but for the cheapest. Trading mainly with European countries is also a good wish, but it will remain only a wish, for the simple reason that our products just can't be sold there, while in Russia they have been sold for whole decades and with good success. Our untying from the crashing Russian "economic wonder" is right in theory, only that this has not saved us from falling deeper, while some reasonable maintaining of the old relations maybe would have brought some mutual advantage. As also listening to the meanings of some differently thinking persons, but not to such extent that to elect in the Parliament pop singers, or compensate the former persecution of dissidents with their current high salaries and posts. It is good to remind us the Latin origin of the word "dissident", what means one who has not yet /_sat_/ at the place for which he (or she, surely) has dreamed such long time, where he can dip the big spoon in the state's honey (or gulp from the state's pie). Neither was right to restitute the property to people who have never even dreamed of it, or at least not before the state has given also something from its property to every citizen having worked for the state for decades, while from the conducted mass privatization the average Bulgarian has won not more than for a liter raki in an year. And similar examples.
-->In the current situation we were left with nothing else, except to reconcile us with the loss of labour of at least three generations (two previous and at least one current) and take
-->cent|*_our transition to democracy as some alternative of war devastation._*
-->This is not at all far from the truth, because, in spite of the tens of years of cold war and comprehensive boycott of the Socialist bloc from the part of the West, this bloc collapsed only then, when the developed countries decided to give us a hand. In this sense their economic help, really, was some alternative of the World Wars I and II ! This alternative is /_significantly more humane and contemporary_/, so that nothing bad can be said about the wealthy capitalist countries. When the capitalism is society of capitals then every problem has to be decided via the ruling of capitals. And that by this "democratic alternative" some nations have suffered much -- well, there is nothing to be done: /_a la guerre comme a la guerre_/, as the Frenchmen say. So that it again turns out that /_we alone_/ are to be blamed for our deplorable situation in which we now are.
-->But let us return to our first question, can the Bulgarian pay 50 % taxes -- well, he has to learn this, because nothing else is left to him! And let us not try again to change our rulers often than necessary, for this leads to nothing good. Our troubles come not because the ruling political power (whichever it is) is bad, but /_regardless_/ of this, that it (sometimes) is not so bad! The reasons for our failures are again in the /_system_/, in the model to which we are moving, not in the incompetency of our rulers (although this, too, in some extent is true). Let us hope that we will succeed to save before the world our good name of moderate and obedient nation, in contrast with some neighbouring states. And will expect the creation of some "Requiem for Bulgarian democracy" by a now democratic dissident, who, though, will not be burning with desire for power and personal benefits. Such people, probably, already exist, but we are so inebriated by democratic euphoria that avoid listening to them, because /_nobody forbids_/ them to speak. Must we again have bans in order to give sometimes an ear to the voice of reason?
-->
-->Jan 1999
-->
-->*_-- -- -- -- --_*
-->
===>*_REFLECTIONS ON THE EVE OF THE "HOLIDAY"/*_*
-->
-->[ * We must warn you that here it goes about 2nd February (2.2.), our traditional day of homosexuals since old time. ]
-->
-->According to one old-Greek legend the people once were with two heads, four legs, and four hands, what was very conveniently because in this way they were able to see equally well forward and backward and, as far as they were born such, they thought this is a normal thing and lived happy and satisfied. But because they were happy they did not at all obey and venerate the gods and showed no interest in them. Yet the inhabitants of mount Olympus did not like this at all and decided to punish the people severely. As we know, there is nothing impossible for the gods and they narcotized the four-legged people and after this cut them through the middle in two nearly equal parts with by one head, two legs, and two hands. When the people awakened and saw what has happened with them they were very unhappy and at once began to search for their halves.
-->Only that they were so used to their halves, which were earlier always close to them, that they have paid no special attention to them, and now were not in position only looking at another human half to recognize at once whether this was their own half or a foreign one. For this reason they were forced to press themselves closely and rub with one another, shift to the right or to the left, turn in this or in that direction, in order to check, have they found their own half. This process continued for a long time, and it still continues, and because of this people can't live quite separated, because each of us is only half human being.
