Western media claim that Orban's election was not democratic because it allowed mail-in ballots without verifying the identity of the voters. I'm not kidding. I laughed harder than I have laughed in months when I first saw this reported. If this is a legit argument, then Joe Biden and the Democrats stole the 2020 election and are not legitimately in power.
Hungary’s opposition demanded that all mail-in ballots be ignored in Sunday’s high-stakes general election after batches of them were reportedly found burned and dumped in a field in neighboring Romania.
The purported ballots were found near the city of Targu Mures, Romania, which has a large ethnic Hungarian community, local news website punctul.ro reported on Thursday. It also published a video showing what appeared to be ballots filled with votes for the opposition. Romanian police said they had launched an investigation after discovering unsealed envelopes containing ballots in a field.
The Hungarian opposition alliance of six political parties, which is running close behind Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party in polls, asked that “all mail-in ballots from abroad be eliminated,” according to a post on Facebook. Fidesz, for its part, alleged that the opposition had burned the ballots, without offering evidence.
The opposition has complained for years that mail-in ballots can be manipulated. The inclusion of mail-in ballots were part of several rounds of sweeping changes to the election system under Orban, including gerrymandering, that critics say have put his Fidesz party at an advantage over its opponents.
Orban rules Hungary the way the Baizuo ruling class runs the USA. They changed election laws in 2020 to defeat Trump. Period. That was the intent and it produced the intended result.
There is no opposition in the USA. If a populist right-winger who understands Orban's ascent and rule emerges, who can appeal to enough disaffected left-wing and moderate voters, who builds the proper network of volunteers and future bureaucrats (pro tip: there are lost of people homeschooling these days and their 16-18yo children run circles around college graduates) he will not be stopped. The ruling class will become powerless overnight the same way the Soviet regime was powerless in the early 1990s. In the Empire of Lies, the Man who serves Truth becomes King.
Rod Dreher covers Orban's win in Hungary. This was a shock election event to Orban's Fidesz party who expected a close result. Instead, the opposition was blown out.
It’s always the same with these people: it’s only “democracy” when people vote the way they want them to. People did “go vote” — and they returned Orban and his Fidesz party to power by margins that even Fidesz did not expect (trust me on this — I was there last night at Fidesz HQ, talking to people as the numbers came in).
Briefly put, this mayor of a small town has lost his own election & his grand coalition opposing FIDESZ has collapsed at the polls. Already, liberals are claiming the election was stolen… It’s not democracy, if the wrong people win, in short. Now, back to this small-time politician who’s popular online & in the capital, Budapest, but a complete bust in the rest of the country. He’s a Catholic, married, with seven children—also, he’s pro-LGBT & wants to introduce gay marriage into Hungary. A man of contradictions, to be sure, but also a good show of how our progressive liberalism corrupts souls & threatens the ruin of countries.
The problem with Hungarians, according to US and European elites, is that they are Europeans who want to be European, but who don’t want to be progressives. This is one form of diversity that liberals never, ever tolerate. In fact, same-sex couples in Hungary can have civil unions, but they can’t call it marriage. Moreover, Marki-Zay, whom the Western media loved to call a conservative Catholic with seven children, opposed the law forbidding the teaching of transgender ideology and the like to schoolchildren. Did you see any of that in the Western media’s reporting on Hungary and its election?
For context, that law was defeated by at least 92 percent to 8 percent last I saw of the vote count.
Last week, the US president’s administration posted policy guidelines stating its view on what “gender-affirming care” for young people, including hormones and surgeries, and saying explicitly that child welfare authorities need to be thinking “potentially to the extent of removing children from their families and homes” for hormones and surgeries. If you don’t believe me, read this. It’s all there.
You tell me: would you rather live in a society governed by Viktor Orban, or Joe Biden, who once called Orban a “thug”? Because if we on the Right don’t get an American version of Orban soon, it’s going to be Bidens (including Republican Bidens like Larry Hogan) all the way down to the society’s dissolution.
Orban faced a more organized opposition campaign than in previous polls, but his Fidesz party nonetheless won comfortably across much of the country. Opposition leader Peter Marki-Zay even failed to win in his own district, where he had served as mayor.
"We have such a victory it can be seen from the moon, but it's sure that it can be seen from Brussels," Orban said in his speech on Sunday night, making light of his government's long-running tensions with EU leaders.
"We will remember this victory until the end of our lives because we had to fight against a huge amount of opponents," Orban said, citing a number of his political enemies including the Hungarian left, "bureaucrats" in Brussels, the international media, "and the Ukrainian president too -- we never had so many opponents at the same time."
The results indicate that Fidesz will hold 135 seats in Hungary's 199-seat parliament, meaning Orban would retain a two-thirds majority that will allow him to enact further changes to Hungary's constitution.
The far-right, anti-vaccine party Our Homeland also made it to Parliament, winning seven seats in a strong showing.
The least discussed aspect of Hungary's success is the takeover of state media. Orban threw out the leftists in state media and replaced them with rightists, and the result is a generation of political dominance.
Politics is manufactured. The "right" in most of the West is leftist, or "cucked" by liberal ideas. Orban sees reality clearly. Most people are NPCs programmed by the media. Change media programming from globalist/leftist to nationalist/rightist and candidates and the entire culture can do a 180 degree flip. When you understand this, then all the panic over the Internet and censorship makes sense. Power isn't distributed via open debate, it is held by undemocratic control over information. To win, one must take control.
In this narrow sense of strategic and tactical use of power, Hungary under Orban is "rightly" targeted for destruction by the globalist ruling class. Orban shows how they can be erased from power. One can say their tactics are good or bad, but in an amoral sense of wielding power, they have correctly identified a grave threat. That they resort to lies and bullying shows their ability to debate has completely atrophied under their rule. They are scared of Orban because he is accruing power. The balance of power is shifting. In this context, the panic over Trump also makes sense. Imagine an American President who understands what I have written here decided he would translate Orban's success in Hungary into the United States. The result would be the current ruling class collapses faster than the Soviet Union.
Eastern Europe, including East Germany, are on a different political trajectory from Western Europe. The West is turning nationalist on migration, but the East has a full program. Today's move by the, Putin puppets in Europe?, makes a formal break by censuring Hungary for being against "European values."
On Wednesday members of European Parliament voted on the move as a result of what EU lawmakers say is a breach of the European bloc's values and laws and eroding democratic standards, and amidst accusations Hungary is now an "autocracy". The rebuke was passed by 448 votes to 197.
Meanwhile Orban bit back ahead of the EU censure vote, saying before Parliament the planned move “insults the honor of the Hungarian nation” and was “a slap in the face”; and the controversial prime minister further cast the whole charade is an attempt to "blackmail" Hungary into bowing to EU pressures to soften its hard line stance on the migrant issue.
From the outside, it looks like Orban destroyed communist influence in his country. Much of his policies were designed to eradicate communist influences. Many communists stayed on in government and various government institutions. Orban removed them.
The socialist-leaning mainstream in Europe is rightly shocked at how effective he's been at wiping them out and leaving very little trace. Their power base is in state media, courts and schools, and once flushed out, the Eastern European public does not want many leftist policies. If they can manufacture consent and control the terms of debate they can win because it creates a false choice, but in a free-for-all, they lose. Hence in the United States, the censorship on social media. They do not want a level playing field where all ideas compete. Those who scream loudest about democracy are often the most undemocratic of all.
Before the chart, a rehash of some ideas discussed here previously.
First, negative social mood makes the public displeased with whichever party is in charge. Where the right rules, left wins and vice versa.
