Striking worker "cuts off, eats own finger"

I'm wondering if this guy is human?!

I'm wondering if this guy is human?!
(Dardan, 25 April 2009 15:57)

He is very desperate (like the others) probably because the "grand theft" ( = privatization) so far more-less escaped Tito's Yugoslavia. The damage done so far is extremely high, but the much-praised and much-cursed "worker's ownership" culture did not allow the theft proceed at the rates like it happened in Central/East Europe elsewhere.

I do not know the details about this local crisis but I can imagine people who weren't exposed to such things get pretty desperate. I do not know, how it is in AL (if you are from there), but so far KiM is not exposed much to that kind of evil either. The things can be slow and frustrating, but at the moment some former party bosses and foreign "investors" strike a deal, workers in (ex)YU can get way to emotional.

I was living in Germany at the time of "reunification" - the theft was of unheard proportion and was widely known. In smaller towns of East Germany you as Albanian are rather welcome than their countrymen from the "West".

I have all understanding - this is why if I travel to Germany, I prefer to leave my Euros in the East and strictly supporting East German local business. It has nothing to do with the "communism" - just the opposite because precisely the communists did help "West" the most to plunder these countries.

I'm wondering if this guy is human?!
(Dardan, 25 April 2009 15:57)

You seem to be divorced from human feelings of empathy. When you see another human being in such intolerable condition who is then driven to madness do you feel for him or do you call him an animal?
Another human would feel for him.

Joe,

In many cases the Western governments were much more guilty than the "capitalists". A well-known example is the case with Interflug, the East German airline.

We planed to fly to Far East and it was known, Interfflug has 300 DM/direction tickets from Berlin to Beijing. I did inquire in Munich - and these flights and prices were simply not in the reservation computer. Instead, they offered Lufthansa for probably 3 times more. In Budapest the Interflug agency had no problems to issue the tickets.

Interflug had several modern A-310 airbusses serving Havana, Beijing, NY. But they were banned from using these tariffs in the Western part of Germany (all that around 1991!). After a while the (un)Treuhand told us: "This poor Interflug just cannot manage things, so we close them". And guess what, one of the A-310 airplanes went to Helmut Kohl - to fly him around the world as government airplane.

Neat, huh?

This is probably the smallest scam I did witness, there were surely much more ugly cases, all with highest governmental involvement. And all of them were possible because the commie apparatchiks successfully cooperated with the "capitalists". I say "capitalists" instead of just capitalists, because of course only the (western) companies close enough to bureaucratic apparat had any chance.

For normal investor or honest business owner: no chance. All my involvement in East Germany was, I tried (successfully) to locate a difficult-to-find Priam MFM (no ATA at that time, I wasn't ATAman yet!) hard drive for their Unix machine. After locating the drive we decided to sell them for zero profit, just to help. Was not much business, but that Priam drive did entertain everyone for a while.

My recent experience in Hungary 100% matches what you did say. I cautiously inquired about possibility to manufacture same RAID boxes with FÉG (Fegyver És Gázkészülékgyár) or maybe Застава оружје. Some told me, without "under-the-table" no chances with FÉG. I did not even dared to ask Zastava or anyone in south (KiM) after what I was told abput FÉG.

Result: great, the boxes are still made in China.

This is the "reality on the ground" and if Alban complained, why he has 150 Euro/month few days ago, this is why. I spoke with enough people around and all political insanity aside, everyone would rather buy things like this, for instance

http://tinyurl.com/cmt4pn

if it reads "made in Hungary (Serbia, Croatia, Albania, KiM)" than if it reads "made in China".

But because of the reasons we know, no chance. You know precisely, what is inside of such box can be made at FÉG (or Zastava) much better than in China and some major pitfalls can be avoided. I know a story, some Romanians did complain, they received essentially a... BOMB! The drives literally exploded inside of the Chinese box because of overheating. After some investigation the Chinese were upset: "why do you complain? We just changed the spec a bit, used a different fan - and sold you the box with 50 Cent saving!" (Yes, saved 50 Cents and made the firework out of the $100/piece hard drives + many days of headache + ruined reputation)

But as the things are now, we have no other choice, just "made in China".