-->Despite the providently left by the gods specific devices for performing of the "docking" this required special feeling and patience. The people, however, have become used to the searching of their halves and have begun to like this process by itself, regardless of the often presentment that the other person is clearly not their own half. Little by little the very process of searching and fitting has become the most interesting occupation for the human beings and instead of bringing us troubles the gods have done us, in fact, a good service, because have given us one more source of happiness.
-->Till now everything is good, in general, but some halves have become so highly confused and dumbfounded that they paid no attention to obvious differences in the "docking" devices and have begun to use them improperly, as, for example, not to take in consideration the parameters of tolerances in the connections, to pay no attention to the diameters of the holes, and even to try to insert a "screw" where there is not yet a "thread" for it, as also to turn it in the opposite direction of the thread. By the way, it is curious to mention that in German language /_die Mutter_/ means not only mother, but also a ... nut in technique, what shows that they have had similar associations. But we are also not much away from them when speak about
-->cent|*_people with reversed "thread"._*
-->Well, this is the legend, but the truth is that such people exist from time immemorial, and when some thing is quite spread then maybe there is some reason for this, albeit it is taken for improper by the majority of people. The tendency in various Western countries for legalization of the homosexuality nowadays, as also parades of so called gays (what you know well that means joyous) and lesbians, should not lead us to think that now they are more than, say, a pair of thousand years ago. Their relatively number most probably is the same/**, only that earlier they were hiding, while now they are even proud with their own perversity. Well, I beg pardon before them, but this, still, is
-->
-->[ ** Actually, after some period of pondering, the author has begun to think that roughly since the middle of 20th century the homosexuality has begun to grow also relatively, but if so then this has to be consequence of the ... emancipation (see also the paper "Oh, 'manci, 'manci –pation!" here). ]
-->
-->cent|*_a pure perversion,_*
-|although it has not to be necessarily taken for something bad (or on the contrary, good), because the perversity is quite widespread phenomenon in human life! The very word "perversion" means simply something reversed or perverted and can be used always when it goes about something different from the mass practice. Perversion, for example, is if one shaves his (or her) head in winter (and goes out without a hat, so that everybody can see his bare head); or in summer heat goes in high boots above the ankle; or puts on his cap with the visor backward (because, if he does not need the visor he might have bought himself cap without visor); or goes in winter with warm shirt, that must be inserted in the trousers (because that is how it was made, and it is also cold on the street), but he wears it outside and it is twice longer than his upper jacket; and similar things.
-->This is something as to butter himself a sandwich, but to turn it with the butter downward and eat it in this way, and if there is something else except the butter then to hold it from below with a hand. Many perversions, though, with the time become normal practices and then those, who do not apply them, begin to be considered as exceptions, so that everything depends on the traditions in the given moment. The younger ones like to make themselves interesting, and this is done easily with changing in some way of their appearance or tastes. In the end, in the case with the homosexuals the important thing is this,
-->cent|*_is their exceptionality a matter of fashion?_*
-->Here it is proper to begin to make difference between various kinds of homosexuality and discern: /_natural_/ one, which is consequence of predispositions of the individual; /_compulsory_/ one, which is forced by some specific living conditions; and /_fashionable_/ one, which is something transitional and relatively harmless (like the reversing of the cap, or wearing of earrings by men).
-->The author's opinion is that nowadays significant spread receives the fashionable homosexuality -- as a result of the inebriation of not allowed before freedoms. Here we do not have in mind only our country (and rather /_not_/ our) but the whole West, because at least up to the middle of the century all sexual perversions were persecuted, be it unofficially, be it by the laws. In Bulgaria, up to my knowledge, there were not prisons for homosexuals, but in USA, for example, such existed. And in the "good old England" has suffered the not unknown Oscar Wilde. It is interesting that in more distant past at these things was looked more condescendingly than is looked still by us and in many other countries.