Second, if the current decline in social mood is an order of magnitude larger, than political change could be an order of magnitude larger as well. The left controls every developed country in the world, has a near lock on the media and universities. A recent outlier being Hungary, where the right-wing government made a sweep through the judiciary and the media.
Third, the ruling parties are moving in the opposite direction, pushing more extreme versions of peak mood policies. The key issue remains immigration/nationalism. The public turned against immigration more than a decade ago and there was political backlash in some countries, with anti-immigrant parties emerging and rising in the polls. Anti-euro and anti-EU parties emerged in Europe as well. The media push a pro-immigration narrative and with the migrant crisis, the political establishment did as well. The public also began turning against the euro and EU, and the ruling classes pushed ever harder, overturning democratic elections in several countries.
Fourth, the new axis of political debate is identity and community.
Fifth, in addition to breaking in the opposite direction from the public, the main opposition parties have revealed there is only one relatively unified political establishment. As Orwell put it, there is an Inner Party and an Outer Party. The Outer Parties are taking off their mask and showing themselves to be Inner Party too. Sweden Democrats were excluded from the government despite being the largest party. In the U.S., the term cuckservative has arisen to describe conservatives who agree with the left on the key issues of identity and community. There are rumors the GOP establishment prefers Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump. An alliance against the National Front is no longer a rumor or subject of a book like Submission; it is being openly discussed in France.
I've said that whoever picks up the immigration issue will run to victory because they will have the public support and zero political opposition. In fact, the establishment will fight them so hard that they will create a binary political situation. Instead of shifting to the right to maintain power (the Pareto optimal, robust position) the ruling class is moving into a fragile position that increases the likelihood and size of potential losses. Sweden Democrats are iced out of government, a big loss for them in terms of political power, but if the people want to throw out the government, now they have one option only: Sweden Democrats or perhaps a still non-existent far right party. If the GOP establishment does support Hillary Clinton, the argument that America has only one political party will be an observable fact. In France, if the left and right team up to defeat the National Front, voters will have the same choice going forward.
The political opposition is anti-fragile. If there is a major terror attack, if there is a major economic dislocation, if there is an unpopular war, then the opposition can go from obscurity to total political power in one election cycle. Donald Trump stated this inarticulately yesterday.
"I'm gonna get people jobs and I'm going to protect people. And that's why whenever there's a tragedy, everything goes up, my numbers go way up because we have no strength in this country, we have weak, sad politicians," the billionaire businessman told the network.
Trumps's sin was to publicly state an unspoken truth. When things go badly, people turn to the opposition. As the opposition narrows, people will turn to whatever option they have.
To summarize. The electorate increasingly wants a major change and it may desire a multi-generational political realignment. The ruling class responds by circling the wagons. This keeps outsiders from gaining political power, but by doing so, it increases the need/desire to throw out the entire political class.
Now, this reality has come to Germany. This chart below shows where voters place the various political parties on the political spectrum. Notice the Free Democrats and Merkel's CDU drift so far to the left that they are now considered left-wing parties.
The CSU has probably drifted left due to association with CDU, but as a regional party it wouldn't have national reach as a separate party. If voters want to make a change, they have to push farther to the right. The National Democratic Party is now closer to power and will only rise in stature if current events and social mood remain on their present course. Additionally, Hungary and Poland have taken hard right turns and Eastern European nations defend their new found nations sovereignty with more intensity that Western Europe. Common wisdom is that Germany will not move hard right like France because of WWII, but in fact, due to reuniting with East Germany, the nation is more likely to move to the right.
Immigration has clearly been the key political issue for some time and the evidence is now overwhelming. There's still an opportunity to run on the issue though, because most politicians are running on extreme pro-immigration policies. This is like being anti-war in 1943 and one must assume they truly want whatever mass immigration is bringing their nation if they refuse to win massive landslide victories.
UKIP's reason for existence was to get the United Kingdom out of the EU. There are many issues that fall under the control of Brussels, such as economic regulations, but the big issue that voters wanted to hear about was immigration. UKIP realized immigration was the big issue and it focused on that issue, turning it into a shock electoral victory.
The media and politicians have such intense ideological blinders that they cannot see this. When UKIP brought up the immigration issue it was like a red flag and they were attacked as bigots, a menace, etc. The truth is immigration was really an accidental issue, the party was pushing a referendum on EU membership, but found that one subset of the issue, control over national borders and immigration, was very popular. It rode the issue to victory in EU elections and did well in the national election.
Now in Germany, we see a repeat. The wikipedia clearly explains Alternative For Germany's reason for existence:
In September 2012, Alexander Gauland, a former federal minister Bernd Lucke, an economist and Konrad Adam, a former editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from 1979 to 2000 and chief correspondent of Die Welt until 2008, founded the political group Electoral Alternative 2013 (German: Wahlalternative 2013) in Bad Nauheim, to oppose German federal policies concerning the eurozone crisis. Their manifesto was endorsed by 68 economists, journalists, and business leaders, half of whom were professors and three-quarters of whom had academic degrees.[14] The group stated that the eurozone had proven to be "unsuitable" as a currency area and that southern European states were "sinking into poverty under the competitive pressure of the euro".[15]
Even so, the Alternative for Germany party, which wants to curb immigration, gained for the second consecutive week, polling 10.5 percent.
...Alternative for Germany, known as AfD, polled 3 percent in the INSA survey as recently as August...
This is not surprising. Identity and culture are now the most important issues in politics, not economics. The new left-right axis runs international to national. Old allies now fall on either side of the spectrum: there are libertarians who qualify as far left lunatic open borders extremists as well as far right lunatic deport-them-all extremists. The question is one of identity: the international libertarians do not believe in borders, the nationalist libertarians do.
The surprising thing is that politicians, who should want to win elections, refuse to budge on the issue. As I have written here many times, the immigration policies in the U.S. are still peak social mood policies that belong to the year 2000, not the current year. Europe actually started shifting right on the issue in the 2000s and accelerated after 2008, and yet Merkel is pushing what can only be described as an insane policy in light of social mood. It is strange to watch the political leaders and business elite commit mass political suicide due to ideological zealotry and greed.
Finally, there is the example in the United States. Donald Trump made a throwaway line about rapists in speaking about illegal immigration and the media took the bait. He recently hit 42% in a Reuters national poll. Unless he makes a major mistake, he will not only win the Republican nomination, but the White House as well, very likely in a landslide with a mandate and control of both houses of Congress.
Immigration and nationalism were third rail political issues. The national media and politicians suppressed these issues even though there is majority support for immigration restriction, as an example. The numbers rose and rose as social mood trended lower, creating a situation where anyone could walk in and win total political control by advocating for the issue. On top of that, however, most of the ruling politicians aren't even trying to win on the issue, they're pushing even harder in the other direction.
From the first link above:
Most members of religious denominations do not feel that illegal immigration is caused by limits on legal immigration, as many religious leaders do; instead, members feel it’s due to a lack of enforcement.
Catholics: Just 11 percent said illegal immigration was caused by not letting in enough legal immigrants; 78 percent said it was caused by inadequate enforcement efforts.
Mainline Protestants: 18 percent said not enough legal immigration; 78 percent said inadequate
enforcement.
Born-Again Protestants: 9 percent said not enough legal immigration; 85 percent said inadequate enforcement.
Jews: 21 percent said not enough legal immigration; 60 percent said inadequate enforcement.
Unlike religious leaders who argue that more unskilled immigrant workers are needed, most members think there are plenty of Americans to do such work.
