НДС2 - ГОЛЯМАТА ОПАСНОСТ за БГ икономика

[младия дилър]

НДС2 - ГОЛЯМАТА ОПАСНОСТ за БГ икономика

Аз също мисля, че Иван Костов е един от малкото ценни кадри, които има СДС (с всичките му недостатъци, разбира се!) и оставката му няма да бъде добро начало за СДС.
Мисля, че основният му проблем е неговото обкръжение, което не е най-доброто от партията и всички проблеми са идвали винаги именно оттам.
По отношение на новия кабинет, Симеон 2 няма политическа власт над избраните депутати, за да осъществи какъвто и да било контрол върху тях и това е най-страшното. Не съм сигурен, че могат да съставят добър кабинет само с наличния кадрови потенциал от листата - доста от хората там не знаят за какво изобщо са в парламента (освен рабира се, да гласуват това, което им се каже - като СДС)
Доста е мъгливо бъдещето на България...

[prefect]

НДС2 - ГОЛЯМАТА ОПАСНОСТ за БГ икономика

Аз съм за премиер Чавдар Кънчев

[Боби]

НДС2 - ГОЛЯМАТА ОПАСНОСТ за БГ икономика

Резултатът от изборите не е изненадващ и затова не съм разочарован. Аз застъпвам тезата, че Иван Костов не бива да си дава оставката и ако го направи тяне бива да бъде привмана. За това свое мнение имам няколко аргумента:
1. Костов осъществи успешно управление и оставя страната в състояние, в каквото нито един премиер преди него не я е оставял.
2. Ако Костов слезе от сцената СДС ще остане на бандитите и крадците като Бакърджиев, Софиянски, Н. Николов, Антоан и Ко. А това пректически ще ликвидира партията. СДС ще се сведе до една клиентелна клика, като Екип на Бисеров. Смятам че е в интерес на България да има една нормална дясно-центриска партия по европейски модел- това стабилизира политическата система. А като такава партия СДС ще се съхрани само с Костов.
3. Чърчил е губил 3 пъти избори без да подава оставка. Аденауер е губил 4 пъти без да подава оставка. Оставка се подава ако това ще заздрави и укрепи партията а не ако ще я срути окончателно.
4. България е прекалено малка страна за да си позволи да похарчи политик от ранга на Костов. Убеден съм, че това ще се разбере много скоро.
5. Когато СДС вече не е на власт, въпроса с оставките, отговорностите, изключванията и т.н. си е негова вътрешна работа и не бива да занимава обществото (за разлика от партията в управление)

Би било интересно да обсъдим прогнозите и възможностите за кабинет.

[silkblues]

НДС2 - ГОЛЯМАТА ОПАСНОСТ за БГ икономика

Абе то Костов още не е влез отговорността нещо се дърпа Дано го направи. А колкото до царското движение дано успеят макар 4е не ми се вярва скоро старите полити4ески лисици ще ги разцепят

[младия дилър]

НДС2 - ГОЛЯМАТА ОПАСНОСТ за БГ икономика

Мисля, че крайният резултат е една голяма въпросителна за бъдещето на България. Царят все още не е наясно какво, как и с кого ще го прави. Поне така личи от изявленията му - общи приказки, "ще видим" и т.н.
Това ако не кукла на конци ...

[Владо Аврамов]

НДС2 - ГОЛЯМАТА ОПАСНОСТ за БГ икономика

Очакваме крайният резултат.

[Разочарован]

НДС2 - ГОЛЯМАТА ОПАСНОСТ за БГ икономика

ВЕРВАЙТЕ МИ ОТ ИНТЕРНЕТ ВРЪЗКАТА Е. НЕ СЪМ ИСКАЛ ТАКЪВ ТИРАЖ НА ОТГОВОРА МИ.

[Наивник]

НДС2 - ГОЛЯМАТА ОПАСНОСТ за БГ икономика

Честно казано и аз съм разочарован, но не толкова, че да ми треперят ръцете и да пускам едно съобщение по пет пъти. Недей така бе човек, ще се поболееш, това сме си заслужили....

