Umbrellas for the fish. Share the wealth, or prevent its creation. Regulation and unfreedom. The supposed racism of laws that apply to all. Utopias and giving predictable failure a second chance. The hope of getting a hot meal from the EU. Self-induced bad governance and responsibility.

This edition of DN owes its inspiration to a boat trip. It led from Budapest (H), to Pressburg (SL), then on the Danube to Vienna (A), followed by Melk, Passau, Donauworth. TheDanube-Main canal leading followed leading on the Main to Bamberg, Nurenberg, Wertheim, Mindenheim, Würzburg and then to Frankfurt (D). It then continued on the Rhine to Strasburg in France before it ended in Basle, Switzerland. (You can improve on this by taking about three weeks. That allows you to travel from the Black Sea, starting in Romania/Ukraine through Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Germany, France, Holland and Switzerland.) Added to the gastronomic adventure was the picture taking that is near and dear to the heart of a semi-professional. All this is rounded out with the peace on board and contemplation free from deadlines. Some of the generated ideas are shared with you below.

 

1. Let this begin with the crew that had Magyars, Slovaks, Romanians, Bulgarians, Serbs, Syrians, Indonesians, and even Germans and Austrians – as supervisors. The Babel was commanded by the Hungarian Captain of a Swiss ship. Oddly, on board the crew got along in a way that one wishes would be the case on land. Here a cute tidbit about that. I watched the co-Captain conduct an operation and blurt out commands in Slovak. Suddenly, he continued in Hungarian “Stop! Say it in Hungarian.” Once the maneuver was over, I mentioned my ancestors to him and we talked. Yes, he learned Hungarian from his grandmother. He is now re-honing his skills. They facilitate communication. What does he think of the, to put it mildly, controversial and fascistic language-law of Slovakia? “Listen, only some politicians and sick people have a problem with living together. I am not one of them.” Election results back up the man. Both countries have given power to pro-business governments that promise to be beyond ethnophobia.

 

2. Sharing wealth is a proper idea. Caveat: It is only the case if it is – as it often happens – voluntary. Once giving out is made into a duty and stops being an individual discretionary act, there will be less wealth and therefore even less to be shared. Once the idea of sharing is institutionalized and codified, it degenerates into a hidden tax. As such, it will induce skilled avoidance.

 

3. Unfreedom results when economic planning intended to replace the market in favor of politically inspired regulation. Its degree will surpass all the real and alleged errors of the markets.

 

4. Economic planning is designed to replace the distrusted market by those who fully trust state power. This applies especially in the case of those who hold power. Such operations are conducted, due to the market’s allegedly unpredictable behavior. They intend to bring about reliably and quickly what the organically acting market, which responds to the choices of all participants, might only accomplish at a slow pace only. Unlike regulation that is aimed at fraud, such measures bring with them political unfreedom that will match the condition of the handcuffed markets.

 

5. A long-standing law, which covers a general situation, and that is applied to all, might signify many things. (Sanctioning criminal activity is meant.) Racism is not one of them.

 

6. Some of those that fail in their business tend to make moral preaching about success and ethics their new business. PC assures the practitioners that the endeavor pays well.

 

7. People abound that are inclined either to pursue failed utopias or to promise to lead those that will follow anybody. They are inclined to lead into that part of the past that sounded good to their original contemporaries and that, thereafter, did not work. The guiding principle is “give failure a second chance”.

 

8. The virtue of the European Union is that, as its official, you do not need to convince a reluctant and stupid majority that it should follow you.

 

9. The Polish elections have produced a President who is said to be liberal and pro EU. Good news to some. The worrying part is that many of those that voted for Komorowski voted for his pro-EU course. They did so in the hope of getting something from the nearly bankrupt community which is forced to become more frugal.

 

10. This might be telling more regarding the deep-down causes of our economic instability than you care to know. Would the USA meet the criteria to become a member of the EU? The union’s current members also fall short of the needed performance.

 

11. A disappointment or a clash of expectations might be in the making on the periphery of what is considered to be the center of world affairs. Nato’s new members expect protection against threats they detect. If one asks Nato’s insiders, the word “threat” provokes irritation. Officially, “see no evil face no evil” prevails here. Therefore, the question is “what threat?” To give an honest answer is non-PC so there is silence. The EU wants to be, no matter what, an architect of the reign of peace. The bliss is to be achieved through negotiated compromise. The substance of that is what new and, due to their experience, concerned members are inclined to consider to be surrender by small periodical down payments.

 

12. The nose-diving €. The currency is a political construct and by now not primarily an instrument that expresses economic realities. The worse thing about it for the global economy is that, those responsible are not responsible enough to care.

 

13. Weak EU politicians make hefty mistakes. Among these is the economic crisis management  that adds ruinous debt to the current one. Servicing this expanding liability draws money away from investment. Investments imply rising future productive performance. As such they happen to be the only legitimate reason to incur obligations.

 

14. Some of the EU’s members are about to have their VAT going up from 19% to around 24%. An added disadvantage of membership is that successful societies and individuals are forced to imitate tried and proven measures that have made others to fail. To stabilize its economy, the EU needs more VAT as much as fish need umbrellas when it rains.

 

15. Chancellor Merkel’s main concern seems to be to stay in power. This desire is as much a trait of politicians as the chasing of cats defines dogs. The statesman would, regardless of threatening elections, attempt to solve the problem for its own sake through voter-education

The voter shares a responsibility for making inferior governance a consequence of his choices. He happens to be superficially informed, is forgetful, and lacks perspective. He is also inclined to ignore that his security depends on his choices for which he, and not some party, is responsible. He also likes to ignore that, regardless of the promises made, he is not immune to the consequences of the mistakes made in his name. That tabloids with oodles of boobs, much gossip and little other substance, serve his freely chosen entertainment, is a defining symptom of self-imposed blindness.