Is the NBR running for the Nobel peace prize?

Romania and its economy are under an assault the likes of which it has never seen before since the onset of the financial crisis. No, it isn't the Huns, the Visigoths or other "tribes" which are migrating looking for a weak victim to plunder. And there is no need for them, actually.

The barbarians are within the walls, and they are called the Government and the National Bank. Confronted with an economic reality beyond their competences and their comprehension ability, the "Romanian" authorities cater to every whim of the international creditors, apparently without any remorse or concern when it comes to the future of the nation.

I have not read enough history books to be able to make a comparison between the plundering of the past regimes and those of the current one, but it is hard to believe they were as savage. After all, for over two decades, Romania's spoliation has only picked up speed and apparently there are still riches that are waiting to be "plucked".

Also, for more than 20 years, the Romanian authorities have shown their incompetence and inability to lead the nation towards a better future. Why then, do they not step aside, to allow the Romanians to mind their own business?

As you can imagine, the question is malicious. Their "historic" mission and the electoral mandate do not allow them to even consider such an option.

But the global crisis is out of time and "our" authorities have done nothing to erect at least some defensive "dams".

The publication of the latest forecasts of the European Commission has led to the occurrence of an incredible situation when it comes to the relations between the European countries. "The European Commission has warned Germany that it can face disciplinary action due to its trade surpluses in relation with its EU partners", Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes in British daily The Telegraph.

In other words Europe is sentencing the ones who pays its bills and is trying to pull it out of default?

As absurd as it may look, such an action only demonstrates helplessness and desperation. And all the while, Romania is waiting for "European funds"?

One could say that it does not have many options, because it has run out of money. But why did that happen? Because it has debts, resulting from an irrational increase in lending in the previous years, an increase which has "blossomed" under the careful supervision of the NBR.

The extremely loose monetary policy in the period preceding the crisis sent extremely harmful signals to the economy, including the notion that capital was irrelevant, given the easy access to lending. The result can be seen in the latest country report of the IMF.

The rate of non-performing loans for SMEs has risen to an incredible level, especially for microenterprises, and the National Bank is now being pressured into taking drastic steps towards eliminating them from the balance sheet of the banks. But where was the NBR all these years, when the "rescheduling" and "refinancing" and all the other "re-somethings" were happening?

The management of the central bank is now trying to convince us that what little room to cut the policy rate is left is enough for lending to resume. To what end, increasing exports? But that's what everyone is trying to do!

The countries that will be successful in doing so will be those that have succeeded in preserving and developing their national capital, the only way of increasing productivity and salaries. This is not Romania's case.

After the last monetary policy session, the officials of the NBR said that the room for cutting the policy rate has shrunk, and the next step could be a decrease of the minimum required reserves. Unfortunately, the result of such a decision will be the acceleration of the repatriation of foreign capital.

Why? Because the stress tests of the European Central Bank will reveal massive deficits in the European banks. According to a piece of news by Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten, the former chief-economist of the ECB, Jürgen Stark, has expressed his hope that the aggregated amount needed for recapitalization will be below 100 billion Euros. According to Stark, the stress tests are belated anyway, as they should have been done five years ago, immediately after the default of Lehman Brothers.

What other hope do we have? Only the hope that we can still do something "though our own means", even though this old slogan of the Romanian Liberals died with them. Taking away the pompous statements of the post-revolutionary political pygmies, about country, trust and the need to work for the country, only the facts remain.

Recently, a chronicle of the American presidential elections of 2012 hit the bookstores (author's note: "Double Down: Game Change 2012", by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann). The authors include in their book a shocking statement by president Obama. Thinking out loud about the effects of the drone attacks in foreign countries, the Nobel Peace prize winner Obama told his assistants that he "is very good at killing people".

A not at all contrived paraphrase of that statement would be "we, the Romanian authorities are very good at killing the hopes and outlook for a better life of Romanians".

More than the government, it was the NBR that contributed decisively to this state of things. It is theoretically independent and being viewed as, though increasingly less so, the adult who has to keep the "children" in check.

But that is not true. It is hard to believe that a new cut of the interest rate and admonishing banks can have an effect on the real economy anymore. The real goal is to facilitate government borrowing, in an attempt to maintain macroeconomic stability. The banks also get a perk from this "deal", given the downward trend of private borrowing.

The current conditions, a result of the disastrous monetary and fiscal policies of the last few decades, make "macro stability" a death sentence. "They call it peace", roman historian Publius Tacitus wrote, in "De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae", referring to the plundering and massacre policy of the Roman Empire in its occupied territories. Has something changed in the last millennia?

During the Vietnam war the city of Ben Tre was the target of a massive bombardment of the American aviation. "We had to destroy the city to save it", an American officer told Peter Arnett, a correspondent of news agency Associated Press.

Apparently, just like the American army in Vietnam, the NBR has come to the conclusion that the economy has to be destroyed to be saved.

Considering that a president, American as well, was awarded the Nobel peace prize, even though "he is very good at killing people", couldn't the National Bank of Romania receive the gold medal in Oslo, for its special role, of pacifying the "natives" in Romania?