Time Life magazine archive great article cool pictures of the era 1968

Time Life magazine archive great article cool pictures of the era 1968


http://books.google.com/books?id=iz8EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA22&dq=bratislava&pg=PA14#v=onepage&q=bratislava&f=false

the fear...

A song for our times...

I want to be rich and I want lots of money

I don't care about clever I don't care about funny

I want loads of clothes and fuckloads of diamonds

I heard people die while they are trying to find them

And I'll take my clothes off and it will be shameless

'Cuz everyone knows that's how you get famous

I'll look at the sun and I'll look in the mirror

I'm on the right track, yeah I'm on to a winner

I don't know what's right and what's real anymore

And I don't know how I'm meant to feel anymore

And when do you think it will all become clear?

'Cuz I'm being taken over by the Fear

Life's about film stars and less about mothers

It's all about fast cars and cussing each other

But it doesn't matter cause I'm packing plastic

And that's what makes my life so fucking fantastic

[ Lily Allen Lyrics are found on www.songlyrics.com ]

And I am a weapon of massive consumption

And its not my fault it's how I'm programmed to function

I'll look at the sun and I'll look in the mirror

I'm on the right track, yeah we're on to a winner

I don't know what's right and what's real anymore

And I don't know how I'm meant to feel anymore

And when do you think it will all become clear?

'Cuz I'm being taken over by the Fear

Forget about guns and forget ammunition

'Cuz I'm killing them all on my own little mission

Now I'm not a saint but I'm not a sinner

Now everything is cool as long as I'm getting thinner

I don't know what's right and what's real anymore

And I don't know how I'm meant to feel anymore

And when do you think it will all become clear?

'Cuz I'm being taken over by the Fear

© Emi Blackwood Music Inc.;Tucano Music;Universal Music Publishing

On modern food

this is a fascinating video i am sure will stay with you next time you go to the supermarket

no regrets then....

Essential reading on what is going on in Bratislava and Vienna (Wien)

The Month of Photography Bratislava is organized as part of the European Month of Photography in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Roma, Moscow, Luxembourg and Bratislava.

 

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Links

• 20TH MONTH OF PHOTOGRAPHY BRATISLAVA - programme [PDF, 589 kB]
• http://www.sedf.sk
  More information about the programme
   
   

  BHS – festival of returning performers and new discoveries

  

  46th Annual Bratislava Music Festival (BHS), 19. 11. – 6. 12. 2010.
  Even the most perfect recording won’t replace moments when music is being born, created in the harmony between the artist and the audience. That’s why – year after year – classical music fans await the Bratislava Music Festival. The forty sixth annual festival will once again take place between November and December. The programme will include big name artists and orchestras from 25 countries: it will be a festival of returning performers and new discoveries.

   

