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Oh dear....

Tuesday, March 25, 2008


Admittedly my Bulgarian is a bit rusty, but...

Turns out there is, or rather was, a noted Ken Lee - a Chinese Australian businessman who co-founded the Oz equivalent of Dixons.

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posted by Croydonian

Bulgaria: too much culture or too little?

Friday, March 14, 2008
I pose the question, as the remarkably obscure (at least in these parts) Council of South East European Council Ministers has been meeting in Zagreb today(1), and it groups "ministers and senior officials of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Turkey".

Getting all that lot together in one room is quite an achievement, but there are two culture ministers not there - those of Kosovo and Bulgaria. In the case of Kosovo, one could imagine the government has more pressing priorities, but why no Bulgaria? Bulgaria does have a culture minister, and in contrast to the generally dreadful people who gain that office in this country, would seem to have some experience at the sharp end, Stefan Danailov being a distinguished actor. I will 'fess up to not having seen 'The Taste of Almonds', 'The Queen of Tarnavo' or even 'Three Marias and an Ivan'. His official website is hosted at geocities, which certainly smacks of economy.

Or then again, maybe Hina is not red hot on fact checking.


(1) - Link is not direct and will not last more than a day or so. That's just the way Hina.hr runs its website.

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posted by Croydonian

Free trade working wonders in Bulgaria

Sunday, April 01, 2007
"In the first two months of 2007, the interior ministry recorded a record 46 percent rise in car registrations as an additional 34,677 second-hand vehicles and 8,723 new ones joined the whirr on Bulgaria's already busy roads".

"There are 520 cars for every 1,000 residents in Sofia -- a ratio the municipal authorities expected to reach in around 2020. ....said transport expert Georgy Popchev of the Sofia-based Center for Economic Development". (Source)

And this is down to the Bulgars having access to second hand cars from richer parts of Europe.

However, whenever trade makes life better for the man and woman in the street, there is always a chorus of special pleading from previously protected trades, lobbyists, commissars, fucntionaries etc etc. And here are some elements of that chorus:

"The influx of old cars and the lack of strict technical control are sure to spark an environmental catastrophe, Stoyan Zhelev, the chairman of the Bulgarian Car Importers' Union, which deals only in new cars, told news agency AFP". (And doubtless these FIATs and Opels were up on bricks in garages in the West...)

"Customers will always run the risk of being ripped off here if the authorities do not apply stricter regulations and control, said Anastas Todorov, chairman of the Association of (used) Car Importers, which includes some 70 small and medium dealers". (Because people are stupid and cannot be trusted to spend their money as they see fit, or to tell a hawk from a handsaw)

"In Sofia, where all the major boulevards converge downtown and the pothole-filled ring road is the frequent site of accidents, traffic jams have become a part of daily life and occur at all times of the day. Parking spaces are so scarce that drivers line their cars along the sides of streets or leave them on sidewalks. 'The only solution is improving public transportation and city planning' Georgy Popchev of the Sofia-based Center for Economic Development said". (Georgy, old bean, this is called spontaneous order. The good people of Sofia, Varna, Burgas and elsewhere do not wish to be ordered onto buses etc and make rational choices based on time, speed and personal autonomy. How dare they not do what the re-badged commissars wish, eh?)

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posted by Croydonian