Barbarians wearing suits

I saw "The Wolf of Wall Street" and I can say that it is a continuation of  "Gangs of New York". If the "Gangs of New York" is about the birth of America, and the building of it by some poor European emigrants, "The Wolf ..." is about today's America, and the pursuit of the American dream inside America.
It is like the Wall Street has replaced the Statue of Liberty and has adresed  the following call to the scum of American society:
 "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
And they cram to the golden door: losers who didn't finish the high school,too ugly and too dumb to get laid.Guys smart enough to read  the lines written by their sociopathic boss Jordan Belfort.
Jordan Belfort gathers this bunch of barbarians, he dress them in nice suits, he learns them to speak, an then unleashes them to plunder people's savings.
Except the FBI agents, in the movie everybody wants to be rich, the victims of the con and the con artist themselves. Some are guilty of laziness some of greed.
The script is like it would have been written by Sigmund Freud: men are motivated by sex, fuck, and cock sucker are the most used word and women by greed.

The main character has only one skill that helps him achieving the American dream: lack of moral restraint.

He sells over evaluated stocks, he inflates the stock price that he owns and then he sells them, he is cheating and lying his first and second wife, he is eating drugs like candy's. He betrays his friends to escape prosecution.He is doing what others wouldn't do, and because of that he piles a ton of money.But  the fall is deeper: because his lack of restraint, he doesn't quit the schemes while he still can, and he cannot abstain from taking drugs.
Alone without wife and child, he is facing 20 years of prison, he should incriminate all the colleagues who supported him.

The movie questions the morality of the capital market. Despite Wall Street's PR effort to separate the real person Jordan Belfort from the Wall Street, the damage made by Jordan is lower than Bernie Madoff's ex Wall Street tychoon, and money attracts cocaine and women.
I am glad that Martin Scorsese didn't became a priest, now he can preach against against human sins in cinema theaters.
Overall it was a good movie with a lot of funny moments.

Din toata tragedia sunt 2 lucruri bune

In urma tragediei aviatice din muntii Apuseni, in care au murit 2 persoane de frig deoarece, autoritatile s-au miscat incet trag 2 lucruri concluzii pozitive:

1.romanii se pot descurca singuri. O mana de sateni si padurarii au gasit ranitii inaintea politiei, inaintea armatei si inaintea serviciilor speciale.
2.daca maine dispare guvernul,parlamentul, partidele nu o vom duce mai rau.Astia oricum nu fac nimic. Chiar ar fi o economie la bugetul de stat. Am putea spune ca suntem anarhici.

Un lucru negativ este ca se incearca politizarea problemei si reglarea conturilor, ca de exemplu demiterea sefului de la STS pentru o greseala a celor de la interne care au trimis oamenii sa caute.
De ce seful inspectoratului de urgenta, nu le-a dat numarul de telefon la cei care coordonau cautarea?
Satele alea nu au sef de post? Nu putea fi trimis sa adune oamenii sa faca o potera?
De ce nu s-a folosit salvamontul.

The hobbit 2 and my desolation

I just watched Hobbit 2 the Desolation of Smaug and I was impressed by special effects, but disappointed by the story.
The dragon Smaug chases 9 gnomes and a hobbit on the castle corridors, throws napalm at them. the lure him to the forge, they fool him to light the forge for them, they cast from gold in record time a 100m tall statue, which melts on the dragon. And at the end the dragon shakes away the gold and flies toward the lake city to destroy it. And the film ends.
It ends just in time to allow the screen players to write another story for another block buster. I saw the same trick on "Hunger games"
So I watched almost 1h of chasing, flame and stone throwing, wall smashing for nothing? Not even a gnome is killed?
Even the gnome with the thigh pierced by an arrow survives, saved by an tall elf woman who's got crush for him.Why? He is short, he is a practically a beggar, a servant of his king without a throne.
And all they have is a brief conversation.
And he is not a good warrior, she must save him all the time.
Maybe she is got some maternal feeling, and in Hobbit 3 she will cast a child with the elf Legolas.

You expect that Gandalf should be an old wise man. But it seems that his magic worthless in face of senility, because he goes to confront an army of orcs alone.
Even the orcs are more retarded. You expect that the savage orcs will kill anyone who stands in their way, but no, they prefer to close their powerful enemy Gandalf in an oubliette.
Just in case we have Hobbit 3 to have someone to fight to, usually the orcs pay their bills by let themselves killed in movies.
Only the elf king seems to have some brain, and tries to outsmart the gnome king.
As a story written by some writers it is worse than a popular fairy tale told by some illiterate peasants.
In Romanian fairy tales when the main character (usually a prince or a peasant) had to face a more powerful opponent (like a dragon) he has to resort to his cleverness. Here you don't have enough brain power to fight Smaug and Sauron.
In this movie some dummy positive characters face some dummy negative characters. The only clever character  is the boater Bard, who in Hobbit 3 will shoot the dragon killer arrow  exactly in place where a scale was damaged by his grand father, when the dragon attacked for the first time the city.