-->It is stated that the genius Michelangelo was also a homosexual, but it is not known that he was subjected to some persecutions, while in even more remote antiquity, and also nowadays in the Arab countries, is spread, if it can be named so, the "traditional Islamic homosexualism". The vogue is always unstable and it will soon disappear. The young boys and guys who now hang themselves earrings don't realize that this is subconscious expression of /_woman's features_/ in them, mainly in the age of puberty, because each way for decoration of the man, different from the given by the nature, is acknowledging of his imperfection! The woman /_can_/ allow herself this, because she /_must_/ beautify herself, with the purpose to seduce the man, and this is in accordance with the nature, while on the contrary it isn't. But be it as it may, this is not a ground for bothering. Even if an young man tries it a pair of times, in order to see what is this for a thing, this also is not dangerous, because there is no effect of addiction in the sex, like, for example, with the narcotics.
-->The compulsory homosexuality, on the other hand, arises by prolonged abiding in environment of one sex only (in boarding schools, in army and navy conditions, in cloisters, etc.) and it also has temporary character, where if the situation changes it may disappear/***. (It can be reminded the dubious, I would say, meaning of English word "mate", which comes from the verb to mate as to copulate, what leads us to the thought that for the mariners the main "help" was often expressed in this way.) Anyway, the author does not intend to pronounce himself about what is better: that in soldier barracks existed homosexual relations, or that close to them worked brothels, or else to be applied some of the achievements of contemporary (as well as ancient) medicine. Sex is the main problem for every human, and because of this has become popular the funny sentence: sex is not the problem, /_sex is the answer_/!
-->
-->[ *** Exactly this kind can be caused chiefly by the emancipation. ]
-->
-->And so it has left the natural homosexuality, which, exactly, was spread before millenniums, as it is spread also today. The right way to treat this point is that
-->cent|*_one should look at it as at some ailment._*
-|But this is /_not_/ an infectious disease, of which one must be afraid, and it can only cause regret (and caused it till now), until there sprang these gay parades with the main intention to show what interesting persons they are. Even the very word "gay" was entirely improperly occupied by them (unless one accepts that this is simply feminine from .. the Japanese geisha). For the thoughtful persons exactly the eagerness of gays to show that they are like all the others, and even more interesting, must prove the /_realizing_/ of their ailing condition! Only that not many people think so about them.
-->If the homosexuals have not stated that they are better than the other people, then the latter would have not looked at them with contempt and even disgust (or at least they would have had no /_reasons_/ for this). Though it could have been stated also the reversed, namely: that if the majority of people have not looked at the gays and lesbians with contempt, then the latter would have not eagerly tried to show that they are normal, and the others -- boring and limited people. As you see, the things are mutually related, so that
-->cent|*_for achieving of peaceful coexistence are necessary the efforts of both sides._*
-->By the way, many people (at least on the West) are confused as to the origin of the word "homosexual", thinking that it comes from Latin /_homo_/ (i.e. human, man), yet it comes from old Greek "homogeneous" or of the same parts. Similarly the word /_hetera_/ does not mean prostitute but simply a being from the /_other_/ gender (in the traditional for Ancient Greece masculine company).
-->Whichever the homosexuals were they are human beings, and the exceptionality in one aspect often is accompanied by exceptionality, now as abilities and talents, in some /_other_/ area! This is not propaganda of this sex but declaration of the fact (of grouping of exceptions or deviations in some packs, what is well known by every player of hazard games). Or, at least, their feelings, as a rule, are stronger than by the heterogeneous love! This may sound like a paradox for some readers but it has its easy explanation with the unnaturality (perversity) of homosexual love, where is missing even /_non-conscious_/ desire for continuation of the gender. Something similar can be said about Platonic, or of older people, or of children love, because they are separated from the sex. Well, by the homosexuals the love is not separated, but it is distanced from the sex in the established by God way, what has similar effect (and who can with certainty assert that Platon has absolutely innocently lied in bed with his pupils?).
-->And another significant thing:
-->cent|*_the homosexuality is not at all socially dangerous,_*
-|as, fore example the narcotics, criminality, wars, and so on. And when so we must learn to live also with people who "don't do it" like us. As far as the purpose of life is to live it happy (unless one raises it on the misfortunes of others) then the ways for reaching of this happiness are not specially important, because everything is a matter of taste. So, some say, has answered the dog when was asked, why he, hmm, licks his bottom (and he does this, surely, because the evolution has thought him to keep himself clean, so that his prey should not smell him).