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  Ľubica Orgonášová is a Slovak soprano who owns the world stages. The concert at the BHS will celebrate her return after 30 years and the audience will discover that her interpretation of Mozart is without competition. She will perform with Camerata Salzburg.
  A different flavour in Bratislava will be the return appearance of conductor Valery Gergiev with the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra. This magician has been marked as the most exciting talent on the stage in recent years and the richness in colour of his orchestra has no match. Some can recall that as a young man at the beginning of his starry career, he stood on the Reduta stage in 1980.
  BHS is also a parade of world renowned orchestras: The Czech Philharmonic, The Hague Philharmonic, Budapest Festival Orchestra or the Krakow Philharmonic – with conductors Ken Ichiro Kobayashi, Neeme Järvi, Iván Fischer or Pawel Przytocki. Of course, it is an opportunity to welcome orchestras with an exotic flavour: The Armenian Philharmonic recently had great success at the BHS; let’s believe that this will be repeated. The World Expo in Shanghai inspired festival organisers to introduce the culture of this city here – for the first time, the Chinese Shanghai Philharmonic will visit the BHS with conductor Mahai Tang, whose artistic career started with Herbert von Karajan himself and with pianist Mélodie Zhao, who won Hummel’s Piano Competition in Bratislava.
  Once again, excellent soloists will perform at the BHS: pianists Piotr Paleczny, Pavel Gililov, Henri Sigfridsson, Jenö Jandó, Emmanuel Ax, Mikuláš Škuta and Peter Pažický; violinists Václav Hudeček from the Czech Republic and Slovak Dalibor Karvay; cellists Frenchman Gautier Capuçon as well as the famed Italian, Giovanni Sollima. An evening of stars is promised by the Bratislava and world famous duo: Vadim Repin – violin, Boris Berezovskij – piano.
  It must be mentioned that the BHS is acknowledging the Belgian EU presidency and has therefore invited Flemish ensemble, Anima Eterna, with the ever fresh Monteverdi’s madrigals. Since Slovakia has presidency of the Vysehrad Four, a concert is being prepared in which pieces from composers from all four countries will be heard, interpreted by artists from the V4 countries.
  Apart from foreign artists, the Slovak Philharmonic, Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, ŠKO Žilina and the Bohdan Warchal Chamber Orchestra, celebrating 50 years of existence, as well as other artists, will perform at the BHS.
  Audiences will certainly enjoy listening to pieces from big names whose anniversaries we are commemorating: 200 years since the birth of the darling of the Warsaw and Paris salons and the genius of romanticism, Fryderyk Chopin, as well as Robert Schumann, who worshiped the joining of music and poetry. Audiences will also be able to appreciate a master whose works are full of dazzling effects together with great pain - the excellent Gustav Mahler, who was born 150 years ago.
  Once again this year, part of the Bratislava Festival will be the international stage of young interpreters, New Talent – SPP Foundation Award – this is a platform for discovering talent and presenting new artists, future great personalities in the music world.
  
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  More detailed information at:
  

   

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  Links

  • Bratislava Music Festival - Programme [PDF, 790 kB]
  • http://www.filharmonia.sk

The president of the EU says euroscepticism leads to mercantilistic trade and foreign policy and eventually to war

The president of the EU says euroscepticism leads to mercantilistic trade and foreign policy and eventually to war.

Mr Van Rompuy linked hostility to the EU, and the idea that countries could leave the Union, to a revival of aggressive nationalism.

"We have together to fight the danger of a new Euroscepticism. This is no longer the monopoly of a few countries," he said. "In every member state, there are people who believe their country can survive alone in the globalised world. It is more than an illusion: it is a lie."

The controversial comments made on Tuesday come less than a fortnight after David Cameron, the Prime Minister, declared that he was a Eurosceptic after his gruelling Brussels summit battle to block a sharp increase in the EU budget at a time of national austerity.

On China and its rise

China wants a unipolar asia with itself as the leader. To this end it has facilitated a nuclear armed unstable country in the neighbourhood of ALL its major potential adversaries. N Korea to pin Japan,Pakistan to pin India(It also claims a Japanese island and an entire Indian state as its territory) and now a nuclear Iran to pin the US in the middle east.While it carries on a relentless mercantalist expansion of its economy for another decade.

To say nothing of its blatant supression of dissent and free speech including locking up of this years nobel laureate.

The real question is why many people in power in both US and EU seek to aid and facilitate this development when it is clearly not in the interests of our countries especially in the long term.

China shows no signs of a country that wants to emerge peacefully.

Slovak in America remembers.

On infectious greed as a development model...

One of the leading lights in the current government of Slovakia opined that Slovakia should attempt to become more like singapore or hong kong, a small extremely liberal enclave in the wider market of the EU and eurozone.

The allure of places like this should be tempered by the following facts.

1. they are usually accidents of history and are usually not countries proper (this is true of both Hong Kong and Singapore)
2. They have massive economies right next to themselves, and the rich of these countries usually uses these territories as a place to hide their money from taxes.
3.   ermm.. this... http://video.ft.com/v/621971804001/Hong-Kong-s-property-extremes-cage-the-poor

it seems that google is about to index bratislava panoramas in its google maps service as this video shows

Bratislava camera experiment

Historical Pressburg- slider test from Manoo on Vimeo.

