An outside comment from Mr. J. Fear :)

I got this interesting comment from someone who uses the name Jānis Bailes (or John Fear):

The actions of the state police against people speaking out on the economic and political situation bring to mind three possibilities.

1. The political class wants to cover up the impending economic crisis so that they can convert all their ill-gotten assets into cash/Swiss bank accounts before the average person figures out what is coming.

2. The state security institutions are pursuing a 'business as usual' approach to anybody that says anything the political class doesn't like.

3. The secret police have some rougue units that are acting out of their authority.


Well, let us do a little Sherlock Holmes deduction.

The third possibility can not be true because these kinds of suppression of freedom of speech have been going on for years (since the last independence). If the third possibility were true, then we should see an investigation of the secret police under the laws for instigating a financial crisis. Surely anybody that learns of what they are doing will really believe that they are trying cover up a real crisis that is coming.

The second possibility could be true, but is not a builder of confidence because any political and economic system built on suppression of free speech and transparency can not be durable. Free speech and transparency are fundamentals of capitalistic systems that recover from market shocks. The second possibility predicts continuous extreme economic and political crisis.

The first possibility has the best chance of being true. Think back to the days of Bank of Baltija when all the politicians withdrew their deposits just before the bank closed and cost the average Latvians $400 million dollars in losses. The political class certainly knows how to look after themselves and you can be sure that they have already moved all the cash they can to their offshore accounts.

Sincerely,

Janis Bailes