It looks as if China is gaining economic power and influence on politics in Hungary/Balkan, exactly as they have done…
The Consequences of Orbán’s State Prices
The entire world is currently suffering under high energy prices. The oil price is today at a level that only has been higher in 2008 and 2011. There is no shortage at this moment, enough crude oil is produced. The delivery around the globe is functioning. Also oil from Russia is arriving at the customers. The price development since many months now has mainly to do with the expectation that there might be a higher demand. Expectations are always a huge part of the pricing, since Putin invaded Ukraine there are expectations are that there could occur a shortage, which makes prices explode.
Several countries have reacted with different measures. Some have lowered the VAT on petrol, others have cut fuel tax, again others have given citizens a lump sum, but Orbán has used an old communist measure: State pricing. Retail prices for regular 95 and standard gasoline (without special additives) have been limited at 480 Ft per litre (currently 1.26 €) last November. In Austrian Klingenbach, just over the boarder from Sopron, gasoline is sold for 1.999 € as today ►DE. Not so long ago Austria had slightly lower prices than Hungary. In February the whole sale prices went above the state price for retail, especially small petrol station owners were endangered, as I reported about on February 21st ►EN.
About 2 weeks ago the whole sale price was limited to 480 Ft as well ►HU. And the income tax on petrol was reduced – an income tax to be paid on sold fuels, regardless whether the petrol station owner makes win or loss! And since the prices are so much cheaper in Hungary than in the countries around us there is a tanking tourism, people come just to fuel their cars cheaply. In Sopron the police was needed to regulate traffic at a petrol stations, where 3/4 of the cars had an Austrian registration. And since a lot of trucks are passing through Hungary they are filling-up tanks in unknown quantities. Since the public transport is not getting cheap fuel public busses went to the petrol stations, instead of tanking more expensively at their own taps. This has been ended now. The ministry for innovation told RTL that the state will compensate the state owned bus company and railway company. Not mentioned the communal bus companies ►HU. This would not the 1st time the central government makes it the local governments more difficult, especially where the citizens did not vote for the state party.
The state price for wholesale made now the wholesalers, mainly MOL, a company that has the state as significant shareholder, became reluctant to deliver fuel to the petrol stations. There are small independent owners who signalised that they expect the next delivery of fuel March 24th only ►HU. MOL has own petrol stations where the state priced products are sold out, while there is supply of the petrol with 100 octane and gasoline with expensive additives, which are not limited by the state. Products that are rarely bought in normal times are available without limits. Other petrol stations have limited sale, some only sell 5 litre to their customers. Shell, both owning petrol stations and acting as whole trader, limited at the own stations purchases to 25 000 Ft or just above 52 litre ►HU.
This week was such a run on petrol stations that the government has taken new measurements. Trucks for example must pay the market price, Hungarian small delivery cars and passenger cars may buy at state prices. And for the long weekend trucks were banned from the streets on Thursday evening. Just to allow them again on Friday. During the “kormányinfó” last Thursday Zsolt Hernádi, CEO of MOL and searched for with criminal charges in Croatia, was guest and has shown a picture of a trunk where was tanked into plastic bags to show that there is no crisis, but irresponsible behaviour. The problem is that this picture was taken in Mexico in 2019, Hernádi later excused ►HU. All together there would just be a small, temporary logistic problem.
Yesterday Ákos Hadházy (independent) went to the MOL petrol station in Százhalombatta and tried to put gasoline into his car. Without success. This proves that the “logistic problem” is a very ridiculous explanation, because MOL’s own refinery is in Százhalombatta ►HU.
The market reacts on typical communist measures of the Orbán regime and surprise, surprise, it doesn’t work as Orbán wanted. Again the state is causing serious economic problems and the solution is not to respect the market and to use market-conform measures, but makes the rules more complicated. Now the petrol station staff needs to check what number plate a lorry has – Hungarian or foreign. And the exact maximum weight – 3.49 t or 3.5 t, 7.49 t or 7.5 t. And the exact registration form. And the numbers of seats to qualify as passenger’s car or as bus. Most petrol stations are self-serviced with staff at the cashier. But an increasingly number is not manned at all.
At the end who is guilty? Yes! Márki-Zay is promoting to save energy since long, which has been changed by the regime from “insulate house” into “sit in cold houses” or from “subsidise energy saving boilers” into “don’t wash yourself.” Now Péter Hoppál (FIDESZ) had the solution for saving fuel: The leftist voters shouldn’t buy petrol ►HU. Ruin the country and blame those who are not in power.