How RIGHT we are

... in the income inequality sense..

Slovakia compares well to other eurozone countries in terms of debt

Wall Street Journal interviews Slovak Prime Minister Iveta Radicova on the reasons why Slovakia refuses to bail out Greece with further loans

Wall Street Journal interviews Iveta Radicova on the reasons why Slovakia refuses to bail out Greece with further loans




http://online.wsj.com/video/slovak-pm-wants-rules-on-defaults-for-euro-area/27574DAA-D4C6-4FE8-B835-89E4A58BDE29.html 

Iveta Radicova is clearly an intelligent leader, and she explained that Slovakia is participating in an Eurozone insurance policy for the protection of the euro due to unforseen and unavoidable future circumstances.

However she politely suggested that the greek situation is not justifiable as a bailout, because it was hardly an unavoidable situation and that the indirect beneficieries of such bail-outs (often rich investors and banks) need to accept the risk of their investments and the tax payer cannot be there to pick up the pieces if the investor does not do their due dilligence. This is a point made by several economists over the years when bailouts started with Asia & Mexico under Clinton.

In other words the PM of Slovakia noted her and her country's aversion to a development model largely based on ever increasing borrowing. She expressed her solidarity with the greek people but not with the practices of their governments in the last 20-30 years in relation to debt.

This is not just words, Slovakia has a tiny national debt as a % of GDP which is even smaller than Finland and about half that of Germany at around 35%, moreover this is likely to decline further. One cound say that Slovakia is a very debt averse country culturally, and seems to be baffled by the prevalence of the credit card and other forms of indebtedness in the anglosaxon world.

The Slovak Prime Minister called for stronger regulation of euro-zone financial markets and for allowing overly-indebted countries to undergo and orderly default rather than throwing them new credit lifelines.

Earlier this year Slovakia, the newest and poorest of the 16-rich-nation currency group, caused a stir around Europe when it refused to be part of a EUR110 billion bailout for Greece, agreed on in May by euro-zone member countries and the International Monetary Fund. However it should remembered that Slovakia's share is fairly small as it is a small country of only 5 million people.

Why is Germany booming in a time of weak and state supported growth in the rest of the western world?

Something quite extraordinary is going on, the values of the ageing baby-boomer generation have hit the brick wall of debt (also known as leverage). 

The characteristic of most western societies from the 1980es onwards has been that  a rise in living standards for some has become increasingly reliant on borrowing from tomorrow's (fewer and poorer) taxpayers. This has been true particularly of countries like Greece, Britain, Ireland, Spain, Italy and of course the USA. Their formerly "dynamic economies" now seem to have been largely based on accumulating debts and boosting spending unsustainably. The recent world financial crisis simply brought forward the day of reckoning to affect some of the perpetrators.

Meanwhile Germany took a pragmatic view during the years of euphoria, it exported the consumer goods everyone else wanted now while keeping its own consumption moderate and its already high wages in check during this period. It didn't join the party, it just served the drinks for those that were demanding the high-tech machinery and automobiles and other manufactures that germans excel at.

Clustered around germany are a number of economies that in varying degrees followed the policies of Germany. Chiefly countries like Slovakia (more than the Czechs), Poland, Sweden, Denmark etc. They are also closely linked to germany through trade. Slovakia has and is benefiting from German and Austrian investment, and in turn it has become a good customer, in the crisis the Slovak economy almost mirrored the sharp german slowdown and swift recovery

Reading now old articles carrying scathing criticism of europe in magazines such as the economist, or the Financial Times during most of the decade from 2000 up to 2008 makes illuminating reading. With hindsight teutonic/continental economies seem to shine through now as sustainable, socially responsible, and intergenerationally fair systems, and are not suffering the long-term consequences the debts have brought about and anglo economies will feel for decades. Back then the anglosaxon press at best would characterise europe slow or ageing or not as fast growing as the USA. I see no grovelling apologies for these misguided opinions of the past. It seems that Germany's policies but also its admirable investment in the east is in the best tradition of building up the future not only for its own citizens but also for its neighbours. 

