“Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue.
When you see that trading is done, not by consent,
but by compulsion;
– when you see that in order to produce,
you need to obtain permission from men
who produce nothing;
– when you see that money is flowing to those who deal,
not in goods, but in favours
– when you see that men get richer
by graft and by pull than by work,
and your laws don’t protect you against them,
but protect them against you
– when you see corruption being rewarded
and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice;
– you may know that your society is doomed".
"From seeing the triumphs of nothingness;
Of seeing the thriving of dishonour;
From seeing injustice grow;
From seeing so much power,
In the hands of the bad;
A man becomes discouraged of virtue,
laughing at honour,
And becomes ashamed to be honest!"
Portugal is different
Everything is transfigured:
emigration,
which in the time of
Passos Coelho was an immense tragedy,
is now, with
António Costa,
a kind of Erasmus program,
very interesting for young people.
In 2008, Portugal started living in the greatest fantasy
of unreality
in its modern history.
With the Great Resssession affected
economies on a global scale:
Socrates decided that Portugal was an "oasis".
Everything was marvellous.
New airports, high-speed trains,
more motorways were planned.
In 2009, civil servants received
the biggest increase in salary of this century,
and Socrates won the elections.
Portugal was not Greece.
Portuguese banking was the strongest in Europe.
Suddenly, the Troika was summoned
for an international bail-out plan.
Why?, if everything was going so well?
According to Socrates,
they only came, to overthrow the socialist government.
Now with socialist, António Costa, everything is even better.
The radical communists parties, PCP and BE,
once anti-system parties, support the system.
Franscico Louçã is even an advisor.
There are no "populists".
The president of the republic is the number one fan
of the geringonça government.
The banks were saved.
Tourists have new sidewalks in Lisbon.
In the television studios,
successive waves of commentators kneel
in humble adoration before Costa's "ability."to govern.
What is missing then for total happiness?
Little, maybe two or three exterminations
(Carlos Costa, Teodora Cardoso and, of course, Passos Coelho).
In the midst of such universal harmony,
it takes a fascist to remind the people in general,
that the deficit was achieved with extraordinary
and temporary measures,
based on the highest public expenditure
and the highest tax burden of all time.
That the economy grew less than in 2015,
less than half of Spain's economy, our next door neighbour.
The public debt continues to increase alarmingly,
and without the generous ECB (European Central Bank),
no one in the world would touch it,
except at impossible interest rates.
As Pyrrhus would say, one more gibberish budget like this,
and we are lost.
Portugal is an increasing country of old people.
All the changes arouse mistrust and fear,
what can it do?
We fall into a double impasse:
in a political impasse,
because the European parties are divided,
and the government is based on
a majority that refuses reforms;
And an economic stalemate,
because the tax burden can not be reduced
risking losing ECB funding,
and the allocation of resources,
because of the danger of hurting the feelings
of the government clientele
which opinion is important to win elections.
The country is thus completely dependent on European
monetary policies.
It turns out that these policies
are being contested throughout northern Europe.
What do we have left?
Maybe if you believe that Angel Merkel will survive
and will continue to accept the deficits.
And in the end?
In the end,
we are likely to say that the rogues of the "radical right"
arranged a crisis to bring down Antonio Costa.
Because, of course, everything was going so very well.
The unreal fantasy must continue!
The socialist-communists, just rule for their clientele.
They don't care for the people, the tax-payer, the workers!
Just as long as they can be in power, they will buy votes,
by nominating as many people in State agencies,
thus reducing the unemployment rate,
but increasing the debt extraordinarily.
But the debt is NOT to be paid,
not in this generation, neither the next!!
The fantasy must continue!!
With António Costa,
the concept that the State is an impartial entity
inspired by the common good of the whole population,
came to an end.
Today, the state takes sides
with some economic groups
and serves its private interests.
Yesterday, Mário Centeno taught foreigners that today's Portugal
is no longer the Portugal of 2012.
It is not. Passos Coelho prevented the bankruptcy
caused by the socialist governance of Socrates.
In 2015, António Costa, received a country,
with a growing, robust economy,
and a state which gained international confidence,
lost during the socialist regime,
in a position to take advantage of ECB financing.
Since then,
there has been a great change in Portugal,
which can be summarized as follows:
in 2012, the state was still for everyone in Portugal;
Since the socialist-communist regime came into power in 2015,
Portugal no longer comtemplates EVERYONE:
ONLY ITS OWN CLIENTELE!!
By 2015, the parties of the present majority
have been greatly disappointed.
PCP and BE found out that not even the four years of austerity,
were enough to make them heroes and populists
like a Syriza or a Podemos.
For Costa, it was even worse:
he lost a general election,
that everyone told him would win easily
(on March 12, 2015, polls promised 36% to PS and 26% to PSD).
But as the adjustment had left many angry,
the defeated saw themselves in the majority in the parliament,
and seized power to cling to the State.
For a year, there was speculation about early elections.
But Costa and his partners do not trust the electorate.
The plan is another:
to make the state the last bunker of its illusions and greed,
with a fury that has just appeared in Guarda,
where socialists elements are asking the socialist minister's head,
because he refused to appoint socialist "boys" in crucial positions.
Costa's government is further proof that the populists are right:
it is possible to rule a country favouring one part of the population,
against the rest of that country.
According to the Public Finance Council,
public investment declined in 2016
to its lowest level in the last twenty years.
This is how the government manage to compensate
the increase in pensions and the higher civil service salaries,
so as to give the European Commission a deficit
that would justify continued ECB aid.
Everywhere, the State is now a set of stories
of cuts in "consumption",
late payments and degraded services.
The government has relentlessly quelled those who complain,
as in the case of the Aircraft Accident Prevention and Investigation Office:
the official protested, and was dismissed.
But maybe it was not even necessary.
With the traditional social activists quiet in the streets
and quiet in the TV studios,
it is possible to sacrifice the "quality of public services"
on the altar of the governmnet's clientele.
We had a social State.
With António Costa, we have a clientele State.
The social State existed to guarantee or provide certain services;
The clientele State exists to give jobs, contracts and perks,
and thus inspire political gratitude among its dependents,
in other words BUYING VOTES!!.
And the situation has never been so fertile for this maneuver,
with an aging and indebted population,
companies without capital, companies that are scared,
unions losing partners and parties losing voters.
The clientelistic State appears for them as a kind of salvation.
At least as long as the ECB continues to buy Portuguese debt.
Another thing also changed:
the fiscal and regulatory constraints of work
and investment in Portugal worsened.
But this constraint is not neutral:
it is the protection mechanism that the State maintains
in favor of certain interest groups,
which generates a cost that has to be borne by society as a whole.
This is the problem of the Portuguese economy.
In order to solve it, it would require a viable State,
inspired by the public common good,
no longer a mere protector of the State's clientele.
But this protection, is now the key to power,
in the new Portugal of António Costa and Mário Centeno.
Portugal has changed, yes
FOR THE WORSE!!
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