Catholics: 12 percent said legal immigration should be increased to fill such jobs; 69 percent said there are plenty of Americans available to do such jobs, employers just need to pay more.
Mainline Protestants: 10 percent said increase immigration; 73 percent said plenty of Americans available.
Born-Again Protestants: 7 percent said increase immigration; 75 percent said plenty of Americans available.
Jews: 16 percent said increase immigration; 61 percent said plenty of Americans available.
When asked to choose between enforcement that would cause illegal immigrants to go home over time or a conditional pathway to citizenship, most members of religious communities choose enforcement.
Catholics: 64 percent support enforcement to encourage illegals to go home; 23 percent support conditional legalization.
Mainline Protestants: 64 percent support enforcement; 24 percent support conditional legalization.
Born-Again Protestants: 76 percent support enforcement; 12 percent support conditional
legalization.
Jews: 43 percent support enforcement; 40 percent support conditional legalization.
In contrast to many religious leaders, most members think immigration is too high.
Catholics: 69 percent said immigration is too high; 4 percent said too low; 14 percent just right.
Mainline Protestants: 72 percent said it is too high; 2 percent said too low; 11 percent just right.
Born-Again Protestants: 78 percent said it is too high; 3 percent said too low; 9 percent just right.
Jews: 50 percent said it is too high; 5 percent said is too low; 22 percent just right.
This is what the public believes and most of the information they receive from the media are lies. Crime data on illegal immigration isn't collected by the government or is horribly distorted, and welfare use is suppressed.
The Center for Immigration Studies has conducted an independently verified study of welfare use by immigrants, legal and illegal, and the numbers are eye popping. Not only is welfare use far higher among immigrants, but welfare use rises over time, likely because they are better able to navigate the welfare state. The most shocking number is the 91% welfare use by Hispanic immigrants with one or more child.
The welfare numbers do not include other social costs, such as schooling and policing due to higher crime rates. Nope, crime statistics don't hold up either. After Trump made his explosion on the scene this summer, there were claims that illegal immigrants commit less crime than natives.
Piquero and Bersani's joint study, "Comparing Patterns and Predictors of Immigrant Offending Among a Sample of Adjudicated Youth," used as its base group "adolescents who were found guilty of a serious offense."
Yes, the mainstream media widely blasted a story based on a study that found among the subgroup of youth criminals who commit serious crimes, illegal immigrant youths committed crimes at a lower rate. This was then reported as illegal immigrants commit less crime overall. This is what passes for information from the pro-immigration side. Goebbels would be proud.
The anti-immigration candidate can look forward to 50-60% popular support in most countries as a baseline before he begins an information campaign. Political enemies will respond by running harder in the opposite direction. Social mood is headed in a direction that favors nationalist policies. If the candidate can make a breakthrough with the public, immigration will carry the candidate and the party to landslide victory so complete that the only thing stopping the winners will be themselves. In a conservatively designed government such as the U.S., change is more gradual and less volatile by design. In parliamentary European governments, volatility will be more extreme and it will come both from parties on both the traditional right and left even within a country. The extreme left and right in Greece are bitter enemies, but line up on issues of sovereignty. Understanding this will help make sense of what unfolds in the coming elections.
For the past several years, I have been expecting a breakup in the European Union. It appeared the catalyst would be rising nationalism at the national level, which pan-European officials constantly fought. Instead of embracing the shift in mood and pursing a different political path (as a flexible political system would), EU officials revealed their ideological and class preferences. Nationalist political parties were both rising in public favor and on a collision course with the EU. To predict a poor outcome for the EU was not a stretch.
As far back as 2012, France of all countries was threatening to pull out of the Schengen Agreement if external border controls were not tightened. Tightening external borders would be a way to allow nationalist sentiment to express itself through a pan-European outlet. Instead, the opposite happened. In 2015, the German government nuked Schengen and has set off the unraveling of the EU project. The German government itself has been forced to put up border controls due to its own disastrous policy on migrants.
"We need to have a stricter control here in general, because we have established in the past few days that there are many en route here that are not really refugees," Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann told radio station Bayern 2.
...A spokesman for German police on the border with Austria said they had arrested around 30 smugglers and about 90 migrants since the controls had been introduced.
Meanwhile, train lines between Austria and Germany reopened on Monday morning apart from one line to Munich, which was still closed because of people on the track, a spokeswoman for Austrian rail company OeBB said.
The 3,800 troops descended on Hungary's border with Serbia this morning to provide live border guards.
Prisonsers have been drafted in to build 10km of fencing every day.
Tough new powers have been issued by the Hungarian government to deal with the growing migrant crisis amid fears the country could be hit by terror attacks linked to the influx of refugees.
...That will assist the police who will also be given new rights to fight people smugglers including entering homes without official authority and collecting information from abroad.
This is only the beginning and Hungary has already given police the power to enter homes without authority. In Hungary, Orban is a centrist politician, too far to the right for the likes of the left-wing European establishment, but far from the far right Jobbik party. If the migrant flows continue and the governments of Europe continue to act against the interests of the public, eventually the extreme right will return to power, their path smoothed and cleared by far left politicians trying to commit national suicide.
While rallies welcoming refugees took place in Western Europe, demonstrations opposing their presence took place in some Eastern European cities. About 5,000 people chanting anti-Islamic slogans marched in the Polish capital Warsaw, according to the BBC, while in Prague, about 800 protesters carried banners reading "I do not want refugees and Islam in Czech Republic" and "Protect the borders."
...Eastern European countries, unlike their western counterparts, are largely ethnically and religiously homogenous, and have little experience in integrating migrants from other cultural and ethnic backgrounds into their societies. Poland, for example, is 98 percent white and 94 percent Catholic.
“The countries that have very little diversity are some of the most virulently against refugees,” said Andrew Stroehlein, European media director for Human Rights Watch, told the New York Times.
Except France and Germany have no experience. France and Germany have not integrated Muslim immigrants for decades and when the numbers are large enough, even the United States and United Kingdom fail at assimilation.
The crisis in Greece has always been at heart a political crisis. Greece appears to have finally reached the endgame when it comes to the debt, but the next step is unknown. Will the EU come together and work with Greece post default, or is an even greater political breakup already developing?
The European Central Bank's governing council is expected to turn off Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) for Greek banks at its meeting later today, according to well-placed sources.
So unless Greek savers miraculously decide to cease withdrawing cash from their accounts, Greek banks would find themselves in serious straits as soon as Monday - because the banks have become dependent on ELA, approved by the ECB but supplied by the Bank of Greece, to provide the cash to depositors who want their money back.
"We think the Greek government will have no choice but to announce a bank holiday on Monday, pending the introduction of capital controls," said a source.
Greek banks and the stock exchange will be shut tomorrow after creditors refused to extend the country's bailout and savers queued to withdraw cash, taking Athens' standoff with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to a dangerous new level.
Not unrelated to the collapse of political consensus is the increasingly nationalist East.
At least 140 people have been arrested in Slovakia’s capital, where thousands gathered for an anti-immigration and anti-Islamization rally, according to local media reports. The march turned violent as protesters scuffled with police.
The march was organized by the Alternativna cesta group via Facebook. It was called to protest against Brussels’ proposal to tackle the influx of migrants to the EU by imposing compulsory national quotas that require EU countries to accept a specific number of new migrants, most of whom arrived in Italy or Greece.
Hungary will build a temporary fence on the border with Serbia as fast as possible to stop the flow of illegal migrants, the foreign minister said.
Austria, meanwhile, reacted angrily to Hungary's announcement that, for an indefinite period, it would not take back refugees it registered when they entered Hungary but left for other destinations in Europe before their asylum requests were decided.
Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said several laws needed to be amended before construction of the fence could begin so he could not say exactly when the work on the "temporary border seal" could start.
"In the future, we will apply temporary border seals on every border section where there is no other effective way to impede illegal immigration," Szijjarto said, adding that the government had set aside 6.5 billion forints (20.9 million euros) for the project.
On Tuesday, Hungary moved to unilaterally suspended EU asylum rules requiring the country to take back refugees who have transited through the country. There are precedents. The Berlusconi government had a “see no evil, hear no evil” policy during the Libyan crisis in 2011, refusing to enforce the Dublin Regulations requiring asylum seekers to seek refuge in the first country they set foot. Italy in effect allowed for their travel to France. However, this is the, so called, Dublin Regulation, but this is the first time this is happening openly.
Brussels called for clarification. The Hungarian government’s response is that the asylum system in the country is “the most overburdened among EU member states” dealing with 60.000 people the first half of 2015. The Commission spokesman noted that “Dublin rules do not foresee the suspension of transfers by the receiving member states,” but it will be hard to take any action to streamline the Hungarian government. On the one hand, an extreme response would call into question the impartiality of the Commission and make the practical management of the crisis difficult. On the other hand, a number of member states have increasingly anti-immigration rhetoric and Prime Minister Victor Orban is likely to find ample support for his decision.
Orban begins by drawing a clear line between Hungary and much of Western Europe:
The Honourable Chair has mentioned wiseacre analysts who take the view that the concept of a civic Hungary (i.e. one based on Christian-democratic, conservative principles) is merely a political product, and that this has somewhat shaken the faith of the members of our political community. I understand the concerns, but I hope for more self-confidence from Reformed Church pastors, let alone ministers. For our flag is flying high; everyone can see that. Everyone can see that we are a people’s party community, based on Christian-democratic foundations – the ideal, guiding star of which is a civic Hungary. I do not think that this would change in the next hundred years. The Honourable Chair also mentioned that national and Christian-based governance is – if I am quoting him correctly – not a political issue but a personal affair. It bears no relation to position, title, advantage or power. It is good to remind ourselves of this when we are in government. This is a key issue. The key issue of our governance. We could, of course, always observe by way of introduction, that we are human, too. We are no saints, though we should aim for nothing less; this is something that members of the Reformed Church should also consider. We have our own interests, our affections, and of course, our biases. The work we do is far from perfect, even if that is what we should strive for. But notwithstanding our frailties and imperfections, there is one regard in which we cannot go wrong: neither individual ambitions, nor individual or group values may take precedence over the interests and service of the nation. This is more than mere respect for the law, stronger than the oath you take on the Fundamental Law. As the Honourable Chair said, this is a personal matter, a matter of integrity, and is, at the same time, the very political foundation of Christian-democratic politics. I should mention here a piece of political advice that should be important for all Christian-democratic politicians. “Do not concern yourselves with whether God is on our side, but concern yourselves with whether you are on God’s side.” I wish us all good luck in this!
He goes on to assess the problems facing Europe today:
Twenty-five years after the miracle of 1990, we can hear the sound of gunfire in the eastern half of Europe. In its southern part, harsh economic bailout packages are leading to increasing anarchy and opposition to the European Union, with the emergence of a range of alarming extremist parties. Terrorist organizations recruit fighters to join their ranks from among immigrants living in the continent’s western part, while the southern borders of the EU – including our own state’s borders – are besieged by waves of modern-day migration, in the face of which increasingly frustrated states and governments are at a loss. And this is happening in an economic environment in which millions of Western European citizens feel that they have to work ever more for less money, just to keep their jobs. Europe is facing questions which can no longer be answered within the framework of liberal multiculturalism. Can we shelter people, many of whom are unwilling to accept European culture, or who come here with the intent of destroying European culture? How did we lose and how can we regain the common European homeland to which every nation of the Union – including the Greeks and the Germans – can say “yes”? Can we prevent the return of the spirit of the Cold War, and the prospect of a Russia, excluded from Europe, as our enemy once again? And can we Hungarians stand up at one and the same time for the independence of Ukraine, the security of the Hungarians of Transcarpathia, Hungary’s energy security and its economic interests?
On Thursday morning, the franc shot up to over PLN 5.19, the highest exchange rate of the two currencies in history. By the afternoon, the rate had settled at around PLN 4.23, however.
The market response was caused by the Swiss National Bank, which discontinued its minimum exchange rate to the euro, which was at CHF 1.20.
The Swiss National Bank’s unexpected decision to scrap its minimum exchange rate will elevate the cost of paying off loans, including mortgages, in francs. Poles and individuals in countries such as Hungary and Romania borrowed francs in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis because the interest rates were cheaper, only to get stuck with higher financing costs as price swings accelerated.
“This will be a painful year for Polish households with Swiss franc loans,” Piotr Matys, an emerging-markets foreign-exchange strategist at Rabobank International in London, said by e-mail. The zloty’s weakening “might fuel concerns about financial stability in Poland,” he said.
"While there won't be many people who have newly taken on such mortgages, there will still be some who hold that debt," he said. "Following falls today, these loans will be 12pc more expensive."
Swiss franc denominated mortgages are held by property investors across the world with many Chinese, Middle Eastern and Russian buyers parking money in Switzerland to purchase a second homes in luxury destinations such as Monaco.
Hungary may be insulated. One reason why the Fidesz party has been popular is that it sided with Hungarian borrowers against foreign banks.
The forint weakened as implications of the government's plan to convert foreign-currency loans into forints at below-market rates sunk in, said Peter Attard Montalto, economist at Nomura.
"The market's finally waking up to the fact that the government is doing this, regardless of what the banks think," he said.
Hungary already got ahead of the curve last year by fixing exchange rates for many borrowers who had taken out mortgages in Swiss francs to capitalize on low interest rates, only to lose out when the franc surged during the financial crisis.
The banks that issued those loans had to pick up the bill for fixing the rates, but a Hungarian market source said they were safe too because they had already converted their Swiss francs into forints last year and closed their positions.
"God is with us," the market source said, when asked about the timing of the conversion.
Media coverage on Hungary is close to useless. Since Hungary's Fidesz-led government is decidedly nationalist and right-wing, it is the enemy of the EU and the elites of Europe. The opposition to the ruling party comes from the actual far right in the form of the Jobbik party, which is not playing the obscure bogeyman role it fulfills in most countries, but is actually on the verge of becoming the second largest party. Hungary's political center has shifted greatly to the right and it may be semi-permanent in the short-term and even permanent in the long-term if a major cyclical shift in politics is underway. Certainly, Fidesz is capturing the move towards identity and community as described by Mr. Farage in the UK, himself a bogeyman to many on the left despite his decidedly liberal opinions.
Here's the latest coverage of the country as the government looks set to score major wins in local elections. The Economist writes: Orban the Unstoppable
Next month’s local elections will consolidate Mr Orban’s grip on power. The once mighty left has splintered into three parties, none of which poses a serious challenge to his ruling right-wing Fidesz party. Instead, disillusioned Fidesz supporters are moving farther right. Polls show Jobbik, a nationalist party, neck-and-neck with the Socialists.
What is Fidesz doing to earn themselves the ire of the West?
Mr Orban swept to power with a two-thirds majority in April 2010, a feat repeated four years later, in part thanks to Fidesz-friendly adjustments of campaign rules and biased media coverage, according to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
So Mr. Orban is like Barack Obama.