[Разочарован]

НДС2 - ГОЛЯМАТА ОПАСНОСТ за БГ икономика

Това българския народ е много странно нещо. Не мога да разбера как за два месеца един разумен човек може да си изгради мнение за едно движение, както е в нашия случай. Аз нямам нищо против новия икономически екип на Движението. Уважавам ги като икономисти, но нека не забравяме, че има голяма разлика между макроикономиката и управлението на капитали да речем. Затова съм сигурен, че ще бъде извънредно трудно на екипа да се справи (затова може би търсият коалиция с някоя от партиите-динозаври) Уважавам напоритостта на младите (аз лично съм студент), но нека оставим кормилото на улегналите и сблъскалите се вече с трудностите на държавното управление хора. Дълбоко се надявам следващия министър-председател да поема всичката отговорност за действията на бъдещото правителство така, както го правеше г-н Иван Костов при неговото управление.

[Наблюдател]

НДС2 - ГОЛЯМАТА ОПАСНОСТ за БГ икономика

Нека да гледаме напред, защото сега не e ясно дали ОДС ще очаства в коалиция с НДС2. Ясно е, обаче, че правителство ще има НДС2+ДПС, но с крехка стабилност!

[bobs]

НДС2 - ГОЛЯМАТА ОПАСНОСТ за БГ икономика

eeemi taka shte e... koito nqma glava na ramenete si ima "bunch of guys", koito ama izobshto ne sa weird /kato bunch de!/. aide pyk sled nqkoj drug den shte si kazvame "kakvoto bilo, bilo!". "Izbori" - prekaleno elektoralno mi zvuchi...

[kosuma]

НДС2 - ГОЛЯМАТА ОПАСНОСТ за БГ икономика

Uvoda e krasnorechiv!

[WALL STREET JOURNAL]

НДС2 - ГОЛЯМАТА ОПАСНОСТ за БГ икономика

FYI WSJ - Front page

Business and Finance - Europe
Simeon II's Unorthodox Team
Captures Bulgarian Imagination
By MATTHEW KARNITSCHNIG
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


SOFIA, Bulgaria - Bulgaria is days away from a national election, and a prominent candidate is hitting his stride.

"You're a lying old gypsy," he tells an 80-year-old voter during a campaign stop at a town in the northeast. As for journalists, some are so incompetent that they "should go work in the fields" he tells a gathering of reporters.

The testy words of a no-hope fringe candidate? No, these are the remarks of Vladimir Karolev, a leading light of the party that's projected to win Sunday's general election with about 40% of the popular vote.

By Western measures, the National Movement of Czar Simeon II is as unorthodox as a political party gets. It's led by a former monarch who was
deposed in 1946, when he was nine, and it's packed with Western-educated
brokers and analysts who know more about price-earnings ratios than they do
about political realities. Ever since the ousted monarch waded into
politics two months ago, his team has stumbled from embarrassment to
embarrassment, including a discovery that some of its candidates once
served as agents for the communist secret police.

Yet millions of Bulgarian voters believe that Simeon II and his team
represent the best -- and perhaps only -- chance to wrest their country
from the grip of poverty. "This is the only person who gives us hope," says
Ilyana Georgieva, a Sofia college student who's voting this weekend for the
first time. "Everyone else is corrupt."

The ability of such an unlikely party to capture the imagination of voters
is clearly a tribute to Simeon's reputation as a man untainted by the
country's grim communist past. A 63-year-old polyglot, he has spent most of
his life as an exiled businessman in Spain and sits on the boards of
companies in Europe and Africa.

But the ascendance of the National Movement also reflects just how fed up
Bulgarians voters have become. Though the current government under the
centrist Union of Democratic Forces has privatized most of Bulgaria's
industry and put the country on the path toward membership in the European
Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, most of Bulgaria's eight
million people have yet to see any benefit from the reforms. All they have
tasted so far is the bitter medicine of austerity. The average wage stands
at just over $100 (115 euros) a month; annual inflation is running at about
10%; and the unemployment rate hovers at nearly 20%. Some 90% of Bulgarians
think the UDF government is corrupt.

"This is a classic example of a protest vote," says Ognian Shentov,
director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, a Sofia think tank.
"It's the inevitable result of the reforms: A lot of people feel left out."

