The spy who shagged us

The replacement of all the ministers of Emil Boc seems to be intended as a hint that its' not only the people that will be changed, but that the style will be different as well, and the Governing program, which was yesterday made public, very much resembles the style of the reports of the special services, which is where the appointed PM Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu comes from.

This is what the "S.I.E. school" sounds like: first they present a summary of the state of things, followed by the avenues of action - precisely the structure of the Governing program.

Cristian Preda said that the Program was drafted by Răzvan Ungureanu, in two days.

If it were true, aside from its style, the program should his personality.

"Romania has achieved spectacular progress, in spite of the unfavorable international climate", the Governing program assures us; in other words, Ungureanu does.

"The unemployment rate is two percent lower than the European rate", it says.

What it doesn't say is that we are actually in a full demographic implosion, that the unemployment is not caused by the increase of the population, that the generation of new workers is smaller by 7-8% compared to the generations that are retiring, and that the unemployment rate in itself is meaningless, unless we compare it with the number of jobs.

What kind of economic development can a country that has a low level of unemployment, even though the number of jobs created is constantly dropping, (four million over the last 20 years), and two-three million people are working abroad?

How can you be proud of disaster?!

"Inflation is at the lowest point, in the last 22 years", Răzvan Ungureanu said, in the governing program, at least I think it was him.

Yes, instead of inflation, you just chose to shift the burden onto pensions, by cutting them, and when the Constitutional Court did not allow it, you raised the VAT to 24%.

Well done Isărescu!, still we do have some inflation, and the raised VAT applies to this existing inflation - in the end, the economy is what it is, even if the garbage is hidden behind a beautifully dressed up indicators; the purchasing power decreased 11%.

"At the same time, Romania has the lowest foreign debt of all the EU", Ungureanu says.

What he doesn't say is that it is the biggest it has ever been, that Romania has never been so heavily in debt.

He also doesn't say that the comparison with Europe is inadequate, after it broke the terms of its own Maastricht treaty.

And he also doesn't say that the level of debt is not meaningful by itself, unless we also look at our ability to repay that debt, which we completely lack - if we were to owe even one Euro (rather than 97 billion), on maturity, if we don't have it, then we need to borrow to repay it and to accept the interest rate on that loan.

This interest rate is the cost of our powerlessness, which is tacked on top of our living costs, which we can't pay through our own labor.

The interest owed on these loans (remember, the interest, not the actual loan!) amounts to 34.5 billion Euros, in the first eleven months of 2011.

OK, Mr. Ungureanu, the Germans owe more per capita then we do, maybe they should immigrate to Romania and work for us; instead, the opposite is happening...

"Public debt remains at a sustainable level over the long term", Ungureanu says.

He is being sarcastic on that subject, because what he means is: "Our public debt is eternal and we will work forever from now on to pay the interest on the rolled over loans".

I think it's getting clear what kind of personality Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu has, if he was indeed the one who wrote the Government Program.

We can also note that he said we had actually set a record for exports, in 2011, without mentioning that gap between exports and imports has increased even more, and it is growing from one year to the next, as predicted by the Prognosis Commission, and that his governing program does not discuss in any way the structure of our exports, (which are, to a good degree, re-exports, commodities and outsourcing, without the domestic production contributing value in any way).

And it also tells us that the average pension last year increased 30% on average, compared to 2008, a statistical lie, cooked up using the huge pensions of a few and the new retirees, a lie which is bound to make him very unpopular with the seniors - he would have been better off if he hadn't included it.

I for one do not think that the Program was written by Ungureanu and I do not think that it was written in just two days, I feel overwhelmed just trying to give it a cursory read, much less review its perverse claims - it is 42 pages long, and I barely scratched the surface of its analysis with this article.

I think that the program was drafted by the S.I.E., in peace, perhaps in November, and perhaps with the cooperation of the S.R.I..

Perhaps Ungureanu browsed it.

Perhaps he didn't.

Maybe he was there when his ministers were chosen.

Maybe he wasn't.

I understand that he didn't resign from his position at the S.I.E..

What kind of prime minister will we have?

Will it actually be a person or an institution?