I suggest to the script writers to read more original popular tales, and copy them because they are better than what they have till now.

What have in common Stalin and Recep Erdogan? Beside moustache and georgian origin

Stalin allied with Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin against Leon Trotsky the commissioner for the Army.
Erdogan,Gullen and secular civil society movement allied to oust the military out of politics.
Stalin afterwards get rid of his allies, a ruled Soviet Union for himself.
Erdogan whet the riot police on the civil society at Ghezi Park protests then tried to cut Gullen movement financial support, by forbidding the cram schools.
This is not just a political move, this a proof of totalitarianism. What right does have a politician to forbid some schools that use the state curricula?
Another proof of his totalitarian thinking is the criticism of 'Soleiman Magnificent' series, just like a communist politician he is proposing punishing of  the deviant artists.
I don't know how to frame his idea of neo-ottomanism: it is similar with Stalin's idea to remake the Tsar empire or  is more similar with Mussolini idea of remaking the Roman empire?

If he want to remake the Ottoman empire, then he doesn't have to do much: he must return to the state of corruption,graft and religious intolerance before Kemal Ataturk.

Why the youth unemployment is low in Germany?

While the Germany in 1945 was in ruins, now it overpassing the ancient rivals France and Great Britain.
According to the data from www.indexmundi.com the unemployment is decreasing, the current account balance is higher, as well as the growth of industrial production

Unemployment rate in %

Current Account Balance (US$)

Industrial production growth rate (%)

We can say that the lower unemployment rate is cause by the decrease of population caused by low immigration and low birth rate:

Population growth rate in %

But it is interesting that the young unemployment rate is the lowest in Europe according to the eurostat:

Youth unemployment rate in %

How the Germany achieved such results? Why Germany survived crisis?

After reading few articles (see links below) in my opinion are several factors:

1.Long term planning:

Even before the ending of world war 2 the business and the government created a plan for post war reconstruction and charged  Ludwig Erhard to do this. During the occupation the Americans liked his ideas and give him free hand.
Many big German companies have and had an interlinked ownerships (a bank has shares of a big company who has shares to a assurance company, who owns shares to the bank ) and few shares are traded on the market, this allows a long term planning ,disconnected from short term gain from financial speculation or dividend gain.


2.Educated workforce:

After the war the workforce rose with 2 million people, mostly German emigrants from Eastern Europe.Many were educated and skilled, and those who were not, found plenty of jobs in farming.

The tradition of  apprenticeships for young workers was adapted to modern times, this tradition existed in Europe, since Middle Ages, but in Germany tradition is kept till today.

In Germany instead of laying off workers during though times, it is preferred to be reduced the working time, this allows to keep experienced workers.

3.Excess of industrial production

The war effort boosted German industry and science, and despite Allied bombing, Germany had a surplus of  industrial power.
At the end of the war Allies focused on bombing railways,electricity plants, coal mines, and synthetic fuel plants, in order to stop the inflow of raw materials into factories. This strategy spared some industrial plants.

After the war the Germany's steel production was capped, this was good for long term because steel industry lost it's profitability.

The Korean war created a boost for industrial goods that filled German coffers.

4.Foreign aid and state aid:

The Marshal plan invested heavily in high capital industries like coal,steel,transportation and electricity providing an industrial backbone for existing manufacturing.
The difference between Marshal plan and other foreign aids, was that the expenses were supervised directly by American donors.
The Americans supplied dollars to the government's  German reconstruction institute, which in turn credited the business in Deutsch Marks. The loans were payed in DM. After the load was payed the institute credited again another business. The German reconstruction institute was still functioning in 1990.
It was unique among the countries that received Marshal plan help and provided a more efficient spending.
Also some debts were written off , easing the burden of external debt, reducing the internal taxes.
Rents were kept artificially low, and heavy federal subsidies were provided for residential construction

5.Government continuity:

The difference between Germany after the end of the war in 1945 and the fall of the communist in 1989 is that in 1945 the main state institutions were intact and were adapted to the market economy.

If the Weimar Republic was too lax and  the Third Reich was controlling, the post war regime was somewhat in the middle: it was strong but had limited scope, it encouraged formation of industrial and trade union organization in order negotiate wage and working conditions.
It allowed collective labor bargaining.
This resulted in reducing working time instead of laying off workers, better working conditions for workers and a moderate request for salary increase from trade unions.

Links:
West German Growth and Institutions, 1945-90
Understanding West German economic growth in the 1950s