The danger is that Simeon's team -- cobbled together in a matter of weeks
-- will prove so unwieldy and politically inexperienced that it will be
stymied by an army of civil servants beholden to the current government --
"swallowed up by a hostile bureaucracy," as Mr. Shentov puts it. That could
deepen the country's troubles and increase the electorate's disenchantment
with a democracy that has brought freedom but also a steadily declining
standard of living and 10 different governments.

Shock Treatment

The National Movement does have a few things going for it. Driving the
campaign is a team of Western-educated professionals in their 30s from the
likes of Lazard Freres, Merrill Lynch and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. They left
good-paying jobs in London and Brussels in the hopes of transforming their
homeland from a Balkan backwater into an Irish tiger. Their prescription
for the country's woes: an economic shock treatment that would cut
corporate taxes to zero if profits are reinvested, speed up privatization
and lift barriers to foreign investment.

Not one of them is a monarchist. They all hopped on the former czar's
bandwagon because they believe he is morally sound and committed to
bettering the country. But a recent day with some of them shows that they
still have much to learn about running a campaign, let alone a government.

One morning this week, the cadre could be found at the National Movement's
campaign headquarters, a three-story building (and former bank) on a
bustling narrow street in the center of Sofia. Behind the leather-covered
doors of a wood-paneled conference room, a dozen men and women sit down at
a giant roundtable to discuss what they called their latest "personnel
problem."

At issue: Mr. Karolev, the candidate who openly berated voters and
journalists earlier in the week. It's a delicate matter, given that Mr.
Karolev, a local economist, is an architect of their recovery program.
After three hours of deliberations, they decide against ditching him and
muzzle him instead.

Milen Veltchev, a 35-year-old Merrill Lynch executive tipped to be the next
finance minister, joked by summing up the decision this way: If Mr. Karolev
wags his tongue again, "we will shoot him."

Grape Brandy and Basketball

For a bunch of political mavericks out to turn their country around, Mr.
Veltchev and his colleagues are surprisingly relaxed. Shortly after their
decision to silence Mr. Karolev, several of them are sitting around a table
outside a Sofia tavern enjoying a leisurely lunch of salad and rakiya, a
grape brandy. Mr. Veltchev, a lanky MIT business graduate who resembles
tennis star Pete Sampras, has ditched his usual dark suit for a polo shirt
and chinos. He chats idly about his agenda for the election weekend. "I
plan to spend Saturday playing basketball and tennis," he says.

Shouldn't he have more pressing matters on his mind? Mr. Veltchev shrugs
and points to the front page of a Sofia newspaper lying on the table. The
most recent poll gives the former czar's party more than 38% of the vote,
compared with 20% for the UDF. Under the Bulgarian voting system, that lead
-- if borne out at the ballot box -- should give the National Movement a
comfortable majority in parliament. "We're going to win," Mr. Veltchev says
with a smile.

Last month, Mr. Veltchev was still in London, working as a fixed-income
specialist at Merrill Lynch. His specialty: helping East European countries
to manage their external debt. Out of the blue one day, he got a call from
a fellow Bulgarian expatriate, Nikolay Vassilev, the head of Central
European research at Lazard Capital Markets and the dean of Bulgarian
equities. Mr. Vassilev was organizing an economic team for the former czar.
Would Mr. Veltchev care to join them?

Mr. Veltchev was skeptical at first, but he had known Mr. Vassilev for some
time. Like many of the former monarch's youthful following, the two had
gotten acquainted at a forum of young Bulgarian expatriates held in Sofia
each year. The gatherings were started by the UDF, which hoped to enlist
the young professionals' aid in pushing Bulgaria's application to join the
EU. But along the way, the forum created the nucleus for the National
Movement: a network of expatriate Bulgarians eager to help the homeland. A
couple of weeks after getting Mr. Vassilev's call, Mr. Veltchev joined the
cause.

Back at party headquarters after lunch, Messrs. Veltchev and Vassilev
huddle in a smoke-filled room with Olya, a Bulgarian pop singer and model
who is organizing the party's campaign debates. Like Madonna and Sting, she
goes by only one name. The room is clogged with desks, overflowing ashtrays
and a stream of visitors. Every few seconds, someone's phone rings.