-->Well then, happy holiday!
-->
-->Jan 1999
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===>*_ABOUT DEMOCRACY AND MELIORATION/*_*
-->
-->[* This and the following materials were thought as consequence, intended to explain popularly the meaning of democracy and the causes for our problems with it, but the main part of the things are repetition of ideas expressed in some of the others papers for journals, as well as in other places. (In addition to this can be said that in Bulgarian the title sounds better because we have taken more directly the Latin originals of both words and they end on –tsia, while the English approach is as if more whimsical.) ]
-->
-->The democracy is a good environment for many different social processes, but it is /_only an environment_/, not solution of the questions! It is very important to understand this because, good or bad, we already have it and will hardly reject it. For this reason the good understanding of its essence is especially necessary for our country. Figuratively speaking
-->cent|*_the democracy is like a fruitful soil: what you plant in it -- that is what will grow up._*
-->But this metaphor suggest to us that quite not always "grows up" this what we want to, more than this: that what we do not like often accompanies many democratic undertakings, for the reason that on fruitful soil survive also many weeds! They, the weeds in Bulgarian (though also in Russian), are called /_buren_/ (/_burian_/), what wants to say that they grow very /_burno_/, what is stormy, proliferating, so that they are steady and resistant and grow everywhere, but are especially "eager" to grow on fruitful soils, where are propagating in such scale that directly choke the cultivated plants (and there is another word for weed in Bulgarian /Russian, /_plevel_/, what comes from the /_pole_/-field and says that there is no field without weeds, which for their part have to be /_polonit_/-eradicated). And in Bulgaria as if it happened exactly so, because hardly someone will begin to deny that nowadays the criminality has grown several times higher than the totalitarian level, and our poverty has reached earlier unheard of proportions, and our moral norms have "gone to the movies", as we say, and whichever party comes to power it brings to the people only new pains and burdens, and other similar things.
-->The traditional consolation that the Bulgarian finds in this situation is to choose for himself some political colour (most often according to his age preferences) and to begin to curse the colour of the opponent and blame his party for all our troubles and misfortunes. The people usually are big masters in their efforts to explain
-->cent|*_one and the same facts from different positions,_*
-|and this so, that the opponent's part is always to be blamed, where ours is always the right one! They are not at all bothered that this is entirely illogical, where on the highest pedestals stay, naturally, our political leaders (for the simple reason that the word "party" is from the root "part", hence each party is /_unavoidably partial_/ and nonobjective!). Such behaviour can help for some time -- works like tranquilizing medicament --, but when it continues quite long there have to be taken measures for real treatment, not only for elimination of the pain.
-->If we return now to our analogy with the soil it will turn out that in order to have some decent harvest exactly of cultivated plants is necessary to lead some fight with the weeds, to use some "herbicides", that must make the democratic field not so fruitful for the weeds. In the same time we, in the inebriation with "delirium democraticus", have decided that when there are many freedoms now then everything is allowed.
-->Because of this we have now not only freedom of pornography, for example, but /_propaganda_/ of pornography and prostitution (for they bring strong financial profits), while in numerous Western countries they would have not allowed publication on title pages of newspapers of various genitalia and sexual intercourse. When some people need such "reading materials" then they could have been sent by post, and at least without obscene covers.
-->Or also we have decided that when the former "State Security" has compromised itself with a series of anti-democratic incidents, then the best thing is to close it altogether, what as a consequence has turned us in a country without any security and protection! But then even the Americans, with whom we like very much to compare us, have their CIA and FBI, notwithstanding many scandalous incidents with them, and they have no intention to close them, only to reform them if necessary. Denying the centralized totalitarian machine we have simply renounced the centralization everywhere, but
-->cent|*_without centralization no state can exist!_*
-->Or we have also decided that the market is all by itself enough to provide abundance of goods, only that it has provided affluence of different prices for one and the same goods and possibility for unjustified (although legal, in many cases) enrichment of trade intermediaries, not of the producers! While on the West, at least between the rulers, is known that without centralized monitoring and reasonable intervention is impossible to do today. It was necessary to come the Currency Board in order to /_eliminate_/, in fact, the market of our lev and to fix the growth of salaries, for to make us to grasp (yet we have as if still not grasped this) that the freedom is not form of anarchy but a question of self-restrain.