Mr Orban’s centralisation of power has drawn protests from the European Union, America’s State Department and human-rights groups. Corruption has worsened, says Transparency International, a watchdog. More than a third of the population live at or below the poverty line.
So Mr. Orban is like Barack Obama.
The situation of the Roma, the largest minority in the country, remains as parlous as ever. In Miskolc a slum-clearance programme has made many homeless.
All over the world there are sympathetic minorities persecuted by governments; the Roma are probably the least sympathetic for a number of reasons. Orban's Roma-related policies would probably win solid majorities in Italy and other European countries.
Mr Orban outlined his longer-term vision in a much-noted speech on July 26th in Baile Tusnade, in neighbouring Romania. Hungary, he explained, would become an “illiberal state”. Speaking admiringly of Russia, China and Turkey, he said Hungary would remain a democracy, and not reject liberal principles such as freedom of speech, but would be based on “a different, special, national approach”. The approach, say critics, was evident earlier this month when police raided the Budapest office of Okotars, an NGO that manages funds from Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein, and confiscated computers and documents for alleged financial mismanagement. Okotars strongly denies the charge. The police raid was “completely unacceptable”, thundered Vidar Helgesen, Norway’s minister for Europe.
NGOs are a tool used by intelligence agencies to push political agendas across national borders. Putin in Russia kicked out NGOs, China bans them, and now Hungary moved against one. What is Okotars? The Hungarian Environmental Partnership Foundation. Does Okotars represent the views of the Hungarian people or the views of its paymasters in Norway and Iceland?
The opposition E-PM party said the raid was part of a politically motivated procedure and accused the government of “Putinist methods” and trying to intimidate civil organisations, which “defend what is left of Hungarian democracy”.
The leftist Democratic Coalition (DK) called on the government to stop its “attacks” on the civil society. Csaba Molnar, managing deputy head of the party, referred to “intimidation by police” and called it unacceptable that the government should “send riot police against a civil group which performs social functions the government is not capable of”.
According to the Socialist Party, the police did not have the legal grounds to occupy the foundation’s headquarters. Gergely Barandy, Socialist deputy chair of parliament’s legislative committee, said that Monday’s crackdown, which he said was evocative of a police state, could “terrify the entire civil sector”. Prime Minister Viktor Orban must not “consider Putin’s illiberal autocracy as an example”.
The battle against NGOs is a major fault-line in the right-left battle. Nationalists favor the policies of the nation, the native people and their national government. Socialists are internationalists who do not believe in national governments. They carry out political operations across political borders through organizations such as NGOs.
Should foreign governments be able to fund political organizations and support their own political agendas? Or should politics be the province of the nation?
Back to the Economist article:
Whereas most EU leaders have scaled down their criticism of Mr Orban’s illiberal ways, the Americans are stepping theirs up. Bill Clinton, a former American president, told a talk-show host on the Daily Show, a current-affairs programme, that Mr Orban was an admirer of “authoritarian capitalism” and never wanted to leave power. “Usually those guys just want to stay forever and make money,” Mr Clinton added.
So Orban is like Bill Clinton.
A few days later, Barack Obama, America’s president, took Hungary to task in a speech at the Clinton foundation, noting that “from Hungary to Egypt, endless regulations and overt intimidation increasingly target civil society”.
So Mr. Orban is like Barack Obama. (President Obama used the IRS, America's revenue department, to harass political opponents.)
In Finland, the True Finns are slated to pick up seats. One candidate slated to win big is Jussi Halla-aho:
On 27 March 2009, the Helsinki District Court ordered Halla-aho to trial on charges of ethnic agitation as well as breach of the sanctity of religion. The charges arose after Halla-aho posted remarks related to the sentencing of Seppo Lehto on his blog Scripta. In the course of the remarks, Halla-aho said the prophet Muhammad was a paedophile, and Islam is a religion of paedophilia, because Muhammad had intercourse with his 9-year-old wife and according to Sunnah, Mohammed's life is exemplary in every way. He also asked if it could be stated that robbing passersby and living on taxpayers' expense are cultural and possibly genetic characteristics of Somalis. This was stated in sarcastic response to a Finnish columnist who wrote that drinking excessively and fighting when drunk were cultural and possibly genetic characteristics of Finns.[31][32]
On 8 September 2009, the District Court convicted Halla-aho of disturbing religious worship, and ordered him to pay a fine of 330 euros.[33] The charge of ethnic agitation was dismissed. In October 2010 the Court of Appeal agreed with the District Court's conviction.[34] Both the prosecutor and Halla-aho appealed the case to the Supreme Court.[35] The Supreme Court granted a leave to appeal in May 2011.[36] In a sentence given on the 8 of June 2012, the Supreme Court found Halla-aho guilty of both disturbing religious worship and ethnic agitation and increased his fines accordingly.[37]
A Polish political party whose leader has called for the restoration of Poland's monarchy, an end to universal suffrage and for the European Commission building in Brussels to be converted into a brothel is on the verge of winning seats in the European parliament.
Polls ahead of this month's European elections have put the New Right Party, led by Janusz Korwin-Mikke, on six per cent, which might be enough to secure it seven seats.
Regarded as a flamboyant eccentric, Mr Korwin-Mikke's radical views have long confined him to the far fringes of Polish politics, and his party holds no seats in the national parliament.
But it looks as if he has now tapped into a pool of anti-European sentiment in Poland that has been bolstered by an increasing number of young voters who have grown weary of the traditional order, and want an extreme alternative.
On the other hand, the Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS) party and other rightist parties see the current situation as a test for Western Europe that will give Poland an answer as to whether the allies’ obligations are to be fulfilled. The Polish right’s general conclusion is that only close cooperation between the Central and Eastern European countries, as presented by the late Polish president Lech Kaczyński, can save the region from Russian imperialism. The governing Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska PO) party definitely remains convinced of the benefits of EU membership. Being in the mainstream of EU integration and trying to persuade the Western partners to accept the Polish view on Ukraine are the main goals set by Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski.
Interestingly, security seems to dominate the EP campaign. Even Donald Tusk underlines this fact in the film that initiated the governing party’s election run. “What’s at stake during this election is security,” he says. Moreover, in his speech at the party’s EP election summit, he asked rhetorically, “Will Polish children go to schools on the first of September?” referring to the beginning of World War Two.
An alternative ally could be NVA, a separatist party pressing for Flanders to break away from Belgium, a link that would sit uncomfortably with the Tories’ fierce opposition to Scottish Nationalism.
On May 25 Belgium will hold its regional, federal and European elections. Like in 2010, the centre-right and Flemish nationalist New Flemish Alliance (Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie or N-VA) is expected to be the strongest party both in Flanders and in Belgium as a whole – even though it is not part of the country’s six-party ruling coalition, led by social-democrat Elio Di Rupo. From this position of strength, the N-VA’s proposals are dominating the election debate.
The N-VA, under the decade-long leadership of Bart de Wever, stands for confederalism in the short term and independence in the long term. The party proposes that Belgium would have two autonomous entities –- Flanders and Wallonia –- and a bilingual capital, Brussels.
Following weeks of intense debate about child benefits for EU workers in Denmark, the eurosceptic and anti-immigrant Danish People's Party is now the most popular party with 27% support. It has overtaken the Social Democrats (23%) and the Liberals (21%), according to a poll by A&B Analyse for Altinget.dk.
As the graphic below shows, the far right is set to triple the turnout of the far-left. The center-right also looks set to defeat the center left. And if one considers that some left-wing parites, such as the SNP in Scotland are for independence, the tide of nationalism is stronger than it looks from the numbers.