To back up my ideas about the lack of debt see the article below by one of the top US economists.

(Why is Germany doing well?) It's the lack of leverage

This contribution was authored by Carmen Reinhart and Vincent Reinhart.

Germany’s relatively robust comeback obviously requires a multi-part explanation. The very important dimension of its resilience in the current environment, where recoveries from the crisis, notably in the advanced economies, on the whole, have been disappointing.

Carmen M. Reinhart is Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for International Economics at the University of Maryland. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Reinhart held positions as Chief Economist and Vice President at the investment bank Bear Stearns in the 1980s, where she became interested in financial crises, international contagion and commodity price cycles.

We explored the experience of economies surrounding severe financial crises in a paper, After the Fall, presented at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Jackson Hole Symposium. As we pointed out, Germany was a notable outlier in the now-notorious credit and debt boom of the decade prior to the onset of the subprime crisis. Credit relative to nominal GDP fell about 11 percentage points during 1997-2007; during the same period, credit/GDP rose 80 percentage points for most of the advanced economies. Germany’s gross external debt/GDP fell about 5 percentage points during 2003-2007, while that ratio climbed by about 50% for other advanced economies. Germany’s property market cannot even be loosely characterised as part of the global bubble. In fact, real house prices fell 11% from 1997 to 2007. Unlike Japan, which was the other notable outlier during the credit boom, it did not have the burden of a high public debt. As a consequence, despite rapid increases in government debt since the crisis, Germany does not have a private or public debt overhang of the historic proportions confronting most other advanced economies. It follows that a long and painful deleveraging is not on the horizon. 

In this regard, Germany is the advanced economy counterpart to emerging markets in Asia and Latin America. Those economies also deleveraged during the tranquil booming years (as discussed in Reinhart and Rogoff, 2010). These emerging markets are not only recovering robustly—some are showing signs of overheating.

IBM may expand its investments in Slovakia outside Bratislava

IBM may expand its investments in Slovakia outside Bratislava

The IBM company is welcome to invest in central or eastern Slovakia, the Minister Construction and Economy, Juraj Miškov, said on August 26 after meeting representatives of IBM Slovensko who told him that Slovakia was one of the five possible countries for a IBM investment in central Europe, the SITA newswire reported.
IBM representatives did not elaborate on their intentions at the meeting, SITA wrote. If the investment comes to Slovakia 200 jobs would be created next year and a total of 3,000 could develop over the next three years, the daily newspaper Hospodárske noviny wrote. IBM representatives are considering the towns of Žilina and Košice as well as other localities according to the newspaper.

IBM is one of the world's largest IT companies, currently employing almost 400,000 people world-wide. IBM has been active in Slovakia since 1990.

5% GDP - 2nd quarter of 2010 - Slovakia’s economy has best GDP growth among all countries in the European Union

In the second quarter of 2010 Slovakia’s economy is posted the best GDP growth among all countries in the European Union.


The growth is spiking but it is not yet the stellar numbers achieved in the past given the international situation. Still Slovak growth looks set to remain strong for the rest of the year. Germany energising economy is a very big trade partner for Slovak business, and it certainly helped to generate the nearly 5-percent pro rata jump in Slovakia’s GDP.


In the second quarter, the country’s GDP grew by 4.6 percent year-on-year, following just slightly stronger growth of 4.8 percent in the first quarter, according to a flash estimate released by Slovakia’s Statistics Office on August 13. Total GDP in the second quarter reached €16.340 billion.


“The ongoing strength of the growth in the second quarter real GDP in Slovakia was, overall, more of a positive surprise,” Vladimír Vaňo, chief analyst with Volksbank.