-->Or also our politicians have imagined that, in order to make the state's coach move, it is enough if they stay in the coach and cry "Gee, go!". But the reasons for our troubles are chiefly economic and with bare cries the situation can not be improved! For our poor country the substitution of centralized management with dispersed one has only worsened the chaos of transition, so that for nine years after its beginning we are again on the same level of our development, with this difference that, having spent our totalitarian savings, we are now /_4-5 times_/ poorer than before. Our politicians have rightly scented that with the coming of democracy they are to split in opposing groups, only that they still can't understand that
-->cent|*_these contradictions must not affect the economy of the country._*
-->If some enterprises and banks must have been sold to foreign investors then this should have been done continually and in portions, so that not the whole management was transferred in foreign hands, but also not only think how to keep "our bone" for ourselves, no matter that we do not "gnaw" anymore at it, as says one Bulgarian proverb. But we, on the contrary, for a long time have done like the dog from the proverb, and then at once have decided to sell also our "kennel" if we can, only that then they gave us ten times less for it than before.
-->And so on: we can speak also about the muddle with restitution, with privatization, with paid healthcare and education, or about our sharp turn in the foreign policy and economic ties, and other things.
-->cent|*_Our main error, however, was that we have hurried too much,_*
-|although we have known the proverb about the "hasty bitch" (who gives birth to blind puppies). And when so, we have entirely forgotten about the necessity to use correctly the democratic "field", and have left it to develop alone uncontrolled. In our elections, for example, take part 30 - 40 parties, while it is clear that more than 4-5, anyway, will not succeed to enter in the ruling. And why they "press" so much then? Well, because they are /_young_/ -- as parties, as also as persons! In world history all: Hitler, Lenin, Napoleon, Alexander Macedonian, and even Genghis Khan, probably, were younger than forty when they have taken the power. They, the revolutions, naturally, are performed by the young, only that one has to stick to some middle point in everything. Not that there are not at all exceptions for very young politicians at the head of political parties, but these are /_exceptions_/, while in Bulgaria they have become a rule.
-->On the West nobody would have voted for higher politician in the age of less than forty years, and he (or she, surely) would not have put his candidature, for the reason that, if the average life span is 80 years and the people are distributed symmetrically around the middle, then it will turn out that half of the population will be older than him and would hardly agree to be commanded by some "greenhorn" (or even "sucker"). Clear and simple, only not for us! Because all political colours have just "wildly"
-->cent|*_competed to nominee the youngest possible politicians,_*
-|what has logically led to confirming of the shortly mentioned proverb about the "bitch"
-->Maybe it is necessary to turn the attention of the readers to the interesting fact that, unlike all other professions, from the politician is *_/_not_/_* required to have whatever educational qualifications! Good or bad is this but it is so, for the democracy requires it. Every educational qualification would have given grounds for discrimination of one or another person, so that this, in principle, is not bad. But it is also not very good, because it does not say us of what kind exactly must be the good politician.
-->We do not require any property qualifications, and also not a single psychological test, how it is for the drivers, for example. But if the political workers alone can not self-restrain themselves then the people must tell them what is good and what not, because if there is not required special education then from them can be required at least to have rich /_life experience_/ (coming, naturally, mainly with the age). In order to become politician one should have had time to express himself in something else (at least for the purpose to become known).
-->And do not think at all that a politician must have necessarily legal education -- no, he must rather be some kind of /_manager_/ or businessman, because his activity is related with ruling of big human masses.