Hungary's right-wing won a huge victory in parliamentary elections. Fidesz, with its coalition partner, won 44% of the vote and has enough seats in parliament to change the constitution without any support from the opposition parties.
On top that big victory, the only serious opposition now comes from further to the right: Jobbik. It won 20% of the vote.
Orbán has clashed repeatedly with the EU and foreign investors over his maverick policies, but many Hungarians regard the 50-year-old former dissident against communist rule as a champion of national interests. Under his government, personal income tax and household power bills have fallen.
After 71% of the ballots were counted, election officials projected Orbán's Fidesz party would win 135 of the 199 seats in parliament – passing the two-thirds threshold needed for his party to unilaterally change the constitution.
In the past four years, Orbán's policies have included a nationalisation of private pension funds, swingeing "crisis taxes" on big business and a relief scheme for mortgage holders for which the banks, mostly foreign-owned, had to pay.
The socialist-led leftist alliance was projected to win 39 seats, with 25 going to Jobbik, whose share of the national vote on party lists rose from 15.9% four years ago to 21.25%.
Viktor Orbán leads the right-wing Fidesz party. It is portrayed as extreme right-wing by the European media, with some truth, but the reality is also that Fidesz isn't the far right. There's no love between Fidesz and the more left-wing European establishment, but to the extent the European left weakens Orban, the result will not be to their liking. Instead of helping the Socialists retake power, they are increasingly likely to assist the far-right Jobbik party.
Looks like they failed on both counts. Orban is as popular as ever, and Jobbik is rising too.
With UKIP averaging 26% of the vote in county council polls, leader Nigel Farage said he was "astonished" by the party's breakthrough, and put it down to what he described as the "total disconnect" between the "career politics" of Westminster and ordinary people on the streets.
Current PM David Cameron said in 2006 that UKIP was full of "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists." After these results, he said he will fight to win their votes back.
Many Japanese conservatives see the constitution, unchanged since its adoption in 1947 during the U.S.-led Allied Occupation, as an embodiment of Western-style, individualistic mores they believe eroded Japan's group-oriented traditions.
"The Israeli conquerors, these investors, should look for another country in the world for themselves because Hungary is not for sale," party chairman Gabor Vona told the rally, according to Reuters news agency.
Marton Gyongyosi said Hungary had "become subjugated to Zionism, it has become a target of colonisation while we, the indigenous people, can play only the role of extras".
Last year, Mr Gyongyosi had sparked outrage by saying all government officials of Jewish origin should be officially listed, as they might be a "national security risk".
Jobbik isn't likely to win any significant power in Hungary, but they have moved criticism of foreigners into the mainstream. What many of the articles on Hungary and other nations often fail to report is that the tone of the debate is shifting and positions considered racist/xenophobic are being expressed more freely. As I've written before discussing other policies, this is partially a reaction against the extreme peak social mood. When social mood is extremely negative, people not only reject the presence of foreigners, they reject foreign influence from any source, including food or music. In normal periods, there is an open debate about whether something foreign is good or bad for the native cultures. When social mood is extremely positive, everything foreign is considered good and those who express reservations are labeled as xenophobic or racist. In reading Western media accounts, for example, one finds the anti-Semitic Jobbik often described in much the same was as UKIP because the Western media is still operating on peak social mood.
In Russia, the Orthodox Church continues to return to its traditional place in Russian society.
The Airborne Forces were established in the 1930s, during the worst of Stalinist repressions. I can’t help but a find a bit of tasty irony in the fact that, having survived the Bolshevik nightmare, the Orthodox Church is back in the field, among the Russian military, doing what it has done for two thousand years.
As for the U.S., the extreme political right have begun coalescing around the term "neo-reactionary." For the most part the movement is still completely under the radar and has no formal structure, but this map is the first formal sign of self-awareness. Unlike the political changes in the UK, Japan and Hungary, the U.S. movement is more fundamental and cultural and will probably not express itself formally in politics for at least a decade, as most adherents appear to skew young.
Hungarian lawmakers on Monday passed amendments to the country's constitution, despite warnings from the European Union and the U.S. that the measures could threaten the rule of law and weaken democratic checks and balances.
Parliament, controlled by Prime Minister Viktor Orban's right-leaning Fidesz alliance, approved the changes—including provisions that allow the court system's top administrator and prosecutors to choose which judges hear legal cases—in a party-line vote.
The EU and U.S. are the seat of leftism in the world, with growing Russian resistance coming from the right. Within Europe, right-wing parties are growing in number and support, though they are scattered across the current political spectrum. Thus there are the fascist throwbacks in Greece (Golden Dawn), left-wing economic nationalists (Finns) and national independence parties with a libertarian outlook (UKIP).
Critics' main focus has been on changes they say undermine the country's judiciary, such as one barring the Constitutional Court from considering the legality of constitutional amendments and from applying case law and legal precedents predating the new Basic Law, which took effect in 2012.
Mr. Orban's relations with the country's judiciary have at times been contentious. On Monday, he lashed out at a court ruling against state-imposed cuts to natural-gas companies' prices, calling it "scandalous," and saying the government would ask Parliament to approve even bigger reductions.
Civil-rights groups have also complained about amendments that define "family" as a married man and woman and their children, outlaw some kinds of political advertising, and allow the government to prohibit homeless people from living on city streets.
Not even the U.S. Supreme Court can consider the legality of a constitutional amendment. By definition, a constitutional amendment is legal......and the definition of family is well within cultural norms. There are other issues with the judiciary, but as the criticism shows, this is more about right-left political splits. For example, the price cuts to natural gas prices is dumb economics, but no more stupid than what is being implemented in France. Expect more fighting in Europe as the dream of a united left-wing Europe comes apart as nationalism makes a comeback.
The point of his article is that politicians must first restore trust, before they can implement effective policies. He's only one step away from the answer: social mood!
Why is trust low? Socionomic theory posits that trust is just one factor that rises and falls along with the optimism and pessimism of society. Mood peaked in or around 2000 and has been in decline since then (in the developed world). Belgium had no government for more than a year; Japan has had six prime ministers in six years and their approval ratings begin to fall moments after taking office; the UK has a coalition government, the first since WWII; Greece cannot even form a government; EU states that launched the euro in a great show of unity at the start of the last decade, find more and more issues to disagree over; the United States similarly has a very divided electorate with a divided government.
Besides internal fighting, protectionist rhetoric and measures are increasing: the EU threatens to impound Chinese planes, China threatens to retaliate. European candidates are talking up protectionism and one just won (Hollande), as are U.S. politicians, most notably Romney (who stands about an even chance to win). Greece accuses Germany over the debt crisis, Germany accuses Greece.
Trust in things as basic as the money we use has decreased. To restore trust, politicians must realize that they are in such an environment and that extreme trust restoring measures are needed. However, mood is exogenous: policy makers must play with the mood given them, not the mood they want. Electorates are playing musical chairs with extreme parties and my prediction is that they will keep playing musical chairs until they land on extreme right wingers because the governments of the West are firmly left-wing (liberal) and so turning right represents real change (for example, U.S. right-wing foreign policy would be isolationist, anti-free trade, anti- mass immigration; there is basically no right-wing presence in the U.S. government). In the U.S., there will be the election of a paleo-conservative/libertarian president; the UK will see a similar result. In Europe, the right isn't so libertarian. Hungary already elected an extreme right-wing government and the opposition is coming from even further right!
That is the future, a hard tack to the right. Wisconsin is a foretaste of the future in America and the faster politicians tack hard-right, the faster they will restore trust in government and the better they will prevent more extreme outcomes by satisfying voter demand for change.