In the first half of 2010, Slovak exports increased on average by 20.7 percent year-on-year, accounting for a similarly stellar recovery in Slovakia’s annual industrial production by an average of 22 percent in the first six months, Vaňo noted.

“Compared with expectations of other market watchers of around 4 percent year-on-year and our estimate of 4.3 percent, the year-on-year growth of GDP was faster than expected,” Martin Lenko, senior analyst with VÚB Banka, said.


Though the detailed structure of the growth in Slovakia’s GDP is not fully known yet, Lenko said that household consumption in Slovakia probably recorded only a moderate increase in the second quarter, similar to its performance in the first quarter, due to the country’s still high unemployment rate (mostly in the east of the country) which is falling only very slowly.

“Slovak quarterly expansion of 1.2 percent quarter-on-quarter runs ahead of results of similarly open economies of the Czech Republic or Hungary,” Vaňo said. “However, the overall eurozone economy, a destination for roughly half of Slovak exports, recorded a quarterly real growth of 1.0 percent in the second quarter. In other words, recovery of the export markets alone does not suffice in explaining the resilience of the Slovak economy.”


According to Vaňo, gauging from these comparisons as well as from the strength of the recovery in industrial production in the first half-year together point to Slovakia continuing to reap the benefits of euro introduction via a more resilient economic recovery. He believes this is explained by a competitive edge brought to Slovak exporters by the euro through lower interest rates but more importantly because of exchange rate stability and significant savings in the administrative costs of foreign trade.


“The faster than expected growth of GDP in Slovakia, and also in Germany, in the first half of the year is forcing us to revise the estimate of annual growth of GDP in 2010,” Lenko said. “We estimate that growth in real GDP will reach an average of 4.2 percent year-on-year in 2010 as opposed to our original estimate of 3 percent.”

The rosier growth numbers for Slovakia’s GDP have not yet been reflected in significant job growth in the country’s labour market.

The new train station of Bratislava - Hlavna Stanica as it will be in about 2-3 years

In a previous report, (you might want to open it to have some background) we discussed the long overdue reconstruction of the Bratislava main train station that links Bratislava to Vienna.

The newly released pictures we are showing here show how the station will look. The area will be transformed from this drab communist vision of the 1980es:

Back to its original facade from 1905

The current reconstruction of the station hall will remove the 1980es exterior to reveal the historical facade of the station. This historical building will reconstructed to the original design by the architect F. Pfaff from the year 1905.

The building was originally

Opened	1848
Rebuilt	1988
Formerly known as	Pressburger Hauptbahnhof

Some original pictures for your enjoyment

Romanian gypsies in France raised again the usual talk of integration

Romanian gypsies in France raised again the usual talk of integration. But it has been tried!

here is an interesting passage on roma integration

"The communists tried to integrate the Roma, and the communists were masters at social engineering.

For example, when the germans left Transylvania in 70’s and 80’s, they left behind deserted villages. The regime decided to move poor homeless roma in the empty german houses and villages, a decision in tone with the regime’s claim to offer everyone equal chances. The move didn’t work very well, the new roma tenants being unable to assure the maintenance to their new homes, and the proper look of this villages turned to derelict.
Before this, the regime tried something else. After 1945, the communists evicted and deported the rich, the former elite on the ground of being vicious capitalists . Those rich people were living mainly in the centre of the towns, obviously. In the empty houses, the regime brought again the poor, mainly roma, in an attempt to make the communist rule more palatable to the masses and ingratiate themselves with the poor. So, for decades, many roma occupied the former’s elite central houses.

Also, the regime didn’t aknowledge such notions as „gens de voyage”. If you were seen wandering the streets, a Militia officer would come and start questioning, „comrade, why are you on the street at this time of day? You don’t work? Then come along comrade to the section, we will find an appropiate working place for you”. "

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,712496,00.html

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,712496,00.html