-->cent|*_The democracy is one very interesting phenomenon_*
-|in the social area, if one begins to think about this. It is interesting mainly with this, that such kind of elections is /_not applied anywhere_/ else, where some work has to be done! Neither in the army, nor in the police, nor in the production, education, healthcare, etc., for the reason that for each activity /_is necessary_/ some qualification, which is proved by some form of exam, test, or contest, before a /_competent_/ jury, or based on documents for graduating from some educational establishment with a given degree (i.e. again in correspondence with the assessment of competent persons, but done earlier). While here, by the democratic choice, the procedure is reduced mainly to this, that:
-->cent|*_people, who don't understand, choose persons, whom they don't know,_*
-|and not requiring from them whatever documents for competence or certification! Because the common people, surely, have no knowledge of subject area of management (neither of economy, nor of public relations, etc.) nor also know their elected persons, from the standpoint of their ability to govern. The people are /_not competent_/ at all to take decisions as to how they have to be governed, and if they choose the best ruler only on the basis of possible attitude to them then they will choose that one, who will "throw them the most juicy bones" (as the dog chooses his /her master), or else that one, who gives them only highest marks (as the school children decide), and so on.
-->This what the elector can know about the life of his (or her) chosen one are only insignificant things (what kind of car he drives, what sort of wine he prefers, or what king of "girls", and similar things), but not which are his abilities for just decisions, his incorruptibility and loyalty, and so on. Exactly because of this such kind of elections are not applied anywhere else, where is necessary to do some work!
-->At the same time, however, it is well known that the democratic choice is applied at large scale in the world, especially in the recent times and, obviously, it does very good work! So well, then let us ask ourselves the following question:
-->cent|*_How is it possible that a procedure of choice, which does not work, can fulfill a choice, which does work?_*
-->And let our readers try to find some answer for themselves, because from it in large extent depends the democracy in our country. In other countries the people have some answer, it, probably, is not much away from the truth because there the things go better, while in Bulgaria they are limping quite strongly! Surely many of you are intuitively guessing the right direction, but have not answered yourselves the question on the first place because you have not put it themselves, because it is long ago known the thought that the question is not in this what is the answer, but in this /_what is the question_/! By correctly asked question the answer is relatively easy to be found. The author thinks that he poses the question correctly. Well, then try to find its answer, which will be published in one of the next numbers of the newspaper.
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-->Jan 1999
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===>*_ABOUT DEMOCRATIC PHENOMENON_*
-->
-->In the previous paper we have defined the democratic choice as such procedure where: /_people who don't understand_/ (i.e. they don't know the subject area of management) /_choose persons whom they don't know_/ (i.e. they don't know them directly, but know only some insignificant details) and by this /_not requiring_/ whatever /_document for educational qualification_/ (in order not to discriminate some persons, who, by whatever reason, have not had the opportunity to receive proper education).
-->This is procedure, which is not applied in any other company or organization, when is necessary to do some work, but in spite of this the very choice, applied in the social sphere, obviously does good work in all developed contemporary countries. And let us not confuse this with the democratic /_tendencies_/ in some companies, which can be applied as additional element by the choice of some boss (his or her popularity between the masses), and think that the democratic choice is applied somewhere else, except in the social government. But let us return to the raised previously question, i.e. to explain ourselves how is it possible that one incorrect procedure of choice turns to be suitable for choosing of people at the highest governmental level?
-->Let us simplify our task a bit imagining not a choice of politicians but such one done from ... some /_basket with apples_/! And then let us formulate the question so:
-->cent|*_when, reaching with a hand and not looking in a basket with apples, we will be able to extract always good apples?_*
-->Well, now it has become easily, right? Surely when /_all_/ apples in the basket age good! Simple like all ingenious, because the democracy is, really, an epochal discovery of antiquity! Only that ... only that this is not a choice, right? Because then there is no need to choose but grasp any apple that will happen to be under the hand. It is even possible to say that in this case
-->cent|*_the democratic choice contradicts to the common sense!_*
-->It is so, yet not exactly, because the ingenuity is precisely in this, to guess about something to what a common person would have never come alone, or would have rejected it as incredible nonsense. Because from the standpoint of choice this is stupidity, but from the point of view of the /_people_/, who after the choice will listen to their elected representatives, this turns to be psychologically well-thought-out. The people are asked about something and they feel themselves compelled to answer, and after this nobody is to be blamed that it has turned out not like the people have wanted. Even with the risk to shock some of the readers we can expressed the sentence that
-->cent|*_the democracy is ... the best "baby's pacifier" for the nations,_*
-|because it both, preserves the mother's breast (i.e. the political system), and gives pleasure to the child (here, to the people)! And the behaviour of population as a whole is, really, quite similar to this of some naughty little boy (at least in our case of spoiled by the "cares of Party and Government" from totalitarian times). The whole population is in many aspects naive, illogical, impulsive, capricious, selfish, unjust, and so on.
