The 2009 Budget: Patience without Tobacco

Share:
[This text is the up-to-date version of the homonymous article published in Financial Week, 02.02.2009]

The stimulus measures for the economy have been transformed into taxation measures. The government wants an additional 1.3% of GDP from entrepreneurs and vicious persons. Imagine a family composed of a husband, a wife and two adolescent children, a family that has also to take care of two grandparents. The husband is worried about the family's financing plan, profoundly affected by the extravagant spending of his wife and by the medication costs of the two retirees. In order not to diminish the available resources and to maintain the standard of living, the head of the family decides to invest in making the energy consumption of his house more efficient  and thus reduce his utilities bills. Since he does not have money he decides to borrow from his sons who are economising in order to buy a computer and respectively a car. He promises to pay them back at the very moment they will have raised the entire sum in order to be able to buy the desired goods. He knows very well that at that moment the family will make additional savings since the first son will no longer get out as often as before, while the second one will have more chances to find a better job.

Later on the entrepreneur of the company where he is employed at announces him that he will cut his salary due to decreased savings. The head of our family realizes that he is in the impossibility both to return the money to his kids and to continue the investment. He asks his friends to help him but they are in the same situation.

This is the situation of Romania nowadays where the father is the government; the wife is the group of employees of the public sector; the grandparents - the retirees; the children - the private sector; the other families - the other states and the entrepreneur - the economic crisis.

Share:

Publicat de