[PEN-L:4233] Re: Slovakia and the Czech Republic

[Dennis R Redmond <dredmond@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 7 Mar 1999, Peter Dorman wrote:

> The Czech Republic, on the other hand, is a disaster zone.
> Pseudo-privatization has given the cronyklatura a corrupt grip on
> enterprises, few of which have even begun to transform themselves.

Well... not quite. The Czech Republic also had one of the lowest
unemployment rates in the former COMECON zone for awhile, is extremely
rich compared to Poland and Slovakia (per cap GDP of maybe $6000, compared
to $2000-3000 elsewhere), and has a fair amount of nascent social
democracy bubbling about it -- the unions are still fairly strong there.
You have all the ingredients for a Finnish-style success story, the main
problem is the EU has been dragging its feet on funding its Eastern
peripheries.

-- Dennis