-->So that is how one bad method of choice can turn out to be in the end very good. For readers with some mathematical culture can be said that the democratic decision is similar with the so called "/_zero solution_/" of linear homogeneous system of equations (with zeros at the right parts of the equations). When all unknowns are simultaneously equal to zero this satisfies the system because gives zero also at the left part of each equation. This is one trivial and uninteresting solution, but it /_is_/ solution of the task! And in the social area such "uninteresting" solution can prove to be very interesting from another -- here didactic and attractive -- point of view.
-->Of course the things are not so simple, but if we do not simplify a given situation via some abstractions we are often not able to cope with the complexity of the surrounding world, so that the above explained is valid but under some conditions, because the politicians are not, after all, apples (although there is nothing insulting in this for them). While the apples can not stay too long on some posts (for they do not at all occupy posts) the politicians can do this (and have done it under the totalitarianism), and the possibility for an easy change of ruling under the democracy (even if this is because of "childish whims" of the populace) is a very significant characteristic of the system, which is more often than not a positive thing (yet /_extremely_/ fast change, i.e. early, before the term, usually brings nothing valuable, how we should have been now convinced, looking at our newest history).
-->On the example with the apples can be seen that in some "baskets" (i.e. states) there are good "apples", and in some others -- /_only green_/ ones! And it isn't that something similar has not happened in Bulgaria, because we have changed a heap of governments but our situation till now was not bettered. Yet let us not exaggerate too much, because not only our politicians are guilty for our situation, there are various economic and social conditions, traditions, discipline of the population, and so on, so that we must extract only the useful moments from our analogies.
-->So for example, the approach to the democratic elections as zero solution allows us to answer the question: how then the chosen politicians, when there were /_not chosen_/ the best of them, can do their work? If we try to ponder a bit we must come to the conclusion that there are two variants for this, namely:
-->cent|*_either the elected representatives are /_not those_/ who really govern, or /_every other_/ candidate would have done the same work,_*
-|or some combination of both things! Albeit this sounds a little cynical it is the pure truth. The elected by the people persons give only some directive orders, while the real work perform competent in the corresponding area specialists (or at least it is so in the Western democracies). The situation is in significant degree similar to the ruling in the family, where the man, as a rule, governs, only that according to what wants the woman (and that is why our people say that the man is the head but the woman is the neck). In the family the woman is the inborn /_strategist_/, that who sets his (actually, her) requirements, in the same way how the Representatives of the People, while the very managerial (i.e. tactical) activity is performed by the man, and in the social area these are the corresponding competent bodies! The introduction of this dividing of activities in strategy and tactics solves easy also the question with the insufficient competency of the strategists.
-->The other possibility by the democratic choice consists in this, that /_all_/ political parties with influence in society (or all sufficiently eminent persons in a given party) can do the same strategic activity equally good. And they /_do_/ it when their mandates come. So that, if we are not shocking ourselves asking similar questions, we can find answers of many, otherwise "mysterious" moments in the democratic system, which do not compromise it and even elevate it in our eyes.
-->But let us continue further. All readers know, though they have hardly paid attention to this fact, that after the democratic elections, which /_as if_/ are conducted in order to choose the best party, in the ruling of the country enter representatives also from the "bad", or lost the fight, parties. More then this, they receive equal salaries with those from the "good" party.
