Wow. embarrassing

European Parliament elections took place June 7th, 2009. This was possibly the most embarrassing election I've lived through. First a quick word about all the parties:

MSZP: The socialist party; currently holds about 48% of the parliament. They are big part of the current reforms in actually bringing private enterprise into things such as health care and reforming the massive bureaucratic government.

SZDSZ: the Free Liberal party; currently holds about 10% of the parliament. They usually support the socialist, but they support a flat tax instead of one that's with brackets.

MDF: I consider them a decent conservative party. They currently hold about 7% of the parliament, and they an economical conservative stance, but socially a liberal one. They are actually for keeping socialized health care, but they support helping out businesses.

FIDESZ: They are moderate conservative party currently holding about 35% of the parliament. At the moment they refuse to agree with anything MSZP or SZDSZ proposes and demands they step down and allow for early elections. They usually stand for helping the "common person" with tax cuts. They spun the EP elections into their own "national referendum".

Jobbik (MIEP): Far right extreme conservative party. Up till now they have not been able to gain the 5% threshold you need to progress to either the European or the Hungarian parliament. They have slogans such as "Hungary for the Hungarians" and "Gypsy crime is real" and "let's take back the country from this hostage situation".

LMP-HP: The "other politics" and humanist party are both an extremely environmentally friendly and socially liberal parties. They are both quiet new but neither have received the 5% required for either parliaments. They help organize events such as critical mass with thousands of bike riders in Budapest. They want to introduce a EU-wide minimum wage and an EU wide 1% income tax to even out the playing field. They are also big on cutting corruption in the current government.

So what happened?
MSZP: 18%
FIDESZ: 57%
MIEP: 15%
MDF: 5%
LMP: 2.6%
SZDSZ: 2.1%
others: ~1%

This means that of the 22 seats Hungary has, MSZP receives 4, MIEP receives 3, FIDESZ receives 14, and MDF receives 1. This is extremely sad not because my party won, but because Jobbik for the first time ever won seats; and not just one, three seats! Just so you get an idea how unbelivable this is, here is an article about the party leader:

Morvai writes obscene anti-Semitic post

Jobbik chief MEP candidate Krisztina Morvai has written in a message to Hungarian Jews posted on an online forum that “I would be greatly pleased if those who call themselves proud Hungarian Jews played in their leisure with their tiny circumcised dicks, instead of besmirching me. Your kind of people are used to seeing all of our kind of people stand to attention and adjust to you every time you fart. Would you kindly acknowledge this is now OVER. We have raised our head up high and we shall no longer tolerate your kind of terror. We shall take back our country.”

She made the remarks on the Deák Ferenc Civic Forum website.

Morvai's wrath was unleashed by comments from Gábor Barát, finance manager of a New York radiology institute, who called her a psychiatric case and a monster. Barát, referring to himself as “a proud Hungarian Jew,” said Morvai foments hatred and said she should be banned from politics for her dangerous remarks.

Morvai did not deny that she wrote the message, but declined to comment further.

Antall-era foreign minister Géza Jeszenszky said in a message posted on the same forum that “this tone and style are astonishing, unworthy of Hungarian traditions and a woman. All decent Hungarian people can only condemn this contribution. Such words were not written even by Csurka”. (N pp.1&4)

Well best of luck to the European parliament.

Update on the Economy

The Economy is pretty much in shambles! I don't want to elaborate too much, because people will fall asleep, but the only reason the Hungarian Economy ONLY loosing 2.5% of it's value as of now yr/yr is because the Agriculture sector has experienced a miraculous 72% growth from last year. And we were doing so good up to Q3 2008, our economy was finally recovering from the reforms...and then it got punched in the face...

On the happier side CPI inflation came out to be at 3.0% yr/yr..which is a very healthy rate. That's the only good news in economy these days.