Ataman,

In this local crisis I don't see any "plundering" capitalist involved. It looks like the enterprise is still state-owned like most enterprises in Serbia. So the whole protest seems to be against their own state, who apparently is paying "periodically" like Russia did in the nineties.
As for those "plundering" nineties I can imagine that some state enterprises were sold too cheap but no foreign government forced any country to do it. It was just unfortunate times when some countries needed the money and could not wait like Hungary. In case of Hungary there was also tremendeous mismanagement. They did not have the right managerial people, just some historians and librarians. One of the main criteria seemed to be to be a good Catholic. This was at a moment when most of Poland's foreign debt was forgiven because they successfully stated that they are unable to pay it back. Hungary on the other hand insisted that they will pay back around 28-30 billion dollars, big money at that time. That was a blunder.
As for those state enterprises most of them were not "state of the art". They generally employed four times more people than needed with old machinery and desperately needed capital injection. It is also well-known that people, who negotiated those sales or privatizations made handsome profits "under the table". In 1990-91 I also played with the idea to invest in something. I thought that some kind of big ware-house would be a good idea. I met one of those "high" representatives (if I remember it was part of a ministery) and I learned that they should have no problem to find one for me.
But I was not aware of the climate of corruption. Since I forget to give some smear-money I never heard from them again. Afterward I realized that it was better that way. Later on I was able to buy real estate under excellent conditions.

This behaviour is too extreme to be realistic; I doubt that it is justified by the situation these people find themselves in.

Self mutilation is a potential sign of mental instability. Would some form of enforced psychiatric intervention be appropriate?

tycoons or call them as you like are not practicing that religion, but another one, I do not wish to mention, in an attempt to aviod being biased.
(Hruz, 26 April 2009 09:54)

In general, all of them worship the "Golden Cow", even the atheists. I can tell you for sure, the plundering of East Germany was done mostly by so-called "Catholics", but if there is afterlife, they will have some questions to answer about criminal self-enrichment.

As for Hungary - what happened with Videoton, Orion, Ikarusz, Ganz? As far as I know, most of the involved are indeed good Catholics, they do not pray at Dohány Street. Of course, MALÉV is an other story. But I would rather call it "kiss of Putin" than "spirit of Dohány Street".

Hungary is by no means "unique" than as you say " former communists, and their offsprings have become hardcore capitalists" - this happened so far everywhere, (ex)YU and Belarus being hit probably the least.

What is unique in Hungary: there is no major conservative party, but there are two essentially "communist" parties: MSZP and FIDESZ. FIDESZ is so far worse than MSZP because they have a dictator-figure on the top, who is not a politician. They are well-organized - but without any sign of program. The entire "right" scene is not conservative: they are either "populists" (FIDESZ) or just plain fascist nuts (64 Vármegye, etc.)

The same time MSZP program smells like what late J. Kádár would do and SZDSZ has absolutely zero backbone.

For me at the moment MDF looks kind of OK. Hungarian "conservatives" were largely a joke (see Torgyán) and ultimately FIDESZ absorbed and transformed everything. That's being called "death kiss of Orbán". MDF escaped it - but became a tiny bit of it's former being.

-------------------

Electing a non-communist PM could not fight the might of the communist traiors, but at least postponed the looting of national property by 4 years.

(Hruz, 26 April 2009 09:54)

Yes, and the majority of these traitors do wear a huge Catholic cross today. Like the majority of Soviet commies became a bigger Orthodox than Athos mountain, Hilandar included. FIDESZ is probably happy to see silly people being pre-occupied with the cursing of Dohány Street and listening to 64 Vármegye demagogy... while Orbán himself is preparing for an other steal. Remember the vineyards around Tokaj, right?

Joe,

I think your reference as being a "good catholic" as a precondition to be involved in shady privatization is more than strange, in light of the fact that most industrialist, tycoons or call them as you like are not practicing that religion, but another one, I do not wish to mention, in an attempt to aviod being biased.

On the other hand, Hungary is in the unique situation that the former communists, and their offsprings have become hardcore capitalists, and the right wing nationals are promoting socialit idiologies to counter balance the ruthless, self destructive, inhuman behaviour of the ruling young communists.

If your preference as librarian was to Hungary's late PM, it is true that it was difficult to elect someone in 1990 who did not originate from the old bootlicker gang of the Soviets, and 40 years of brutal oppression has an effect on the society. Just imagine, people went to the
(free and fair) polls the first time after WWII, most of them knew how democracy works only from their parent's or grandparent's accounts.

Electing a non-communist PM could not fight the might of the communist traiors, but at least postponed the looting of national property by 4 years.

