Professor advises "hitting rock bottom" as "way out"

Foreign investment is all well and good, but it will not transform Serbia into a rich and better country. Foreign companies will only ever employ a small part of the population. Sure, Serbia needs economic revival, but it could do that itself by starting a processes of infrastructure renewal. But Serbia needs more than a good economy, it needs a revival of culture and good bahaviour.

One of the first acts of the DOS-vandals was to close the National Museum in Belgrade. A whole generation of school children has grown-up without visiting this shrine of Serbian and European culture. Instead they have been fed a diet a western pop-culture and pornography of TV. This is a deliberate policy aimed at destroying Serbian national identity. This is a long-term plan but NGOs have been put in place to make it happen. I wonder if readers know that in Dubai and UAE, Arab kids are taught in English and cannot read or write Arabic. The same is planned for Serbia.

Serbia needs to fight for its culture, its church and national survival. What good is a Toyota car factory in Kraljevo if it is staffed by Chinese, Afghans and Africans?

I have been saying all those perspectives of Serbia for many years as the professor. The problem is you got the same old communists and Serb fascist from old Serboslavia still in charge. With the same mentality in doing things when Serbs loved the bureaucracy and gravitated to it of ex Yugoslavia aka Serboslavia. They filled the bureaucracy positions of it at as high as 70% when Serbs made 30% of the population of ex Yugo. Serbia had great potential but blew it up royally now it is selling the country next to nothing to the Russians ,Arabs etc and subsiding the buying of it. Not only Serbia is on dead end tracks but the tracks are slanted down heading to a cliff. Also none know how to operate the emergency brakes as the carriages pick up speed. Even if the numbskulls in charge of the Serbia carriages figure how to use the emergency brakes. It will be not enough very soon of Serbia going over in a mighty horrendous crash just by the inertia and speed brakes or no brakes. Serbia missed so many good opportunities by its fanaticism shouting the mantra and acting criminally on it SERBIA! SERBIA! SERBIA! GREATER SERBIA! GREATER SERBIA! GREATER SERBIA!

I can only suggest young people move out of Serbia to a country that has more to offer other than being poor and no future.

Very good advises to our political elites.

What sensible comments!

Lenard you really need to calm down. My diagnosis is that you have an unhealthy obsession with Serbia, which is clearly warping your opinion on what will happen in the future.

As you know full well, most of what you wrote applies equally to Bosnia and Croatia. And as for the state bureaucracy - well yes it can be expected that state positions located in the capital will be mostly filled by the largest ethnic group of that capital and indeed Jugoslavija.

But I know I'm wasting my time by expecting you to wise up. You LOVE the idea of a bad guy / bad country - it makes you feel better about Croatia / Bosnia etc - when in fact they face many of the same problems as Serbia. And worst of all for you (to admit) they have the same mentality.

What a bunch of nonsense!
But, what else to expect of the director of the "Center for Liberal-Democratic Studies"
Wait a moment - Who pays this guy?

Serbia has not been clear about where it is going for many years - and Milosevic drove things down the dead-ended railway line.

However, Serbia should stand up for what it believes - there are two basics:

I EU - good relations
2 Kosov'a' - temporary

These are the messages that drive Serbia - Serbia should stand proud about its beliefs.

But Serbia also has to learn:

1 Serbia's reputation was wrecked in the 'siding' because of evil war crimes (these are better acknowledged than denied or defended against).
2 Milosevic was responsible for inviting the bombing - not NATO - the criminality in Serbia was out of control both externally and internally.

There is one thing Serbia should particularly do for itself:

1. Stamp out internal corruption.

Serbia is a great place with a great future - it has no reason not to stand proud as long as it can accept its past and stop blaming everyone else for its troubles. Serbia was not the only party at fault - the others are pretty awful.

Serbia has been blessed with abundant natural resources and a river system that augments a reasonable infrastructure. The country boasts one of the premier food growing regions in Europe. As the world’s population continues to explode, food production will be the new crude. Soon Serbia will have ample access to the only raw material (natural gas) required to produce the main input (nitrogen) in growing grain. Private industry will quickly build urea plants next to the South Stream lines. With relatively cheap urea and arable land in the Vojvodina region, Serbia can become the breadbasket of Southern/Central Europe and Middle East.
All this is very doable. Only requires a bit of determination. Make the business environment attractive, then sit back and observe private industry at its finest. At best, Governments can only assist private industry. A Government, by definition and intent, creates nothing of value. As a facilitator it can be a positive influence or a deleterious burden. Serbia has a long way to go before it crosses form the former to the latter.