The televised debates pit panels of UDF and National Movement politicians
against each other, with a moderator asking all of the questions. The last
debate didn't go well, Olya says. At one point, the deputy finance minister
ridiculed Mr. Veltchev's attempts at Merrill Lynch to persuade the
government to convert its Brady bonds into eurobonds. "Yesterday, somebody
came by my house to sell me an iron," the minister crowed. "And I said 'no'
to him, too." Before Mr. Veltchev could respond, the moderator had moved
on. Lesson No. 1: "Answer the opponent's accusations" instead of the
moderator's questions, Olya advises.

The next debate should go better, she says; the audience will be full of
Simeon supporters. Mr. Veltchev wonders. "I just hope I don't have to hold
up a sign to tell them when to clap," he jokes.

The quip isn't without foundation. Many of the former czar's supporters are
blind followers with little understanding of the complex economic issues
burdening the country. To bring the economic lesson home to them, he is
promising to provide no-interest loans of about 2,500 euros apiece to small
businesses operating in pockets of high unemployment.

"The czar's style is to appeal to simple people," says Mr. Veltchev. "Our
team is trying to reach a balance between populism and what is realistic."

It's a fine line, says Lubka Katchakova, a 31-year-old accountant who left
her job at PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Brussels to join the movement last
month. Standing in the lobby of the National Movement's headquarters, she
is approached by an elderly gentleman who presents her with a bouquet and
wishes her luck in her campaign against Prime Minister Ivan Kostov for a
seat in parliament.

"They support us because the expectations are high," she says after the man
leaves. "It's not love. Even if we write the best laws, we won't succeed
unless the people in the small villages and in the bureaucracy change their
mentality. It will be mission impossible."

In Mr. Vassilev's view, it's a mission the country must complete. The
31-year-old son of a naval officer, he has spent more than a decade abroad
yet maintained close ties to home, both professionally and personally. When
he first discussed joining the effort with Simeon in April, he expected to
stay in London and act as a consultant. But after some other expatriates
made their participation contingent on his close involvement, he relented.
Now, he's expected to become the economics minister in the new government.
"I didn't want to decline because I knew this had to work," he says.

Underwear and Tax Revenues

It's now 3:00 p.m., and Mr. Vassilev has just returned to party
headquarters from a lunch of salmon and steamed vegetables at the residence
of U.S. Ambassador Richard Miles. "We wanted to get the message across that
we aren't a bunch of weird guys," he says in rapid-fire English between
phone calls with everyone from his father to a local broadcaster to a
Japanese television station.

The long days and hectic schedule have left him short on clean underwear,
so it's time for an unofficial stop at a local shopping center. "I have to
wash too often," he complains as he leaves the building with a cellphone
pressed to his ear. An elderly woman spots him from across the street and
blows him a kiss. "Good luck to the young boys," she yells.

At the Seven Seconds underwear shop, he finds a pair of boxer shorts and
shells out 15 euros worth of leva at the counter. Then he waits with
amischievous grin. "Do you notice something?" he asks. "No receipt. That's
how I'm going to fill the budget."

Here's referring to a common ruse around Sofia: By not issuing a receipt
for cash purchases, retailers can pocket the country's 20% value-added tax
on consumer goods without leaving a paper trail for tax inspectors. (In the
end, Mr. Vassilev got his receipt, but only after the shop charged an extra
2.5 euros.)

At a nearby men's story, Mr. Vassilev picks out a white Christian Dior
button-down shirt for 60 euros, and again doesn't get a receipt until he
presses the matter. "The VAT on that shirt is half of my grandmother's
monthly pension" from the government, he says. Putting an end to such
abuses would be among the biggest challenges the National Movement would
face in power.

'Trust Me'

A more immediate question is what role, if any, Simeon would play in the
new government. Though his face graces the movement's posters with his
signature slogan -- "Trust me" -- little is known of the former monarch's
ambitions. He isn't running for a seat, but that wouldn't prevent him from
serving as prime minister under Bulgarian law. The country's constitutional
court did rule this year that he didn't meet the residency requirement to
run for president, a ceremonial post that he covets.

After years of exile in Spain, he has now moved into Bulgaria's formal
royal residence, a forlorn palace that fell into disrepair during decades
of communist rule. But the evidence so far suggests that he would prefer
the role of an eminence grise to that of a rough-and-tumble parliamentary
politician.

A slim, bearded man with a patrician nose and piercing stare, Simeon has
made a number of campaign appearances but generally steers clear of the
news media. His only presence at party headquarters is in the form of a
framed color photograph hanging in the lobby. Even Mr. Vassilev and his
fellow decision-makers have met him only a handful of times.

What Simeon really wants, many argue, is to become the czar again. The
National Movement insists that's not on the cards -- for now. But if Simeon
can bring genuine change to the country, Mr. Veltchev says, "reinstating
the monarchy would be a small price to pay."

[Боби]

НДС2 - ГОЛЯМАТА ОПАСНОСТ за БГ икономика

Най-накрая нещо конкретно! Благодаря ти pd!

[pd]

НДС2 - ГОЛЯМАТА ОПАСНОСТ за БГ икономика

By Alexander Manda
LONDON, June 15 (Reuters) - Bulgarian Brady bonds could extend recent gains once political uncertainty from the June 17 election, which may bring a former king to power, has subsided, analysts said on Friday.
The bonds have gained steadily since mid-April as the market began to believe that the National Movement for Simeon II will probably be the largest party in parliament. Simeon II, the founder of the party, was briefly king as a child before the monarchy was abolished in 1946.
"If there is an orderly transition, you may get both credit upside and technical upside," said Ousmene Mandeng, senior emerging market economist at Credit Suisse First Boston in London.
"The most likely (scenario) is that Simeon will want to form a coalition with the UDF," said CSFB's Mandeng. Opinion polls give Simeon's party around 38 percent, against 17 to 21 percent for the ruling Union of Democratic Forces.
"I can see two or three points of upside once the election is out of the way and the government is in office," said Tim Ash, emerging market bond strategist at Bear Stearns International.
Bonds have gained substantially since April, said Ash. "People who came in (and bought) in April did very well out of Bulgaria," said Ash.
Bulgaria's IAB Brady bond hit a low of 72.5 percent of face value on April 26. On Friday the bond traded at 78.375.
But IAB prices above 81, where the bonds were trading in August last year, would probably be the limit of gains, said Ash.
Bulgarian bonds were caught in the fallout of neighbouring Turkey's banking crisis last year and have not since been in sight of the prices achieved in August 2000.
A price ceiling does not mean investors have a problem with Bulgaria's macroeconomic fundamentals, said Ash. "They buy the story about good International Monetary Fund relations, leading to European Union access, and a very good macro story. They are comfortable with the credit," he said. Fractious politicians are their key worry, he added.
Bulgaria's finances stabilised and its inflation eased after a severe 1996-1997 crisis, thanks to the UDF's economic policies, and will probably continue under a Simeon-UDF coalition, analysts said.
"The market wants the clean image and new energy of Simeon and the tried and tested technocrats of the UDF," said Ash.
Gross domestic product rose 5.8 percent in 2000, having risen 2.4 percent in 1999. Consumer inflation was at 9.7 percent year on year in May, down from 10.5 percent in May 2000.
"The fundamentals still look good," said a trader at a large German bank.

BUYBACK REPORTS HELP PRICES
The trader also said reports that the Bulgarian government had bought back some of the country's Brady bonds were supporting prices.
"I think they will keep buying bits and pieces and people like to hear that the government is offering support" to prices, he said. In May, Simeon's party promised to preserve Bulgaria's existing currency board system, which is based on a lev/euro peg, continuing UDF policies. The party's economic officials also said then that they were going to be more active in debt management, said CSFB's Mandeng.
Those sort of statements mean "people are looking to the possibility of a Brady buyback or exchange. That gives some technical upside," Mandeng said.
((London Capital Markets, +44-20-7542-9361, fax 44-20-7542 5285, alex.manda@reuters.com))

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