I'm wondering if this guy is human?!

I'm wondering if this guy is human?!
(Dardan, 25 April 2009 15:57)

You seem to be divorced from human feelings of empathy. When you see another human being in such intolerable condition who is then driven to madness do you feel for him or do you call him an animal?
Another human would feel for him.

I'm wondering if this guy is human?!
(Dardan, 25 April 2009 15:57)

He is very desperate (like the others) probably because the "grand theft" ( = privatization) so far more-less escaped Tito's Yugoslavia. The damage done so far is extremely high, but the much-praised and much-cursed "worker's ownership" culture did not allow the theft proceed at the rates like it happened in Central/East Europe elsewhere.

I do not know the details about this local crisis but I can imagine people who weren't exposed to such things get pretty desperate. I do not know, how it is in AL (if you are from there), but so far KiM is not exposed much to that kind of evil either. The things can be slow and frustrating, but at the moment some former party bosses and foreign "investors" strike a deal, workers in (ex)YU can get way to emotional.

I was living in Germany at the time of "reunification" - the theft was of unheard proportion and was widely known. In smaller towns of East Germany you as Albanian are rather welcome than their countrymen from the "West".

I have all understanding - this is why if I travel to Germany, I prefer to leave my Euros in the East and strictly supporting East German local business. It has nothing to do with the "communism" - just the opposite because precisely the communists did help "West" the most to plunder these countries.

Joe,

In many cases the Western governments were much more guilty than the "capitalists". A well-known example is the case with Interflug, the East German airline.

We planed to fly to Far East and it was known, Interfflug has 300 DM/direction tickets from Berlin to Beijing. I did inquire in Munich - and these flights and prices were simply not in the reservation computer. Instead, they offered Lufthansa for probably 3 times more. In Budapest the Interflug agency had no problems to issue the tickets.

Interflug had several modern A-310 airbusses serving Havana, Beijing, NY. But they were banned from using these tariffs in the Western part of Germany (all that around 1991!). After a while the (un)Treuhand told us: "This poor Interflug just cannot manage things, so we close them". And guess what, one of the A-310 airplanes went to Helmut Kohl - to fly him around the world as government airplane.

Neat, huh?

This is probably the smallest scam I did witness, there were surely much more ugly cases, all with highest governmental involvement. And all of them were possible because the commie apparatchiks successfully cooperated with the "capitalists". I say "capitalists" instead of just capitalists, because of course only the (western) companies close enough to bureaucratic apparat had any chance.

For normal investor or honest business owner: no chance. All my involvement in East Germany was, I tried (successfully) to locate a difficult-to-find Priam MFM (no ATA at that time, I wasn't ATAman yet!) hard drive for their Unix machine. After locating the drive we decided to sell them for zero profit, just to help. Was not much business, but that Priam drive did entertain everyone for a while.

My recent experience in Hungary 100% matches what you did say. I cautiously inquired about possibility to manufacture same RAID boxes with FÉG (Fegyver És Gázkészülékgyár) or maybe Застава оружје. Some told me, without "under-the-table" no chances with FÉG. I did not even dared to ask Zastava or anyone in south (KiM) after what I was told abput FÉG.

Result: great, the boxes are still made in China.

This is the "reality on the ground" and if Alban complained, why he has 150 Euro/month few days ago, this is why. I spoke with enough people around and all political insanity aside, everyone would rather buy things like this, for instance

http://tinyurl.com/cmt4pn

if it reads "made in Hungary (Serbia, Croatia, Albania, KiM)" than if it reads "made in China".

But because of the reasons we know, no chance. You know precisely, what is inside of such box can be made at FÉG (or Zastava) much better than in China and some major pitfalls can be avoided. I know a story, some Romanians did complain, they received essentially a... BOMB! The drives literally exploded inside of the Chinese box because of overheating. After some investigation the Chinese were upset: "why do you complain? We just changed the spec a bit, used a different fan - and sold you the box with 50 Cent saving!" (Yes, saved 50 Cents and made the firework out of the $100/piece hard drives + many days of headache + ruined reputation)

But as the things are now, we have no other choice, just "made in China".