Serbia was not the only party at fault - the others are pretty awful.
(Bob, 9 April 2013 16:26)

The problem with that is only Serbia is made to deal with war crimes, the others are excluded any responsibility for the Yugoslav Civil Wars. Serbia should not accept this revision of the facts. Every ethnic group which participated in the civil wars should seek to punish those who committed such crimes but what is being asked is for Serbia to accept collective guilt for the entire decade following the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Serbia cannot do that because they are not the facts on the ground. Known war criminals who committed violent atrocities are free and well. Some even hold psuedo government jobs. This isn't justice.

As for everything else you touched on-most people are fully on board with all that. But its simply not an option for Serbia to accept this sick and twisted idea that the most anti-fascist nation in the region to should be subjected to the treatment of Germans after WWII.

I'm sorry. the professor's message seems to make sense, until you get towards the end - even with these liberals, they are holding "Kosovo-Metohije" hostage, and wanting to lord it over the world.

In other words, having not hit rock bottom (like w germany in ww2), no seious de-nazification has taken place, incl and esp.ly with the educated classes. and this keeps the balkans locked in a frozen conflict, for now and for the future...

how sad...

it is a lie that "only Serbia" has had to face up to war crimes. In fact, serbia has yet to face up to war crimes... they were forced to send a few criminals to the hague, a tiny % of the war criminals -
and Djindjic opened up some of those horrendous mass graves.

otherwise, except for isolated case that kandic and co have pushed, there is nothing, but cover up, lies, and push back.

a great shame onto serbia and her govt and media. it is unforgivable. and uncivilized.

robert frisco

The good professor is absolutely correct. A sound business environment attracts foreign investment, just as it enables and encourages domestic business ventures. One feeds off the other and both require the same founding principles; simple and equitable corporate laws, a sound economy, supportive rather than wasteful government, efficient infrastructure, competent and flexible workforce, etc. “If you build it, they will come.”
Serbian politicians are spending far too much time on Kosovo and too little on internal workings. Kosovo is a frozen conflict and will remain so for at least a decade – about the same amount of time it will take Serbia to transform itself into an attractive business destination. Once it operates at EU standards, EU will court it and find a way to integrate Serbia – if at that time Serbia decides to be in the “club.” The required transformations are onerous, but can be achieved much faster outside the EU and the burdensome EU bureaucracy.

Serbia seems to have no sense of itself. let me explain that before i get death threats lol.

it seems that there is no entrepreneur class in serbia. capital for small businesses is practically non existent. its easy to get money for large factories casue they garner press conferences and noteriety. but what about the book store on the corner or the small garage. when i was living in nocaj i loaned a guy 500 euros to start a small manufacturing business and hes a success now.

thats what it will take to make serbia great. it wont come from EU ascension. the only thing that the EU will give you is job killing regulations. your political parties need to stop squabling about the EU. the only thing that should matter is building up the small businesses around the country. imagien if the average wage was 500 euros that would mean a whole lot of disposable income for the average serb. disoposable income that woudl mean more economic activity. when the government wants to subsidize jobs thats a noble thign but at some point that must stop and that money should go into direct business loans to small businesses. if the government would take 100 million euros and loan that out to qualified individuals to start a small business in amounts up to 1000 euros you coudl create over 5000 small businesses. what woudl that mean to the average person in serbia. i am quite certain that it would make a change for good.

I genuinely believe Serbia should hire western professionals (ex-CEO's and such) to restructure and manage our public companies until the local's here actually learn a thing or two about business. That is what the Chinese did after all...
(Skeptic, 10 April 2013 05:29)

If you genuinely believe that, you genuinely don't understand Serbs. They're too proud to admit there's anything wrong to begin with, nevermind hire someone to tell them how it's done. Mix into that that the guy who would be hiring this hypothetical western CEO actually benefits from the situation being broken.

