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Fooling the nation
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It is unfortunate for Turkey to have ministers who are still trying to conceal the failure of the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government to realize the coming crisis and take adequate measures to limit the impacts on Turkish economy. Does this country really deserve to have an economy minister who can attribute the rampant increase in unemployment to "housewives tend to seek unemployment as well in crisis times" claim as if no shops are closing down, no workers were being sacked at textiles, automotive or some other sectors of the Turkish industry because of the shrinking domestic and foreign demand for Turkish products?
While only in one city some 15,000 workers were laid off in one month because of the crisis, and even in the figures of the TÜİK, unemployment rate has reached 13.6 percent and made this country one of the global "champions" in unemployment, how can a minister come up with a claim that unemployment in Turkey increased because women wanted employment as well? Mind you, the economy minister is not one of those backward, almond mustached members of the Cabinet. He is a Western educated man with vast experience in stock trading in the West. He is not one of those Islamist democrats who would walk several steps ahead of his wife. Though he is coming from a rather backward southeastern Anatolian background, he is no longer one of those male chauvinist folk who believe in as goes the joke-like saying "You should never leave the back of a woman without stick, her womb without a baby." Yet, he can say we have high unemployment because women wanted jobs as well!
The registered unemployed working population has reached 3.274 million at the end of December 2008. Compared to Dec. 2007 figures, there has been an increase of 838,000 in the number of registered unemployed people. Irrespective what excuse an economy minister or a prime minister may manufacture to show that the government is not responsible of the surge in unemployment rate, figures testify to a gross failure of the government. If governments are not going to be responsible of the bad developments in economy, if they are not responsible of proper governance of the country, for what good they are for?
Crisis will go deeper
Most likely, the January 2009 unemployment figures will be far worse than the December figures. Many economists are already stressing that unemployment rate might exceed 15 percent in the statistical report of the TÜİK for January 2009. Will then Economy Minister Mehmet Şimşek and his Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan try to wash off responsibility and attribute this time the surge in unemployment to a "in times of crisis young girls as well start demanding employment. That’s why we have an increase in unemployment" excuse? What would they say for the expected surge in March? Definitely, Turkey, like the rest of the world, is going through a very serious crisis and things will go farther worse before they get better eventually.
The government must accept its responsibility and confess to the nation that because of the March 29 local polls it just did not want to take some painful anti-crisis measures; refused to cut down public spending; tried to avoid a new stand-by deal with the International Monetary Fund, or the IMF, fearing that such a deal would not allow the ruling party engage in election economics, prevent distribution of alms and vote buying. At this time of acute global crisis, was there any meaning in distributing tens of millions of liras in cash coupons, coal donations and household appliances to villages without running water and electricity?
Increase in crime
Over the past few months, however, third pages of even the pro-government newspapers were full of stories of fathers going berserk and massacring their families, committing suicide. Why? Because they saw no future, have exhausted all their hopes and just gave up. There is as well a surge in break-ins in major cities of the country. No one of course should try to legitimize illegitimacy, but is it not normal for people who have lost all their hopes to become criminal? They have nothing to lose anyhow?
But, according to the economy minister the government is successful and the surge in unemployment rate is because housewives demand employment as well.
Minister Şimşek must definitely be making a jokeÉ But a very bad joke!
The registered unemployed working population has reached 3.274 million at the end of December 2008. Compared to Dec. 2007 figures, there has been an increase of 838,000 in the number of registered unemployed people. Irrespective what excuse an economy minister or a prime minister may manufacture to show that the government is not responsible of the surge in unemployment rate, figures testify to a gross failure of the government. If governments are not going to be responsible of the bad developments in economy, if they are not responsible of proper governance of the country, for what good they are for?
Crisis will go deeper
Most likely, the January 2009 unemployment figures will be far worse than the December figures. Many economists are already stressing that unemployment rate might exceed 15 percent in the statistical report of the TÜİK for January 2009. Will then Economy Minister Mehmet Şimşek and his Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan try to wash off responsibility and attribute this time the surge in unemployment to a "in times of crisis young girls as well start demanding employment. That’s why we have an increase in unemployment" excuse? What would they say for the expected surge in March? Definitely, Turkey, like the rest of the world, is going through a very serious crisis and things will go farther worse before they get better eventually.
The government must accept its responsibility and confess to the nation that because of the March 29 local polls it just did not want to take some painful anti-crisis measures; refused to cut down public spending; tried to avoid a new stand-by deal with the International Monetary Fund, or the IMF, fearing that such a deal would not allow the ruling party engage in election economics, prevent distribution of alms and vote buying. At this time of acute global crisis, was there any meaning in distributing tens of millions of liras in cash coupons, coal donations and household appliances to villages without running water and electricity?
Increase in crime
Over the past few months, however, third pages of even the pro-government newspapers were full of stories of fathers going berserk and massacring their families, committing suicide. Why? Because they saw no future, have exhausted all their hopes and just gave up. There is as well a surge in break-ins in major cities of the country. No one of course should try to legitimize illegitimacy, but is it not normal for people who have lost all their hopes to become criminal? They have nothing to lose anyhow?
But, according to the economy minister the government is successful and the surge in unemployment rate is because housewives demand employment as well.
Minister Şimşek must definitely be making a jokeÉ But a very bad joke!
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