Ataman,

In this local crisis I don't see any "plundering" capitalist involved. It looks like the enterprise is still state-owned like most enterprises in Serbia. So the whole protest seems to be against their own state, who apparently is paying "periodically" like Russia did in the nineties.
As for those "plundering" nineties I can imagine that some state enterprises were sold too cheap but no foreign government forced any country to do it. It was just unfortunate times when some countries needed the money and could not wait like Hungary. In case of Hungary there was also tremendeous mismanagement. They did not have the right managerial people, just some historians and librarians. One of the main criteria seemed to be to be a good Catholic. This was at a moment when most of Poland's foreign debt was forgiven because they successfully stated that they are unable to pay it back. Hungary on the other hand insisted that they will pay back around 28-30 billion dollars, big money at that time. That was a blunder.
As for those state enterprises most of them were not "state of the art". They generally employed four times more people than needed with old machinery and desperately needed capital injection. It is also well-known that people, who negotiated those sales or privatizations made handsome profits "under the table". In 1990-91 I also played with the idea to invest in something. I thought that some kind of big ware-house would be a good idea. I met one of those "high" representatives (if I remember it was part of a ministery) and I learned that they should have no problem to find one for me.
But I was not aware of the climate of corruption. Since I forget to give some smear-money I never heard from them again. Afterward I realized that it was better that way. Later on I was able to buy real estate under excellent conditions.

This behaviour is too extreme to be realistic; I doubt that it is justified by the situation these people find themselves in.

Self mutilation is a potential sign of mental instability. Would some form of enforced psychiatric intervention be appropriate?

Joe,

I think your reference as being a "good catholic" as a precondition to be involved in shady privatization is more than strange, in light of the fact that most industrialist, tycoons or call them as you like are not practicing that religion, but another one, I do not wish to mention, in an attempt to aviod being biased.

On the other hand, Hungary is in the unique situation that the former communists, and their offsprings have become hardcore capitalists, and the right wing nationals are promoting socialit idiologies to counter balance the ruthless, self destructive, inhuman behaviour of the ruling young communists.

If your preference as librarian was to Hungary's late PM, it is true that it was difficult to elect someone in 1990 who did not originate from the old bootlicker gang of the Soviets, and 40 years of brutal oppression has an effect on the society. Just imagine, people went to the
(free and fair) polls the first time after WWII, most of them knew how democracy works only from their parent's or grandparent's accounts.

Electing a non-communist PM could not fight the might of the communist traiors, but at least postponed the looting of national property by 4 years.

tycoons or call them as you like are not practicing that religion, but another one, I do not wish to mention, in an attempt to aviod being biased.
(Hruz, 26 April 2009 09:54)

In general, all of them worship the "Golden Cow", even the atheists. I can tell you for sure, the plundering of East Germany was done mostly by so-called "Catholics", but if there is afterlife, they will have some questions to answer about criminal self-enrichment.

As for Hungary - what happened with Videoton, Orion, Ikarusz, Ganz? As far as I know, most of the involved are indeed good Catholics, they do not pray at Dohány Street. Of course, MALÉV is an other story. But I would rather call it "kiss of Putin" than "spirit of Dohány Street".

Hungary is by no means "unique" than as you say " former communists, and their offsprings have become hardcore capitalists" - this happened so far everywhere, (ex)YU and Belarus being hit probably the least.

What is unique in Hungary: there is no major conservative party, but there are two essentially "communist" parties: MSZP and FIDESZ. FIDESZ is so far worse than MSZP because they have a dictator-figure on the top, who is not a politician. They are well-organized - but without any sign of program. The entire "right" scene is not conservative: they are either "populists" (FIDESZ) or just plain fascist nuts (64 Vármegye, etc.)

The same time MSZP program smells like what late J. Kádár would do and SZDSZ has absolutely zero backbone.

For me at the moment MDF looks kind of OK. Hungarian "conservatives" were largely a joke (see Torgyán) and ultimately FIDESZ absorbed and transformed everything. That's being called "death kiss of Orbán". MDF escaped it - but became a tiny bit of it's former being.

-------------------

Electing a non-communist PM could not fight the might of the communist traiors, but at least postponed the looting of national property by 4 years.

(Hruz, 26 April 2009 09:54)

Yes, and the majority of these traitors do wear a huge Catholic cross today. Like the majority of Soviet commies became a bigger Orthodox than Athos mountain, Hilandar included. FIDESZ is probably happy to see silly people being pre-occupied with the cursing of Dohány Street and listening to 64 Vármegye demagogy... while Orbán himself is preparing for an other steal. Remember the vineyards around Tokaj, right?