That's why this academic is absolutely right. Serbia needs to REALLY hit bottom before it can make any real progress. It is unfortunate, but its true.

As for everything else you touched on-most people are fully on board with all that. But its simply not an option for Serbia to accept this sick and twisted idea that the most anti-fascist nation in the region to should be subjected to the treatment of Germans after WWII.
(Ari Gold, 9 April 2013 18:34)

Ari,

You commit the crime, you do the time.

Ok lenard your 30% is a lie!

1921: Serbs 7mil out of 12 mil total population (which includes Muslim and Catholic Serbs)
and they were almost 60% at that time!

Then the great sufferings of WW2 took place and immediately after the communists came to power, and so they split the Serbian ethnicity into: Montenegrin/Muslim/Macedonian/Yugoslav/Croatian
as for the Croatian:(Serbs of Catholic religion were obligated to become Croat. Examples are the Serbs of Dubrovnik, the Bunjevci and Sokci of Slavonija and Vojvodina and Serbs of western slavonija and Lika did not regard themselves Croatian before 1946!
And due to low birth rates the % Serbs further lowered to 36% in 1991
The same can be said for all non Muslims in ex YU, except Albanians/Serbian-Croatian Muslims aka Bosnjaks and Roma all ethnic groups got a lower percentage share of the total population.

Look at this: YU in 1991
Serbs 36.3%
Bosnjaks 10%
Macedonians 5.8%
Montenegrins 2.3%
Yugoslavs 3%
+ a certain percentage of Croats
lets say another 5%
then we get a 62.4% Serbs, same as the 7mil of 1921
So in fact above 60% of the population could be regarded as Serbian!
around 15% non Yugoslavs
7.4% Slovenians
around 15% Croats
If we then exclude Slovenija/Kosovo/Croatia around Zagreb, Serbs would have been above 80% so what's your problem with greater Serbia then, 80% still not enough?

on topic
first economic reforms then EU talks, if Serbia is economically better and stronger then before, then EU would not be needed.

I genuinely believe Serbia should hire western professionals (ex-CEO's and such) to restructure and manage our public companies until the local's here actually learn a thing or two about business. That is what the Chinese did after all...

I can only suggest young people move out of Serbia to a country that has more to offer other than being poor and no future.

What sensible comments!

Serbia was not the only party at fault - the others are pretty awful.
(Bob, 9 April 2013 16:26)

The problem with that is only Serbia is made to deal with war crimes, the others are excluded any responsibility for the Yugoslav Civil Wars. Serbia should not accept this revision of the facts. Every ethnic group which participated in the civil wars should seek to punish those who committed such crimes but what is being asked is for Serbia to accept collective guilt for the entire decade following the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Serbia cannot do that because they are not the facts on the ground. Known war criminals who committed violent atrocities are free and well. Some even hold psuedo government jobs. This isn't justice.

As for everything else you touched on-most people are fully on board with all that. But its simply not an option for Serbia to accept this sick and twisted idea that the most anti-fascist nation in the region to should be subjected to the treatment of Germans after WWII.

I have been saying all those perspectives of Serbia for many years as the professor. The problem is you got the same old communists and Serb fascist from old Serboslavia still in charge. With the same mentality in doing things when Serbs loved the bureaucracy and gravitated to it of ex Yugoslavia aka Serboslavia. They filled the bureaucracy positions of it at as high as 70% when Serbs made 30% of the population of ex Yugo. Serbia had great potential but blew it up royally now it is selling the country next to nothing to the Russians ,Arabs etc and subsiding the buying of it. Not only Serbia is on dead end tracks but the tracks are slanted down heading to a cliff. Also none know how to operate the emergency brakes as the carriages pick up speed. Even if the numbskulls in charge of the Serbia carriages figure how to use the emergency brakes. It will be not enough very soon of Serbia going over in a mighty horrendous crash just by the inertia and speed brakes or no brakes. Serbia missed so many good opportunities by its fanaticism shouting the mantra and acting criminally on it SERBIA! SERBIA! SERBIA! GREATER SERBIA! GREATER SERBIA! GREATER SERBIA!

What a bunch of nonsense!
But, what else to expect of the director of the "Center for Liberal-Democratic Studies"
Wait a moment - Who pays this guy?

