Dead Chain Link

I was talking today with a neighbor about the country's economic situation, about how serious this financial crisis could be, how dependent we are on imports, and what degree of independence Romania could have if it were led by leaders who want the good of the country. At one point, from what I heard from older people and read, Romania was the only country in the world that paid off its international debt in full.

Shortly afterwards, in 1989 the revolution took place, the dictator Nicola Ceausescu was killed, and Romania embraced its much desired democracy and the modern slavery in which it is today. A little over 30 years after the revolution, our country is quite indebted to the IMF, the financial crisis seems to be right around the corner indebting us even more, we import more than we should, and at the same time we export tons of work force in other European countries with a much better economy than ours.

Everything would work like on wheels if we embraced the almost perfect economic model that I am going to present to you through a short story, which this neighbor with whom I was talking earlier told me narrated to me. It's that simple.

According to the story, one day a rather rich man came to a hotel, in a rather poor locality and affected by a financial crisis, looking to stay over there for a few days. He left 100 euros at the reception and went to see some rooms, and to choose one of them to spend a few days there. The owner of the hotel came, took the hundred euros and quickly went to the butcher to pay his debt to him, handing the banknote.

The butcher took it, and without thinking, went directly to the feed supplier to pay his debt to him, for the fodder needed he had received to raise the animals, not having the money to pay on time though. The feed supplier also owed the tailor, who had been sewing his clothes for a long time, without receiving any payment on time.

The tailor took the banknote and went with it straight to the village prostitute :), because in times of crisis even she provided her services on credit, and when the tailor came with the banknote received for those former services, she did not thought any second more, and she in turn, went to pay her debt. This being to the owner of the hotel, who gave her rooms to perform... The owner of the hotel found himself with the debt being paid by the prostitute and with the same 100 euros in his hand ...

...moment when the client who had initially given him that banknote came disappointed, and asked for his money back, motivating that he does not like any room and that he wants to look for accommodation elsewhere. The hotel owner returned the banknote to him and watched him leave the hotel. Although the banknote had again come into the possession of the one from whom it had initially left, managed to pay off a chain of debts from that small and poor town.

Such an economic model, in my opinion, is ideal and guarantees the support of a very long-term economy, but its implementation and maintenance depends entirely on the participants in the system. When certain links in the chain are broken and replaced with external ones, it becomes much more fragile and at some point will be destroyed.

I cannot say that the Romanian economy is currently destroyed, but such crises, foreign debts and massive imports will at some point lead to a national bankruptcy if we keep on pushing on this path. This could not have been possible during the communist period because the aforementioned factors were not present. At that time our economy was like a chain, seemingly indestructible, and now it seems that its links are breaking apart.

Such economic problems are certainly present in almost every country in the world, on whole lot different levels of gravity, and they seem to be somehow orchestrated, as my intuition tells me. I have the impression that an entity, which seems to have lived in the shadows for tens and hundreds of years, has made different economies dependent on each other, and none is completely independent. I don't remember how serious the economic crisis was in 2008, but my intuition tells me that this one will be much more serious.

Thanks for attention
Adrian