The Great Wall Motors will build a car factory near Pécs on a 6 km^2 territory. https://www.szabadeuropa.hu/a/orban-es-hszi-csin-ping-egyutt-jelenthetik-be-hogy-a-great-wall-motors-epit-autogyarat-pecs-mellett/32922206.html
From July 1, Hungarian (i.e. European) green cards are again for sale for a 250,000 euro loan to the Hungarian…
Chinese president Xi will visit Orbanistan on May 8. https://www.szabadeuropa.hu/a/gulyas-gergely-a-kinai-elnok-ketnapos-latogatasra-erkezik-magyarorszagra/32920314.html
Orban's son-in-law has secretly obtained another piece of public land, a former children's hospital and its large garden in the…
This article today from the Kyiv Independent on the military situation around Kyiv is both very good and very optimistic at the same time https://kyivindependent.com/national/russia-concentrates-military-power-for-kyiv-assault/ . The good part it discusses the disorganization of Russian forces in some detail the optimistic part is it avoids likely possibility of very heavy shelling, missile attacks, and air bombardment of Kyiv similar to Grozny, Aleppo Syria (see https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/12/01/russia/syria-war-crimes-month-bombing-aleppo# ), and the US and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) assault on ISIL capital city of Raqqa in 2017. In all the endless media discussions of Russian attacks on urban areas as part of the western coverage of the Ukraine invasion, our US designed Raqqa assault is never mentioned.
There has been today indication that the Russians are now bringing up towed artillery in addition to mechanized artillery based on satellite photos. The Russians clearly have many command and control problems and are using officers very heavily in direct combat. High casualties among Russian general officers indicate the poor quality of Russian command and control, requiring Russian generals to deploy forward and risk Ukrainian fire to command their forces. I guess the Russian commanders have read this report from the US based Institute for the Study of War: (also see https://news.yahoo.com/russian-officer-complains-dead-general-113255353.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall ):
“Putin reportedly fired several generals and arrested Federal Security Service (FSB) intelligence officers in an internal purge. Ukrainian Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov stated on March 9 that the Kremlin has replaced eight generals due to their failures in Ukraine, though ISW cannot independently verify this information. Putin additionally detained several personnel from the FSB’s 5th Service, which is responsible for informing Putin about the political situation in Ukraine. The Federal Protective Service and 9th Directorate of the FSB (its internal security department) reportedly raided the 5th Service and over 20 other locations on March 11. Several media outlets reported that 5th Service Head Sergey Beseda and his deputy Anatoly Bolyukh are under house arrest on March 11. Independent Russian media outlet Meduza claimed the 5th Service might have provided Putin with false information about the political situation in Ukraine ahead of his invasion out of fear of contradicting Putin‘s desired prognosis that a war in Ukraine would be a smooth undertaking. Putin is likely carrying out an internal purge of general officers and intelligence personnel. He may be doing so either to save face after failing to consider their assessments in his own pre-invasion decision-making or in retaliation for faulty intelligence he may believe they provided him.”
Since Putin is a student of Stalin, this is not surprising in the least, Stalin had many Red Army officers shot and purged his intelligence officers repeatedly prior to WWII and during the war. Putin is bringing into Ukraine around 16,000 Syrian soldiers to help replace his dead troops. The Ukrainian General Staff stated Russia is transferring reserves across Russia to its combat units and began sourcing conscripts from prisons in Rostov Oblast in exchange for amnesty. It is also widely reported that Putin is trying various ways to get Belarus to commit troops to combat in Ukraine which Lukashenko has resisted wisely up to now. Lukashenko was in Moscow yesterday for a meeting with Putin where he no doubt tried to pressure him more into feeding troops into the meat grinder war in Ukraine.
I have seen almost no data coming from Western sources of Ukrainian military losses, which have to be horrendous too. I have seen many reports from Russian that are hard to consider as being realistic. Of course they are putting out their own videos of their precise war efforts https://www.rt.com/russia/551754-ukraine-helicopter-strike-drones/ (this site may be blocked in some EU nations). Russia is plodding forward day after day like they did in WWII taking their casualties massively. By the way based on estimates I have seen the Russians have now may have lost more troops so far in the Ukraine war than the US did in the whole of the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. That will provide little solace to the families both Russian and American of these war dead.
Another good and informative article, thanks.