Foreign investment is all well and good, but it will not transform Serbia into a rich and better country. Foreign companies will only ever employ a small part of the population. Sure, Serbia needs economic revival, but it could do that itself by starting a processes of infrastructure renewal. But Serbia needs more than a good economy, it needs a revival of culture and good bahaviour.

One of the first acts of the DOS-vandals was to close the National Museum in Belgrade. A whole generation of school children has grown-up without visiting this shrine of Serbian and European culture. Instead they have been fed a diet a western pop-culture and pornography of TV. This is a deliberate policy aimed at destroying Serbian national identity. This is a long-term plan but NGOs have been put in place to make it happen. I wonder if readers know that in Dubai and UAE, Arab kids are taught in English and cannot read or write Arabic. The same is planned for Serbia.

Serbia needs to fight for its culture, its church and national survival. What good is a Toyota car factory in Kraljevo if it is staffed by Chinese, Afghans and Africans?

Serbia has not been clear about where it is going for many years - and Milosevic drove things down the dead-ended railway line.

However, Serbia should stand up for what it believes - there are two basics:

I EU - good relations
2 Kosov'a' - temporary

These are the messages that drive Serbia - Serbia should stand proud about its beliefs.

But Serbia also has to learn:

1 Serbia's reputation was wrecked in the 'siding' because of evil war crimes (these are better acknowledged than denied or defended against).
2 Milosevic was responsible for inviting the bombing - not NATO - the criminality in Serbia was out of control both externally and internally.

There is one thing Serbia should particularly do for itself:

1. Stamp out internal corruption.

Serbia is a great place with a great future - it has no reason not to stand proud as long as it can accept its past and stop blaming everyone else for its troubles. Serbia was not the only party at fault - the others are pretty awful.

I'm sorry. the professor's message seems to make sense, until you get towards the end - even with these liberals, they are holding "Kosovo-Metohije" hostage, and wanting to lord it over the world.

In other words, having not hit rock bottom (like w germany in ww2), no seious de-nazification has taken place, incl and esp.ly with the educated classes. and this keeps the balkans locked in a frozen conflict, for now and for the future...

how sad...

it is a lie that "only Serbia" has had to face up to war crimes. In fact, serbia has yet to face up to war crimes... they were forced to send a few criminals to the hague, a tiny % of the war criminals -
and Djindjic opened up some of those horrendous mass graves.

otherwise, except for isolated case that kandic and co have pushed, there is nothing, but cover up, lies, and push back.

a great shame onto serbia and her govt and media. it is unforgivable. and uncivilized.

robert frisco

Serbia has been blessed with abundant natural resources and a river system that augments a reasonable infrastructure. The country boasts one of the premier food growing regions in Europe. As the world’s population continues to explode, food production will be the new crude. Soon Serbia will have ample access to the only raw material (natural gas) required to produce the main input (nitrogen) in growing grain. Private industry will quickly build urea plants next to the South Stream lines. With relatively cheap urea and arable land in the Vojvodina region, Serbia can become the breadbasket of Southern/Central Europe and Middle East.
All this is very doable. Only requires a bit of determination. Make the business environment attractive, then sit back and observe private industry at its finest. At best, Governments can only assist private industry. A Government, by definition and intent, creates nothing of value. As a facilitator it can be a positive influence or a deleterious burden. Serbia has a long way to go before it crosses form the former to the latter.

Very good advises to our political elites.

The good professor is absolutely correct. A sound business environment attracts foreign investment, just as it enables and encourages domestic business ventures. One feeds off the other and both require the same founding principles; simple and equitable corporate laws, a sound economy, supportive rather than wasteful government, efficient infrastructure, competent and flexible workforce, etc. “If you build it, they will come.”
Serbian politicians are spending far too much time on Kosovo and too little on internal workings. Kosovo is a frozen conflict and will remain so for at least a decade – about the same amount of time it will take Serbia to transform itself into an attractive business destination. Once it operates at EU standards, EU will court it and find a way to integrate Serbia – if at that time Serbia decides to be in the “club.” The required transformations are onerous, but can be achieved much faster outside the EU and the burdensome EU bureaucracy.

Lenard you really need to calm down. My diagnosis is that you have an unhealthy obsession with Serbia, which is clearly warping your opinion on what will happen in the future.