The deepening economic crisis is taking its toll on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government — two years after a landslide election victory his party’s support is crumbling and three-quarters of voters believe the country is on the wrong track.
Growing disillusionment can be felt across the central European nation, whose economy is sliding into recession again after a sharp downturn in 2009, with the rising living standards that Orban promised when his party won power failing to materialise. While still paying off a 2008 bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, the government is seeking a new financing backstop to shield the indebted economy from the neighbouring euro zone’s mounting debt crisis.
Negotiations with the IMF will be difficult, however, as Orban will be reluctant to give up or tweak his Fidesz party’s main policies, including a flat income tax and family tax breaks aimed to support the middle class, the party’s core voter base. Orban has been at loggerheads with Brussels over several laws that critics say served to cement his party’s strong powers beyond the end of his term, while huge windfall taxes imposed on banks and selected business sectors eroded investors’ trust.
......According to a survey by pollster Median, Fidesz’ support dropped to its lowest in a decade at 22 per cent last month, even though it still has a lead over the opposition Socialists, who stand at 16 per cent. Far-right Jobbik hovers around 11 per cent. The survey showed 76 per cent of the people are pessimistic about the country’s outlook while another recent poll by Ipsos showed this rate even higher, at 81 per cent.
Hungary tacked right, rejected the IMF and Brussels and saw popularity rise even as the economy weakened. Voters are upset and want a change, that must be good news for the socialists, right?
From such hamlets to the halls of the neo-Gothic Parliament in Budapest, where the nationalist Jobbik is the second-largest opposition party, radicalism and its symbols are spreading as Hungary heads into its second recession in four years. Prime Minister Viktor Orban is seeking to obtain an international bailout after Hungary’s debt was downgraded to junk last year.
“Where there are economic problems, there are tensions between peoples and groups,” said Gabor Bognar, 47, Csokako’s deputy mayor. “If we don’t allow people to let their steam out by erecting a statue, then they’re not going to stop there.”
Nationalists are making gains across Europe as leaders struggle to avert prolonged economic turmoil.
What’s different in Hungary is that Orban is accused by Jewish groups and political analysts of including parts of the radical agenda in his own policies, a charge the government denies. Orban, 49, has condemned a flurry of anti-Semitic attacks in the past month, which the Jewish group Mazsihisz has called a “tide of hatred inundating Hungary.”
If you click the Hungary tag on this post, you can see previous coverage of the country. Viktor Orbán leads the right-wing Fidesz party. It is portrayed as extreme right-wing by the European media, with some truth, but the reality is also that Fidesz isn't the far right. There's no love between Fidesz and the more left-wing European establishment, but to the extent the European left weakens Orban, the result will not be to their liking. Instead of helping the Socialists retake power, they are increasingly likely to assist the far-right Jobbik party. One of the concerns of the party is the status of Hungarian minorities in other nations, if the parallels to the 1930s aren't clear enough.
Hungarians are stepping up the rhetoric in their battle against EU assaults on national sovereignty. See Hungary Has Sharp Words for EU
"We are going to protect the constitution, which is our security for the future," Mr. Orban said Thursday, to applause. He said Hungary doesn't need the "unsolicited assistance of foreigners wanting to guide our hands."
Mr. Orban's speech offered no detailed, direct comments on the points of contention between Budapest and Brussels. But he did allude to central bank independence, which the EU and IMF have said must be insured before they will start talks on a precautionary loan Hungary wants.
"An independent national bank is not one that is independent from its nation," Mr. Orban said. "An independent national bank is one which protects the national economy from foreign interests."
In previous posts I've covered the radical steps taken by the Hungarian government since it has turned sharply right. There are some undemocratic elements to the government, but at this point, one cannot say the EU has any grounds to accuse the nation of being undemocratic. With puppet governments installed in Greece and Italy and anti-democratic policies standard fare, where democracy is always derisively described as "populism," it is hard sometimes to see where the extremism starts in Hungary.
This is par for the course with social mood. Authoritarianism is more popular and the extreme positions of government during the rising social mood help to mask the extremism of rising politicians. The excessive penalties on Germany during the 1920s made Hitler's nationalism attractive to average Germans. In Europe today, extreme left-wing politics that dominates the media and EU government in Brussels, plus the anti-democratic and authoritarian behavior of the EU, makes Hungary's Orban seem rational at best and at worst, on the same level as those accusing him of a dictatorship. That's not to say he isn't a proto-dictator, but thanks to social mood, we are going to find out. With negative social mood and the current state of the EU, Mr. Orban is in the socionomic sweet spot. He's hitting the right notes politically and power is his to lose. If he's a dictator at heart, he will probably get the chance to act like one as his popularity rises. And if he isn't, the social mood assures that most of the European press will call him one anyway.
Hungary's defiant premier Viktor Orbán has no hope of securing vital funding from the EU and the International Monetary Fund until the dispute is resolved, leaving him a stark choice of either bowing to EU demands or letting his country slide into bankruptcy.
Yields on Hungary's two-year debt jumped to 9.17pc on Tuesday, an unsustainable level for an economy in recession with public debt of near 80pc of GDP. Hungary's debt was cut to junk status by rating agencies last week.
“The commission recalls that a legally stable environment, based on the rule of law, including respect for media freedom, democratic principles and fundamental rights, is also the best guarantee for citizens’ trust and confidence of partners and investors,” the European Commission’s warning said. “This is particularly vital in times of economic crisis. The swiftest way to lay to rest the concerns mentioned would of course be action by the Hungarian authorities themselves.”
Hungary has a lot of policies worthy of criticism, but ending central bank independence is not one of them. As we've seen through history, including twice in the United States, central banks are killed off periodically due to historic mistrust of banks and their role in financial crises, which tend to damage an economy for years if not decades (certainly decades from the standpoint of asset prices). Hungary may well use political control over the central bank to usher in another era of hyperinflation, but it may also rein in the excesses of the past two decades. In any event, socionomics tells us central bank independence is on the way out, a prediction supported by the history of banking, central banks and fiat currencies.
The frame of the story should be broken to understand it. The media is focused on the wrong issues. Yes, Hungary's right-wing government has troublesome policies and they certainly appear headed in a bad direction. However, their government is elected. The European Commission and central banks are not elected. Central banking played a central role in the crisis and one reason why Hungary is being attacked strongly is because its actions are very anti-bank. This is a banking story and an economic policy story, not a question of politics. The two are intertwined because of the nature of events, but the strong pressure on Hungary is driven by the banks, not their right-wing politics.
From Sepetmber 2011: Hungary to Force Banks to Foot Franc Losses, Irking Austria
Hungary wants to allow fixing the Swiss franc at more than 20 percent below market rates for early repayment, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said today in parliament. Austria “firmly rejects” the measure, which may cause “enormous losses” to banks and risks regional financial stability, Finance Minister Maria Fekter said today. Erste Group Bank AG (EBS) and Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI) dropped, while Hungary’s risk rose.
“It tells foreign banks that they can go to hell, which in the long run is extremely negative,” Daniel Bebesy, who helps oversee $1.5 billion mostly in Hungarian government bonds at Budapest Investment Management, said in a telephone interview.
Erste Group Bank AG (EBS), eastern Europe’s second-biggest bank, is sending Bernhard Spalt, chief risk officer, to Hungary as bad debts soared following a government decision forcing banks to swallow mortgage losses.
Spalt will take over risk management at Erste Bank Hungary Zrt., the nation’s second-biggest lender, from Feb. 1, the Vienna-based bank said in a statement today. The position had been vacant since the summer.