-->cent|*_If the goal of the choice was to choose the best party, then why we include also the bad ones?_*
-->Obviously because /_all_/ parties with influence are /_equally good_/ (respectively bad, especially when we are talking about Bulgaria), and also for to were debates /_when_/ taking the decision, not after this! Democratic institutions can't do without opposition, what means that the important thing by the democratic choice is not so much the very choice, as the selection of correct relationship between representatives of various parties.
-->The role of Representatives of the People is representative and strategic, it is not really governing, because they are not executive body where real work is done. Even the post of President in contemporary countries has similar functions, where his power is fairly limited (at least by us). But anyway, every other President, or Minister, or MP, as also every other party, would have done nearly the same work, with some, mainly "cosmetical" differences.
-->Or at least it has to be so, and it happens so in the developed Western democracies! So for example, in the USA they have republicans and democrats (bipolar model, like by us), but one can boldly bet that both, the republicans are for the democracy, and the democrats are for the republic. Similar is the situation also in other countries. Differences in the platforms, naturally, exist, but they are something like the necktie in men's clothing! They diversify human life, give people additional emotions, but they are not much significant. It can even be said that
-->cent|*_the democracy then functions good, when the differences between parties are not big._*
-->So that together with the efforts of the very parties to differ one from the other they must also try to /_equalize_/ themselves, because such are the requirements of democratic model! "Two sharp stones", as our people say, "can't grind the flour", and as if this is the main political cause for our miserable condition today, when, in spite of all advantages of democratic development, we are worse than under the totalitarianism -- worse as nation, worse for the majority of citizens, and worse for our international contacts (which are not determined by the meanings of one or another politician, but by the inflow of capitals, goods, and tourists, from abroad).
-->Maybe it is not bad to remind often to our politicians that by the democracy, as also in each competition, as in the free market, and, if you like, as it happens usually in life, the deserts are not so much of the won the battle, but of the /_beaten_/ one, i.e.
-->cent|*_the victor wins not because he is better, but because /_his competitors are worse_/!_*
-->Such opinion would have cooled a little some of the "hot" political heads, but it is entirely justified. This is especially significant in Bulgaria, because the main part of the people vote, as if, not because they believe in the chosen political power, but because they /_don't believe in the other_/ alternative power! When the things are bad the faith, naturally, weakens, and it happened so when the red won the elections -- because the blue ones have compromised themselves before; and later the things reversed and the blue won as a consequence of economic failure of the red.
-->In addition to this it is not right to throw all blame for some failure only on the ruling, because the role of opposition is not less significant! If we want to determine in some extent the guilt and deserts of each of the parts, then one "Solomonian decision" would have been to accept that their part by the rulers is twice higher than by the opposition, but not more. Each deviation from this view can lead to greater errors, only that in the other side. /_All_/ our politicians are guilty for the situation in which we are now, and if they don't like this -- well, then let them give up to engage in politics -- there are enough not worse than them alternative candidates!
-->And one more thing, generally said
-->cent|*_the democratic ruling is /_more ineffective_/ than the centralized, but it is /_more adaptive_/ than it!_*
-->Democracy is like life -- energetic and vivacious, it changes but the society remains, for the reason that it contains the change /_in itself_/, and there is no need to wait for something else to change it. It does not threaten with drastic transition periods like this, that we still experience. Only that it functions good when the differences between parties and their platforms are not big and there is no need of special effectiveness in pursuing of a given goal! But when the things become "coarse", as it happens in time of wars, or by significantly lowering of living standard of the population, how it is now in Bulgaria, it often happens so that the democracy retreats before some consolidating power, because the democracy is *_/_not_/_* the ideal solution! And it is not such for the simple reason that
-->cent|*_there is no ideal solution!_*
-|Democracy is a good environment, but what will grow in it depends on the concrete conditions in the country.
-->So that all of you, politicians, don't create conditions which disprove the advantages of democracy, or at least, when you have already created them, try to calm the relations between parties, as it belongs to a civilized country! And as to the common people, they better look at it chiefly like at some attraction created for their own pleasure. Democracy is an interesting /_game_/, and what is the purpose of a game that brings no pleasure?
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-->Jan 1999
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