As you know full well, most of what you wrote applies equally to Bosnia and Croatia. And as for the state bureaucracy - well yes it can be expected that state positions located in the capital will be mostly filled by the largest ethnic group of that capital and indeed Jugoslavija.

But I know I'm wasting my time by expecting you to wise up. You LOVE the idea of a bad guy / bad country - it makes you feel better about Croatia / Bosnia etc - when in fact they face many of the same problems as Serbia. And worst of all for you (to admit) they have the same mentality.

As for everything else you touched on-most people are fully on board with all that. But its simply not an option for Serbia to accept this sick and twisted idea that the most anti-fascist nation in the region to should be subjected to the treatment of Germans after WWII.
(Ari Gold, 9 April 2013 18:34)

Ari,

You commit the crime, you do the time.

I genuinely believe Serbia should hire western professionals (ex-CEO's and such) to restructure and manage our public companies until the local's here actually learn a thing or two about business. That is what the Chinese did after all...

I genuinely believe Serbia should hire western professionals (ex-CEO's and such) to restructure and manage our public companies until the local's here actually learn a thing or two about business. That is what the Chinese did after all...
(Skeptic, 10 April 2013 05:29)

If you genuinely believe that, you genuinely don't understand Serbs. They're too proud to admit there's anything wrong to begin with, nevermind hire someone to tell them how it's done. Mix into that that the guy who would be hiring this hypothetical western CEO actually benefits from the situation being broken.

That's why this academic is absolutely right. Serbia needs to REALLY hit bottom before it can make any real progress. It is unfortunate, but its true.

Serbia seems to have no sense of itself. let me explain that before i get death threats lol.

it seems that there is no entrepreneur class in serbia. capital for small businesses is practically non existent. its easy to get money for large factories casue they garner press conferences and noteriety. but what about the book store on the corner or the small garage. when i was living in nocaj i loaned a guy 500 euros to start a small manufacturing business and hes a success now.

thats what it will take to make serbia great. it wont come from EU ascension. the only thing that the EU will give you is job killing regulations. your political parties need to stop squabling about the EU. the only thing that should matter is building up the small businesses around the country. imagien if the average wage was 500 euros that would mean a whole lot of disposable income for the average serb. disoposable income that woudl mean more economic activity. when the government wants to subsidize jobs thats a noble thign but at some point that must stop and that money should go into direct business loans to small businesses. if the government would take 100 million euros and loan that out to qualified individuals to start a small business in amounts up to 1000 euros you coudl create over 5000 small businesses. what woudl that mean to the average person in serbia. i am quite certain that it would make a change for good.

Ok lenard your 30% is a lie!

1921: Serbs 7mil out of 12 mil total population (which includes Muslim and Catholic Serbs)
and they were almost 60% at that time!

Then the great sufferings of WW2 took place and immediately after the communists came to power, and so they split the Serbian ethnicity into: Montenegrin/Muslim/Macedonian/Yugoslav/Croatian
as for the Croatian:(Serbs of Catholic religion were obligated to become Croat. Examples are the Serbs of Dubrovnik, the Bunjevci and Sokci of Slavonija and Vojvodina and Serbs of western slavonija and Lika did not regard themselves Croatian before 1946!
And due to low birth rates the % Serbs further lowered to 36% in 1991
The same can be said for all non Muslims in ex YU, except Albanians/Serbian-Croatian Muslims aka Bosnjaks and Roma all ethnic groups got a lower percentage share of the total population.

Look at this: YU in 1991
Serbs 36.3%
Bosnjaks 10%
Macedonians 5.8%
Montenegrins 2.3%
Yugoslavs 3%
+ a certain percentage of Croats
lets say another 5%
then we get a 62.4% Serbs, same as the 7mil of 1921
So in fact above 60% of the population could be regarded as Serbian!
around 15% non Yugoslavs
7.4% Slovenians
around 15% Croats
If we then exclude Slovenija/Kosovo/Croatia around Zagreb, Serbs would have been above 80% so what's your problem with greater Serbia then, 80% still not enough?

on topic
first economic reforms then EU talks, if Serbia is economically better and stronger then before, then EU would not be needed.