My understanding of matters military is very modest. What however puzzles me is the peculiar thinking by NATO. In the run up to the invasion intelligence reports correctly identified what to expect. They, at head of NATO formed the view that Ukraine would be able to resist successfully the attacks by Russia. That assessment would have been based on looking at a number of issues including the poor quality of the attacking forces and of their equipment. I do hope that is what they concluded because if they concluded the opposite I would have expected them to act very differently. If Ukraine is bound or even very likely to lose the war it should have been encouraged to sign up to a deal in a way similar to Vichy France. The prospect of turning Kyiv into a new Stalingrad with NATO shouting from the distance is potentially very distressing and more importantly very damaging to the alliance. Assuming a likely attack on one or more NATO country how can it retain its unity, credibility but above all moral authority to be effective to repel such attacks? I believe NATO should regard this attack as an attack on NATO and engage actively to repel the Russians. Otherwise their failure may prove very costly in more ways than one.
Well you are not alone in that perspective Robert including now here in the USA. For example Magyar Nemzet has a big story today https://magyarnemzet.hu/kulfold/2022/03/soros-gyorgy-is-fegyvereket-akar-kuldeni-ukrajnaba the evil Soros supports sending MiG 29 fighter planes to Ukraine. Of course Magyar Nemzet does not indicate that there is a lot of Americans support sending the MiGs to Ukraine. But our government does not.
In fact now a lot more Americans support sending US troops to Ukraine. Fortune and Civis Analytics polled in the U.S. between Feb. 25 and 28 and discovered that 41% of respondents told them they’d support sending American combat troops to Ukraine and 43% were opposed with the rest indicating no opinion. Earlier in February only 13% of Americans appeared to support sending US forces into Ukraine. What happened was the US people got to see the war every night on TV and want to help Ukraine.
If one watches ABC news, which is owned by the Disney company, the war is mostly presented to viewers to terms of civilian deaths and trauma very graphically. Very few Americans now have ever been in combat, in fact only 7.3 percent of all living Americans have served in the military at some point in their lives. War is shocking and its not at all like the movies we in America watch really, even the better one rarely ever show civilians getting killed in the fog of war either in error or as part of a mathematical presumption of what is called collateral damage. Or as in the case of the Russians a campaign of terror against the population to create demoralization, which the US and UK did in the horrendous bombing of Dresden during WWII depicted in the novel Slaughterhouse-Five.
So Soros is in good company actually now. Many of the Republicans that Fidesz likes so much also fully support sending the MiGs to Ukraine. One is Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, another is Senator Joni Ernst, in fact there was a full press conference of US Senate Republicans supporting sending the MiGs (see https://www.c-span.org/video/?518592-1/senate-republicans-call-president-biden-back-polish-fighter-jet-transfer-ukraine ). I have already indicated I am opposed to imposing the no Fly zone in Ukraine and I have indicated that I believe sending across the border the MiGs may just get many Ukrainian pilots killed and they may have very few airbases operational to land them at now. So I am not on board with this.
But I think very quickly the US should be sending to Ukraine additional advanced anti-air craft missile launchers well beyond the shoulder fired ones we have sent. We should also be sending long range artillery to the Ukrainians. I do think we all need to be in fear of a nuclear war between NATO and Russia evolving out of this war. There are clearly some who are willing to call Putin’s bluff on nuclear war see https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2022-03-11/putins-nuclear-bluff and many others including my self who are honestly pretty terrified where this could be going see https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2022-03-08/how-war-ukraine-could-get-much-worse ,
To try and present to the Hungarian people that Soros’ position on the MiGs is some sort of crazy liberal plot as Magyar Nemzet does is absurd and in fact its part of Orban’s boot licking of Putin.
“I think very quickly the US should be sending to Ukraine additional advanced anti-air craft missile launchers well beyond the shoulder fired ones we have sent. We should also be sending long range artillery to the Ukrainians.”
I am quite sure you are right. However, is it going to happen soon? If so, what are the logistics of delivering them to the units engaged in combat with the Russian?
The comparison with the Red Army occupation of Hungary following the 1956 war is only superficially comparable with the likely outcome here. Ukraine as a free and independent country longing to join up with the West, EU and with NATO will never or not for a very long time do other than resent and oppose the Russian detestables. Hungary had not been a free country since the end of WW1. The post WW2 Red Army occupation was a horror story none of us will ever forget or forgive. 1956 offered a ray of hope. The Kadar regime could and did offer improvement on what was there before the revolution and immediately following. I find it difficult to see how a similar contract could be built following the current events grind to a form of stability.
