Posted by kovalenko on August 08, 2000 at 18:44:12:
OK. I'll try to keep it simple.
1. Say you live in the USA and make $6 an hour. You go to the BMW dealersip and try to get
a car that costs $60,000. Is there any possible way that you will be able to keep up
with payments? I don't think so. The current oil/gas situation is even worse.
It's like you went to this dealership already having a debt that is more than your yearly
income. So, if you will get the car, consider that you have it for free.
What makes the matters even worse is that you can probably survive if the car gets
repossesed by the dealership - you can walk or get a used car. Russia closes gas/oil
pipe tomorrow, this will be it for the striving Ukrainian economy.
2. Considering prohibitions to sell production to Russia. Kravchuk's government demanded
every plant that sold what was identified as "strategic materials" to Russia to
have their trading agreements with russian plants double checked by the government
bureaucrats. As a result - freight trains with production were stopped at the border
and ordered to go back. I personally know about that as I learned this "the hard way".
Most metals were identified as "strategic materials". The ban was lifted later,
however the production was severely reduced and lot of russian plants have already
found substitute suppliers.
3. Ukraine does not have serious fleet, planes are not properly maintained (I believe,
some of them were given back to Russia as a payment towards the gas/oil debt),
needless to say, no new weapons are being developed due to a lack of money.
Nuclear weapons were given back to Russia. Ukraine is defenseless.
4. Don't want to get into "separatist tendencies" discussion
(or rather "back to russia" tendencies) as it is too complicated.
Maybe later. From my personal experience however - it was extremely difficult to get
tickets to Egor Letov (Grazhdanskaja Oborona) concert in Kiev last year. He calls
himself "soviet nationalist". He is very popular among young working people in Ukraine.
Somebody already wrote here about Chornovil having tomatoes thrown at him in Crimea.
Just a food for thought.
I am not saying any of this is good. Just being realistic. Problems have to be identified
before they can be dealt with. Just sitting and thinking "everything is gonna be OK" or
"hey, we are not THE WORST" or calling anybody who doesn't agree with what is going on
a "russian nationalist" does not solve anything.
5. Again, being a source of cheap labor force
is a "trampoline" that young economies use to get some competetive advantage
on the market. Ukraine has everything it needs to attract foreign investors -
a lot of well-educated people eager to find a decent job, plants looking to
change the profile of their production, relatively stable political situation
(much more stable then in Russia, for example). If, for example, BMW rebuilds
the Kommunar Plant (ZAZ) and starts building some cars there, they will be able
to sell them much cheaper then if the cars were assembled in Germany.
They will also give workers a higher salary compared to what they are making right now.
Both sides win.
Huge problem that prevents all this from happening is the bureaucracy and corruption.
From Yanko's and Andrew's responses it sounds like they would rather prefer to close the
plant down than let somebody use it.