Re: Latvians Regain Majority in Riga After 50 Years

In article <1135775952.473169.84340@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"=?windows-1257?q?P=E7teris_Cedri=F2=F0_(Peteris_Cedrins)?="
<cedrins@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

><deletions>
>
> No matter how one paints the recent exodus, I think that the best one
> could say is that the demographics are catastrophic, probably less
> catastrophic for ethnic Latvians -- but still catastrophic. I saw a few
> people I haven't seen for a while on "the third Christmas," and that
> was everybody's impression -- even gloomier than mine, Vello, sorry!
> It's a certain fact that most of the people leaving are young, and even
> if the emigration is not on the scale some fear, the prognoses for the
> future were already quite bleak even before the recent wave. The only
> people making gains are Gypsies (and there aren't many Roma, and even
> their gains are small).
>
> The latest government line is that companies will be forced to raise
> salaries because Latvian society will not be open to immigration. I am
> skeptical of that logic -- companies do not care very much about what
> society thinks, and the actual situation is more complex; it may well
> be that one cannot find a construction worker for less than Ls 500 a
> month, but not everybody is a construction worker... and, judging from
> the experience of emigration (and numerous other problems), the
> immigration problems we'll soon face aren't going to be addressed until
> they're practically insoluble, if then.

A simple question. In my admittedly limited experience Latvia, and
particularly Riga, has the highest price level and the lowest salary/wage
structure in the Baltics. Latvian taxation also demands a larger share of
earnings and corporate profits than those of Estonia and Lithuania. Latvia
is also perceived to be the Baltic country with the highest level of
corruption (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781359.html). Where is all
that money going?

With these problems, and with considerably more success in combatting them
in both Estonia and Lithuania, what is the political establishment doing?
You haven't reached a state yet where the rats are abandoning a sinking
ship, although sometimes you make it sound like that.

Visu labu,
Eugene Holman
.

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