neo-colonial rates
Ivo Skoric
ivo at reporters.net
Wed May 15 23:31:36 CEST 2002
Since my parents are divorced and live in two different countries
(Germany and Croatia) I came to the following interesting
observations:
1) if I would fly to visit my dad in Croatia this summer I would pay
twice as much as I would to visit my mom in Germany (also to
Croatia I would be flown by LOT, Polish airlines, that used to be the
only European airlines with worse ratings than JAT)
2) when I call my mother I pay three times less than when I call my
father; the difference is even bigger when they call me
3) when my mom calls me it doesn't matter whether she calls me
at home or on my cell phone; when my dad calls my cell phone,
Croatian Telekom (which, btw, is owned by Deutsche Telekom, the
same company that owns German telephony) bills him four times
higher rate
One would think that people in Croatia are much richer than in
Germany - to be able to afford those higher prices. But they are
not. The average income in Croatia is actually just a fraction of the
income in Germany. So, the obvious conclusion would be that
Croats can travel less and use long-distance service more
sparingly than Germans. Which is the empirical truth. But is it just?
Still, Croatia yearns to become a NATO member - despite the
evidence of the pains among the recent members (Poland, Hungary
Czech Republic) - which all just ended up poorer and with more
defense spending as a result of their NATO membership.
I remember Tudjman's pompous slogan trumpeting Croatian
independence: "Croatian gun on Croatian shoulder, Croatian vallet
in Croatian pocket." It seems however that it ended up more like
this: "American gun on Croatian shoulder, Croatian vallet in
German pocket."
ivo
---------------------------------------------------------
Ivo Skoric
19 Baxter Street
Rutland VT 05701
802.775.7257
ivo at balkansnet.org
balkansnet.org
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