Letter to the State: 11 wishes for business on Independence Day
Dear State!
During the holidays, for the first time in military uniform, one could have limited oneself to "I serve the Ukrainian people!"
But you, the State, on my 54th birthday three months ago, decided to have an honest, serious conversation with me about the fact that no matter what I do in life and with what productivity, you need me most of all now, for an indefinite period of time of enemy aggression, in the Defense Forces.
With information about our security situation coming largely from outside your official public sources, in a time of severe, prolonged war, I agreed.
I try to fulfill my civic duties as conscientiously and productively as possible. And I thank you for the weapons and ammunition, comfortable uniforms, three meals a day and, most importantly, very good opportunities for military training and education at both the basic and command and staff levels.
But on your birthday, let me continue this honest, serious conversation with you and express a few wishes:
1. Please do not steal or lie.
2. Please punish public officials who steal (of course, after their guilt has been proven by an independent judiciary with full right to defense in court).
3. To have an honest conversation with society and raise the level of militarization and mobilization of the state and society to a level adequate to the current threats to Ukraine's existence.
4. Realizing the vital importance for us to be a part of the European and Euro-Atlantic community, to fulfill the EU's requirements for European integration at a FASTER, not slower pace.
5. As a part of the previous point, to provide Ukrainian entrepreneurship and business with at least the Hungarian (the lowest in the EU) level of economic freedom (or better, the Estonian and Irish).
6. As part of this, we should finally abandon the pre-capitalist, feudal French king's principle of "plucking geese without making too much noise" and move to a modern, modern state policy of CULTIVATING private enterprise as the backbone of a modern productive, innovative economy.
7. I remember at the YES Conference in 2022 when none other than First Vice Prime Minister Svyrydenko announced the wonderful, correct intention to reduce the weight of the state from 45% to 25% of GDP. (Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, who was sitting next to me, turned to me and said skeptically: "Good luck with that!").
So, please, can we at least not increase the weight of the state so quickly from the current >50% of GDP, because otherwise we will soon turn into North Korea (100% of the state), not South Korea (25%)?
8. By the way, in the context of economic unfreedom, is it possible, please, to make it a rule to adopt 10 permissive decisions for each new restrictive decision of the state (for example, criminalization of illegal border crossing)?
9. Given that total factor productivity accounts for 85% of economic growth, can the government develop and offer the private sector a joint private-public program to increase productivity, primarily through innovation and lifelong learning (as I am doing now in my 54+ years in the military) and as all developed countries, especially the EU, are doing now (Mario Draghi Report).
It is also worth remembering that according to global studies, the productivity of the aggressor nation is at least twice as high as ours.
10. I realize that I am starting to wish for too much, but if we take advantage of the existential threat and finally complete the unpopular pension, education and healthcare reforms and the popular deregulation reforms?
This will make it possible to triple the level of savings in the country and raise them at least to the Czech level (30% of GDP, not to mention the Chinese 45%).
As a result, the country will attract an additional 40-55 billion dollars of DOMESTIC INVESTMENT (and at the same time radically reduce the current huge trade deficit).
11. Finally, can the state be asked to appoint officials based not only on the principle of personal loyalty, but also on talent, professionalism, and previous global and national knowledge and experience?
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