I am very fearful of a gradual abandonment of Ukraine if the Russians do win ultimately a decisive victory along with a purge of most elected officials. While General Milley the chair of the US joints chiefs of staff had talked about a long term guerrilla war in Ukraine, he has said nothing like that lately.
That would require a safe haven for patriotic Ukrainian forces, I think even Poland is fearful of cross border attacks by the Russians in such a situation. For now the Ukrainian Army is showing amazing resilience, but the Russians keep on coming.
The most amazing thing I ever saw was a North Vietnamese tank assault with Russian T-34-85s in 1972 it was a slaughter. They were hit by South Vietnamese artillery that I was a US adviser to, by massive US bombings, and by South Vietnamese Army troops with hand held antitank weapons. (M72 LAW anti-tank rockets) A few made it into the town of An Loc in South Vietnam and were destroyed on the streets. They drove right into death with no escape. Probably several thousand of their tank crews were killed in that crazy attack ordered by General Võ Nguyên Giáp who had defeated the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and was considered a military genius. But he and the political leadership of North Vietnam were in a big hurry to finish the war.
Given how imbalanced Putin is, hopefully he might try something equally crazy. I am sure his Generals will want a longer bombardment than Putin who wants this done with. Sometimes war is a role of the dice.
Yes, I agree. The time to strike is now. Important to arm the Ukrainians with the best possible weapons.
“The post WW2 Red Army occupation was a horror story none of us will ever forget or forgive.”
Now Robert, who are you representing?
That Jan just happens to be the unvarnished truth.
Girls and women raped. A priest defending them murdered by drunken out of control Red Army soldiers. Thieving mob robbing the population of watched or anything they could lay their hands on. When their mission was accomplished they stayed for decades. Imposed regimes of unimaginable brutality, who without hesitation murdered those who fought for our freedom in 1956.
And who do you represent?
Our former host Eva discussed the issue of the history of the Battle of Budapest and mass rape by Russian forces in several posts. Of course she was a little girl back then, but she discussed the historical work of Krisztián Ungváry in particular.
I will admit that the old Arrow Cross members of Chicago’s Hungarian community who came here post WWII using what are commonly called the “rat lines,” did in deed talk a great deal about Russian harsh treatment and rape after the fall of Budapest. Cleary it was part of their anti-communist training for young American Hungarians, it was even discussed in the Hungarian scouts.
But that does not mean it was not true. Krisztián Ungváry has even uncovered pleadings from the Hungarian Communist Party to Stalin to control Russia troops carrying out mass rape in Budapest.
But I also knew people who were just Catholics whose families experienced the mass rapes in Budapest. One told me the Russian knew almost no Hungarian, but remembers his mother being taken by drunken Red Army soldiers who called her “fasiszta kurva” which she would never forget.
You, Istvan, as a former senior officer, are aware of what I learned about the laws of war. When I raised my question with our professor of how the troops can be relied on to observe these rules he told us that it is part of the work of the NCOs and of the officers to make sure the troops knew and kept those rules. In a properly run army, one not based on medieval brutality, the Red Army brutality would not have been encouraged nor tolerated. I am sure there are many anecdotal sources and maybe some are propaganda based, nonetheless those who were aware of the Red Army conduct will not be surprised by the way Putin’s forces behave in Ukraine.
I believe the murder by the Red Army of Baron Vilmos Apor, Bishop of Gyor illustrates this better than virtually anything else. The Bishop, whose work included saving as many Jews as was possible from extermination, was gunned down when he stood in the way way of the drunken Red Army squaddies bent on raping some local women who sheltered under his protection. Where were their officers? God help Ukrainian women when Putin’s soldiers rape them shouting “nazi kurva”.
Planned economy doesn’t work 😮, who would have thought. 😀
A properly functioning economy must be planned. The question is how?
That is not the same as a command economy.
Robert before you press “post comment” you should read again. „A properly functioning economy must be planned – that is not the same as a command economy.“ What you say …
That is what I meant to write.
Lost in translations! German Planwirtschaft means nothing else but command economy.
Giving economy clear rules or react to exploding prices by taxing measures is something very different. France today has announced to lower fuel prices with 15 ct / l, not at the expense of companies, but by lowering taxes. Still no bad business for the treasury, since the still much higher prices than a year ago mean higher taxes anyway.
Thanks, how simple.
The Putin-created puppet “respublics” in Ukraine should be called resputins or rasputins.
res publica > res Putina > ras putina