© Eso Antons Benjamins, aka Jaņdžs

THE NOT-UNTHINKABLE
91 Gridlocked in Latvia (10)

The future of Latvia is unknown. At the present the country is adrift. The country exists, but turns like a falling leaf caught by no current of air. Perhaps this is the result of Latvia’s leadership having run to capitalism for succor. It advised them to follow the Chicago, Georgetown, and Harvard economists’ advice and sign up for economic shock therapy. It worked. The hammer hit the pin and it bounced to the bell, but then—as things are wont to do at the circus—it as quickly fell back and resulted in a double shock.

The government of Latvia is putting up quite a show how to create a disaster, except it hurts to watch. It hurts in the real. Even the few oligarchs are complaining—though they are much the cause of the disaster.

The drift of Latvia comes without the pleasures of playing casino on an old fashioned riverboat. Unfortunately, the boat drifted onto a sandbank, and the players must now drag it off the dune. As one donkey said to another: “It was a gamble, and this is the payoff ”. Chances are they will get another chance to go downriver, but with no pleasure. The Latvian girls used their mobile phones, called a limousine, and are gone.

Most Latvians can hardly believe what is happening. Did they not suffer the years 1940, 1949, and all the pain that a government by force can deal? Do they now have to watch their own extinction? Have Latvians not proven Thomas Jefferson’s axiom twice over: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

Well, there is enough manure of Latvians to last some time. The trouble is that while there is a “soft” tyrant in the form of a Latvian neo-capitalist partidocratic government, there is no blood of patriots, not even symbolic. Jesus and Mary are waiting to be burnt as heretics, while the pope tries to think of who other can take on the sacrifice.

The political leadership of Latvia, whether in office or hoping to come into office come October (2010) elections is talking the talk with brain contorted in a neo-Christian seizure: no more living wills, but orthodoxy to the hilt. The cramp snakes through the brain like soup made of starched strawberry jam. It is not nutritious, but it is sweet. People are pulled to it like flies to sugared flycagaric. The soup needs to be removed from the table and dumped into the garbage bucket. But who will do it?

Like the pope, the government and its ministers are thinking about it, but at this time the effort has brought no fruit. The Latvian media—the same that ought to be holding the broom that sweeps the dirt out the door and whacks the power inebriated partidocrats—is compromised by having drunk too much urine of the shamans who fly about the offices of Latvia’s ministries. Boiled juice of fly agaric is said to work wonders even after several passages through the bladder. Nepotism by intoxication is a form of political Ponzi scheme. One editor of a now defunct newspaper, filling in as an interviewer on a news show this past Friday evening, managed to ask Valdis Dombrovskis, the Latvian Prime Minister, whether it was true that he meditated. When the PM confirmed that he did, the editor enthused about his inane question by commenting how this was all to the good.

As this blogger searches through the links of the internet for Ariadnes’ silver thread to get through the labyrinth of economic bull, the following struck me as coming from the keys of one who has expertise both in forest fire fighting and economics. The writer writes: “Find a professional in wildland fire science. Speak the phrase, ‘Long periods of drought, followed by high winds.’ A sane response by a seasoned professional in that field would be, “Oh, CR*P!" That is to say, someone will light a match and the entire surround will burst into fire.

Another quote from the same link, noteworthy given the fact that the President of Latvia is a professional surgeon:

“This is like surgeons in the 1840’s strutting around, ‘Hey, we’re surgeons… and hand washing is stupid, because we’ve never heard of these things called germs!’ Surgeons continued to kill over a quarter of their patients for decades, including women delivering babies in hospitals, until the 1880’s when Pasteur extended Koch’s germ theory of disease.” Only after thousands of unnecessary deaths and Pasteur’s studies did surgeons begin to wash their hands.

Will the partidocrats and those who manipulate them learn about the real that turns the economic wheels? A solid case can be made for the tourist industry as an export business. Even so, the export is not only to bring to Riga Las Vegas gambling casinos. After the priming cap burns off, its place must be taken by a more solid fuel. Johns Grass in the countryside may be one of the attractors even for all those over seventy years old who believe that their lives have come to completion. Stem cell research that leads to cloning is the booster that puts the traveler from one civilization into another.

Is Latvia being rescued by a bailout of Swedish and Danish banks? Here is a link to some CR*P! from the president of the Bank of Latvia Ilmārs Rimšēvičs. Says Rimšēvičs: “As trust [in the Bank of Latvia] increases, there is a notable decline, still ongoing, of the percentage [we] have to pay to sell the lats. The rate has fallen from 14% three months ago, to 2.5% today.” (My translation, admittedly not verbatim.) Not a cent of IMF money goes to the Latvian people or Latvian business?

A convincing contrary view to that of the President of the Bank of Latvia can be found at  this'address. Pay special attention to the 2nd paragraph (in Latvian), which identifies Ilmārs Rimšēvičs and Einars Repše, Latvia’s minister of Finance, with Georgetown, Chicago, and Harvard schools of economics  theories. These came from the late monetarist Milton Friedman. Not surprisingly, the theorists were known as the “monetarist school”. I believe that this means that they like to spend money.

Does Latvia have a chance of ever crawling from the crater of debt? The answer, given the present leadership, is no. Of course, there will be a few exceptions, but Latvians as a community of people are slaves to banks and their paper. It is time to change tack and break through to the future by daring to think even the not-unthinkable.

Asterisk & Notes of Interest:
On material depravation in Latvia.
On the theme of “more-equal-than-others” see George Orwell's fable, "Animal Farm"
A recommended read: “The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism” by Emmanuel Goldstein (A book within a book from George Orwell's "1984").
Of great interest to me is this and like articles. It presents some of my reasons for supporting the growing of Johns Grass in Latvia.
These blogs tend to be a continuum of an idea or thought, which is why—if you are interested in what you read—you are encouraged to consider reading the previous blog and the blog hereafter.
Partial entries of my blogs may be found at LatviansOnline + Forum Home + Open Forum –ONLATVIANPOPULISM vs LATVIJASLABEJIE. If you copy this blog for your files, or copy to forward, or otherwise mention its content, please credit the author and http://esoschronicles.blogspot.com/