Clean air

I am going to copy this article off of the www.pestiside.hu website. Credit given to them. February 26th:

Budapest Racks Up Both Clean and Filthy City Awards

According to a report from our friends at Hungary Around the Clock, Budapest won the dirtiest city "award" in an online poll followed by overpolluted regulars from the Hungarian rust-belt Ózd and Miskolc. This of course comes only a day or so after the EU recognized Bufapest for its efforts to fight pollution through educating citizens and other means, such as (we're guessing) the decision to only allow half of the cars into the city on smog filled days. And judging from the picture, it's been working, as you can almost make out what that circular bright thing in the sky is!

Financial advise, BUY FORINTS

The economy STINKS in central Europe just as much as it does here. All of the CE currencies are plummeting. My advice? Buy! There is no way that, the forint will stay this cheap! Historically speaking the forint has been as cheap as 290 forints for a US dollar back in the early 2000s, but that was back in the stone age. We have hit a new era, and I, as an expert in economics (I wish), would be very surprised to see it go above 250. What does this mean? You buy 2000 dollars worth forints, you will ideally get 465 000 forints... You wait 1 year for the forint to gain back it's "natural"~195 value and you cash in! You return around 2400 dollars and profit a quick 400 dollars! A quick 20% increase in your money in just one year! Not bad...Except I forgot to mention that we don't live in an ideal world. Even IF the forint gains its value back and hits 195 from its current 232, you will only be able to buy at the "buy value" which will be about 10 forints lower than the current 232, 222. You will also only be able to sell at the sell value, which'll be 10 forints higher than 195, 205... Oh , and I forgot about commission in both transfers, which is at about 2%. So I'll do the math so you don't have to.. ::COUNTS IN HEAD!:: now you've gained 80 bucks in a year... Oups.. I forgot to account for inflation....Even during these horrible economic times, they are at about 2.5% a year.. So in real value you've only gained 30 bucks.. Plus you probably had to drive to the bank and back, which with gas consumption will take off another 5 bucks; pay a bank fee at the American bank of 10 dollars per exchange... So now we are at what, 5 dollars? You've probably put in about 30 minutes of work and 15 minutes figuring this out, meaning that's another 5 dollars minimum wage. You've come out even! WOW, my advice, BUY FORINTS! It serves you better than any other stock!

Pécs 2010

Pécs's mayor died of cancer a couple of days ago. The reason this is weird is because the last mayor died in a car crash, and the one before that died as well (I believe... I might stand corrected on the 3rd one). Mayors in Pécs are not very lucky. Especially since they have less than a year and a half to build a European cultural capital. The city is behind with nearly every project. Pécs, a city with a metropolitan population of around 250 thousand, was chosen for the 2010 cultural capital. An interesting characteristic of Pécs is that it encompasses a lot of Turkish architecture due to its history of the ottoman empire leading over it. It is a gorgeous city with a lot of culture, just wish the projects would get done.. I would become mayor, but then I'd probably die.Just one plan out of the hundreds...The plans for the Corso Hall:


The sight under construction:

I haven't posted in forever--time to change

I've just been lazy not caring, but there is always something to post so I'll continue.

Back in the Ol' country news updates:

-New statistics show that 20% of couples are infertile and the number is growing.. Large portion of them don't turn to doctors. (caboodle)

-A large portion of the government's shortfall in taxes this year is resulting from people switching over to a lower alcoholic percentage beer, that consequently falls in a lower tax bracket. (index)

- A bus split apart......


That's all for now, more later..

1956

Tomorrow, October 23rd, we celebrate our 52nd anniversary of the 1956 revolution. We remember our uprising and loss of thousands of lives for our brief independence. We remember being lied to that the soviets were moving out, just to be hammered and have thousands more killed. We remember falsely believing that someone from the outside will actually help us. We remember our complete failure, yet we remember all this with a certain pride. What we did was something no one could imagine at that time. We, even if for just a brief period, beat the soviets. We became independent. We worked together, the farmers provided food, the police provided ammo, the doctors service, and for no money--but for independence. And this revolution should unite us and not seperate us. Here are some pictures to help us remember: