Hungarian Politics

[Tamas]

goddamn ROMAnians

[Neil]

goddamn ROMAnians

Maybe you shouldn't have weakened Austria so much then.

[Tamas]

There would have been a lot of stuff to cover here, but like most of the country I am becoming resigned about the whole thing. Let Hungarian Putin come! It clearly what we deserve.

However, this is worth a laugh.


One of the biggest scandals of recent months were the tobacco concessions.

A year or so ago the government declared that FOR TEH CHILDREN, selling of tobacco products would be tied to 20 years licenses, and those would be of course handed out based on the merits of the applications for them.

There were warning signs of what was to come, most notably that the Word file of the bill for this law was clearly marked as made on the computer of the owner of a big Hungarian tobacco product producer, local to the city of one of FIDESZ's leading personalities, who was, WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT, was the sponsor of the bill.
But of course this fiasco didn't slow them down.

Couple of months ago, application results have been made public. It was worse than what anyone anticipated. The list of winners is a who-is-who of local FIDESZ dignitaries and their families throughout the country, from Budapest to the smallest village. Small family business who made a living out of small shop anchored on cigarette selling will be put out of business come Monday, just so political bedfellows could get extra income.

Some journalists, at the wake of the results made quick investigations, posing as tobacco-sellers who lost, calling the winners to work out a deal. It was clearly evident that a lot of those winners were no more than strawmen, acting for bigger players.

Later on, it got even nastier. for example, almost 30 license-owners are using the same office, an office of the aforementioned tobacco-baron as their HQ. So much for "supporting family businesses".

And the examples could go on. They severly restricted the free trade of tobacco products, and ransacked established businesses and livelihoods in order to let in all their minor supporters in the reckless looting that their elite has been doing for the last 3 years.

And the reason I decided to write this, is to show the best symbol of this whol disgrace. In a village which was allocated two licenses, husband and wife won them. They probably figured out that buying or renting a business place costs money, because they decided to open the two tobacco shops like this:

[Zanza]

Fidesz is really benchmark when it comes to clientele politics.

[Tamas]

I think it is getting more and more obvious that the government-sponsored press is pushing harder and harder to switch public discourse to a topic which is at worst neutral for the government: gay rights.

pro-FIDESZ blogs, newspapers, magazines, discuss the "building pressure" of "oppression of tolerance" as something amounting to a danger on everyday lives. And altough active pro-gay activity is indeed very low in Hungary, active and loud homophobia was almost as rare until recent past. Sure you had your nazis frothing in closeted  frustration and it's not like it was a great idea to publicly display your gayness everywhere, but there was no active prosecution, and the civil union law enabled gay couples and gave basically the exact rights as marriage did.
The latter has been gone for a while now, because civil union has been made nothing but a legally empty shell, making (hetero only) marriage the only form of parntership which gives any kind of real legal weight, but all this FIDESZ-related press coverage of the gay movement is, I am telling you, will start to escalate the situation.

And I think that is exactly what they want. Let there be debates about homosexuals, instead of their countless thievery.

example:

"Heti Válasz" has been going down the drains for quite a while now, but still is trying to act as a respectable moderate-right weekly magazine. Their current cover:


it reads: "DICTATORSHIP OF TOLERANCE. New world order: how the gay movements endanger the rights of the majority"

[garbon]

Ah Tam, lucky break, otherwise I think you might have been forced into a gay relationship! And just think of the body paint and glitter?!

[Tamas]

 

UNBEARABLE OPPRESSION!

Homophobes are funny. I wish they would just be honest with themselves and go down on each other.

[garbon]

Well Hommen doesn't appear to be honest about it (i.e. they still are against gay marriage) but isn't that what they do?

[Ed Anger]

What is with the picture of vegetables under events on that pic?

[Tamas]

What is with the picture of vegetables under events on that pic?

Didn't notice that 

[garbon]

What is with the picture of vegetables under events on that pic?

Google translate says it is a conference about market opportunities for Hungarian products, in particular those made of food.

[Syt]

Szegediner Gulasch!

[Tamas]

One of our few major oligarchs, Sandor Csanyi today sold basically all of his shares in THE Hungarian bank, OTP (has branches in neighboring countries as well). As he was the owner before this sell, it is quite a thing. Stock plumetted 14%.

This happens a couple of days after the government started talking about resolving the issue of foreign currency debts, hinting at eliminating some, or maybe all, of the extra costs on debt-owers which they accumulated due to price level differences (HUF tanked compared to CHF since these CHF debts were taken).
Not only that has MORAL FUCKING HAZARD written all over it, it would mean a serious blow to all banks present in Hungary.*

*the banks had some pretty fucked up ways to maximize their extortion of the poor SOBs who didn't know better than taking up huge debts in a foreign currency, but still that doesn't justify eliminating ALL risks these folks took in exchange of having super-low interest rates.

[Tamas]

Funny how we are moving back to the old world. I just had the thought of checking the state TV's news show to see how they report this sale - their tone will let me find out if this was in accordance with Orban's plans, or it is a sign of Csanyi abandoning Orban's side.

[Tamas]

lol Hungary won the right to host the next swimming WC. Orban and the state TV are celebrating this like we will be hosting the Olympics