Swimming tax

The president is nearly suspended, the members of the big-hopes-manufacturer government of "European" Romania yell all over the place one against another, the transportation minister plans to build several hundred swimming pools (after all, any swimmer can carry big time merchandise), and the prime minister itself fights with EU for the pocket-fat of the new car importers, swearing that it's good for the people to buy just new cars and local trash cars. I have a hunch: they build swimming pools just to strike us with another tax.

The "Intellectual" Politics (What Their Moms Don't Know)

Quoting a famous intellectual whose “brilliant ideas” flush over the readers of a Romanian hemi-tabloid: “The posterity remind with account to Napoleon the line he addressed to Goethe, that ‘politics is Destiny’ – ‘La politique c’est le Destin.’ Enigmatic through its lapidary, the sense of this formula is nonetheless limpid. It says that, when the basis of political power widens significantly much, the politics is inconturnable.” [My emphasis on the last word is due to the lack of English word for the French ‘inconturbable’, meaning: ‘which cannot be avoided.’] [H. R. Patapievici, Evenimentul Zilei (Day’s Event), March 22, 2007]

Why, if you can’t understand the last two sentences, I’ll translate them, as, in fact, should be the case (from Romanian to Romanian) for the newspaper readers, too. He wanted to say, “The formula, enigmatic through its lapidary, has a nonetheless limpidity. It says that, when the basis of political power widens significantly much, the politics cannot be avoided.” And he goes on, stating that “we live in a time of politics, when politics is everywhere.”

Aside from this bland observation, we should say that the guy speaks, unintended, as the whole political class do, commentators and analysts included. They embed plain ideas in enthralling quotes and not so well commanded hard-to-understand words, twist the phrases so that one can hardly recognize the sense from beneath, then draw the conclusion: It’s not good! That is not good! Then, when someone comes up and tries to shed some light on the “problem,” they react: Shut up, you’re not a celebrity! Or something like that. So that politics is everywhere, and everybody discuss politics. And when it comes to work, there’s no one. And when is one, he probably ‘cooks’ something. Do you remember the experiment with the monkeys beating the daring one who would try to get the bananas, apparently without reason? (They were rained with water before, every time they tried to reach the bananas, and then replaced one by one, each newcomer being beaten in his place – by the vets knowing what could happen –, and so… educated.) Well, you got the point!

Tic-tac-toe (Hate You Too)

The Romanian Parliament established a commission for a close examination of Romanian president's (recent) deeds. RCP (which is not "Romanian Communist Party," but "Romanian Conservatory Party") accused the president of "quarreling, hate disseminating, national dissenting politics, and usurpation of state's external affairs." Quite impressing charges, especially given that they come from a group of ex-communists, or capitalized communists - as they should be called - and sounds like a good old 'ironing' of a unique party's enemy.

In facts, that is the situation now: the big party of 'good' unleashed politicians, strongly decided to hunt down everyone who dares to disturb the status quo, against a tiny group of politicians, journalists and intellectuals excited by the EU accession and the new opportunities for reform. Where the latter ones put an "x," the former erase the game table and lies down quickly three "zeros."

Go Finance

It is a wonderful experience, Romania. Where else in this world could you wake up, turn on the radio and find about the brilliant ideas that visited the finance minister over the weekend? For the last weekend, the biggest one was that of awarding old, shabby, bumped car owners with 500 euro, to bury them. (No, in Romania there are no car cemeteries, so the burial will be a funny digging operation.) Now, the money are coming from: first enrollment tax, established by the same genius for the second hand autos coming mostly from Germany.

So, while pretty good cars aren't allowed in Romania without a tax way bigger than their price in Germany, the junks on four wheels can fill the roads with smog, fog and screws. You can buy them (at hot prices!) and enroll it again, without any tax. Just don't buy a cheap, good car from Germany! It will affect the pockets of the "local producer." And we have to protect our Fra(e)nchise economy, don't we?