The lender set aside 701 million euros ($912 million) in the nine months to Sept. 30 to cover bad loans in Hungary following Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s foreign-currency mortgage law passed in September. The provision is almost four times the 180 million euros the bank set aside for souring loans in Hungary in the same period of last year.
Yes, there is concern about Hungary's right-wing populism, but the real concern is the banks! And on this issue, the trend in social mood is Hungary's friend. The government is pursuing a double-win policy: anti-foreigner, anti-bank. Foreign attacks may help the government stay in power and achieve victory, whereas during rising social mood it probably would doom the efforts and lead to electoral losses.
Hungary is also on the right track economically because the banking sector needs serious reform. Ron Paul's approach in the United States is a far better one because seeks competition in the monetary system rather than political control over banking decisions, but Hungary's potentially bad policy is better than continuing with the existing failed policy that the European Commission, IMF and others are trying to shove down their throat.
It didn't take long for markets to react. Yields on 10-year Hungarian bonds spiked to 10.7 percent on Wednesday, continuing a sharp rise since the talks over a €20 billion ($26 billion) EU/IMF aid package for Hungary collapsed in December. The country's currency, the forint, plunged to an all-time low against the euro on Wednesday morning. Both Standard & Poor's and Moody's slashed Hungary's credit rating to junk status in the weeks before Christmas. Hungary needs to refinance debt worth €4.8 billion in the coming months.
Hungary is taking political control over the central bank. This is something we'd expect to see with the decline in social mood. Mish Shedlock discusses how this could move Hungary towards hyperinflation in Hungary Marches Down Hyperinflation Path; What About the US?. However, one point I continually discuss is how socionomics just tells us what is possible, not what will happen. In the United States, the main anti-central bank efforts are being led by people who want a strong currency and almost zero political control over the money supply. It is important to keep in mind that different cultures and societies react differently, even if the underlying impulse is similar.
I still think Hungary is receiving a bit of a bum rap though, simply for being on the right. More from Der Speigel article, quoting the FT Deutschland:
"Hungary is distancing itself from all that Europe stands for: democracy, the rule of law, the separation of powers and human rights. It is thus high time that the European Union increases pressure on Budapest -- not just legally, but also politically."
"That the European Commission is now examining whether Hungary's reforms are in violation of EU law is a good start. But it won't be enough, even if the Commission is likely to find problems immediately: The Constitutional Court has been robbed of its power because it no longer has jurisdiction over financial questions, the media now operates under government supervision, the central bank will have to bow to politics, and parliament, thanks to changes in quorum rules, will no longer have much of a say. It is a case of a governing party seeking to cement its power and to rob its successor -- and the entire country -- of the opportunity to pass future reforms."
This sentence describes what the Germans and French, with the European central bank, forced on Greece and Italy. They have tossed out the law for bailouts and imposed undemocratic governments. Here's more from Handelsblatt, capturing the social mood aspects clearly:
"Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is pursuing a dangerous course. Does he really believe that his comparatively small country, which has just 10 million inhabitants, can go it alone? He is putting talks with the IMF and with the EU about a new multibillion aid package at risk. Hungary could soon be paying dearly for the fact that Orban has led his country into economic and political isolation."
Hungary is in the lead in terms of social mood driven political changes, but the rest of Europe is close on its heels. The only difference is the elite in Europe want the society they are forcing on Europeans, while they do not like the society being forced on Hungary by Hungarians.
The trend here is to reject the authority of the EU, a move from internationalism to nationalism. The only question is what form nationalism takes: a restoration of liberty (democratically or not) or a move from Brussels to local authoritarianism. Some nations will throw off the EU's authoritarianism and enjoy greater freedom (perhaps the UK will be an example of this), while others such as Hungary may head towards a less free society.
However, I still believe the situation in Hungary is slightly more complex because the peak in social mood in 2000, if it was a Grand Supercycle peak, was probably also a peak in liberalism. The Enlightenment burned itself out and Hungary may be the first sign of the rise of right-wing politics. Just as the United States, fascist Italy, revolutionary France and the Soviet Union were all left-wing governments, so we can expect to see many forms of right-wing governments emerge. Judging by how things are unfolding in Hungary, it's unlikely to be a model government nor does it resemble what we will see in the future. The return of monarchs or a turning away from democracy (think U.S. voting laws circa 1800), the rise of the Church and military as social institutions. The rise of city-states and new forms of government, but with characteristics that may resemble governments from 1600 rather than the 20th Century. Consider Poland's government:
The nobility held absolute power of life and death over the serfs tied to their land. The clergy, merchants in the cities (the burghers), and the Jews were protected by royal charters, but were a minuscule portion of the population. After 1572, Poland's kings were elected viritim ; that is, they were voted upon directly by the mounted assembly of the entire nobility. The kings acted more like managers than rulers. In 1652, the Sejm , Poland's parliament, introduced the liberum veto , which mandated that all legislation had to pass unanimously. The country lost independence and unity when Austria, Prussia, and Russia divided the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth among themselves. The country was divided on three occasions, in 1772, 1793, and 1795.
Imagine a future where a monarch restores liberty by overthrowing a tyrannical democratic government and you have some idea of what is possible as social mood declines in the coming decades.
Statement regarding possible offer
-
*NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART IN, INTO
OR FROM ANY JURISDICTION WHERE TO DO SO WOULD CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF THE
RE...
Weekly Market Pulse: The New Luddite Revolution
-
Meta released their personal AI agent, Muse, last month, promising that it
is safe, secure, and private. They say it “actually does the work” rather
than j...
Premonitions of a Major Market Top
-
I dropped out of the Phd Philosophy program at UC Davis to start Top Gun in
2006 in order to profit from the bursting of the housing bubble and the
subsequ...
Turning Point Brands (TPB US)
-
Today is Garry Kasparovs birthday. Growing up as a teenager in the early
90s, I remember how the discussion in media went around computers beating
humans...
This is the End and a New Beginning
-
I've been thinking about this for some time.
After 21 years of writing this blog almost daily, I've decided to stop
writing the daily updates on the blog.
...
A Slow Motion Slide
-
We’ve had quite a weird week – Nasdaq kept selling off to the indifference
of the rest of the world. Nasdaq’s correction reached -11% off the ATH,
while ...
The Oil Refinery Crisis Will Worsen This Winter
-
The Oil Refinery Crisis Will Worsen This Winter Tyler Durden Thu,
12/10/2020 - 20:20
*Authored by Julianne Geiger via OilPrice.com,*
It was only to be ex...
The Argentina Siren Song And Where Else It Is Sung
-
I’m back! After an extended leave of absence I’ve decided to start writing
again.
Let’s start with a story familiar to those that read MM in my first ter...
Agriculture Reading Picks
-
As Prairies Get Plowed for Biofuels, Greens Demand EPA Act | Bloomberg A
breakthrough to bring driverless tractors into the mainstream? A startup in
Iowa s...
Hacksaw Ridge
-
WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of
Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes […]
The post Hacksaw Ridge appeared...
FINTS EVENING HIGHLIGHTS (15 Jun 2016)
-
China’s total debts amounted to 168.5 trillion yuan ($25.6 trillion) at the
end of 2015, equivalent to 249 percent of gross domestic product, Li Yang
an in...
Responses to readers’ questions, and new forecasts
-
[image: Vietnam account set-up]1. The question is: “I got a good run up in
ISJP and was stopped out yesterday-in at 14.23 in august 2012 and out
yesterday ...
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/base/copper-d.gif)
