| Re: 2.daļa |
Feb. 6th, 2011|06:48 pm |
Regarding GDP, the property market and the financial sectors were recently the main drivers, weren't they? (I am writing this in a hurry with kids demolishing the room - hence the English and the lack of researched statistics). Well it may have been a positive signal on paper, but look at the harm it has done: a bubble that once contracted lumbered the state with private debt; left those who had taken a mortgage (and here I agree with lieotājs Begomots that taking a mortgage for most people who have a family was basically a promise not to be a slacker for the rest of their life) very cruelly exposed to the mercies of the banks (who again, let us be clear, were lending money they did not have). How exposed depends on the bank in question. I have a mortgage with Aizkraukle (de facto Parex), and am under no illusions as to what they are capable of.
So, what I want to say is that growth is not necessarily the good thing it might appear, and how the benefits and the harm it creates is distributed throughout society is really what I am interested in.
The mention of the EU organisations was really just to show that our business would be in hellish difficulties if we were reliant on the local market: the local market is much smaller - quite logical when you consider the contraction of the money supply, and the resultant deflation, unemployment and wage cuts.
The comment about moving is really a reference to those who have a mortgage and a family and who have been left out to dry. They can sink further in debt or pick up manual work abroad - how easy it is to do that? Well, as you know it depends...
The last point is interesting: I think the direction is the key. The UK actively sought more social security (read George Orwell for the intelligent spirit of the age) while Latvia was ideologically moving away from state control and state help to on in which more individual responsibility was called for: ironic of course that it is us (the inhabitants) who are paying the price for irresponsible institutions that have become through law and our passivity so thoroughly entwined with the organs of the State.
Excuse the English, and please feel free to reply in Latvian - I am just tired and writing this in Latvian would have probably taken an hour at least! |
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