this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2024
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They had it in Yugoslavia and then they were demolished in the wars. The modern states are hobbled by debt accrued during the rebuild and still plagued by border violence. There's no single interstate grid, the highway system is littered with checkpoints and blockades, and the disparate countries have lost their pre-collapse industrial capacity to the bombings of the 90s.
Then I'm sure you stopped off at Obrovac Aluminum Plant and Obrenovac Thermal Power Plant, critical backbones of the old economy that were never fully repaired, much less reintegrated into the regional economies. Perhaps you had a ride in one of the surviving locally manufactured automobiles, once a common export of the region but now functionally impossible to assemble due to the fractured political landscape?
What were you policing in this now peaceful and bountiful utopia, btw? Crime, I'm sure, is way down from the Tito era, right? And arms smuggling? That's not a thing anymore, is it?
Sure. You played cops and robbers in Kosovo for a few weeks and now you're an expert. I just spent half a decade at a hedge fund, watching my bosses pick Eastern Europe clean, asset by asset and industry by industry.
You're so smart, bro. You should write a book about your experiences.
My friend, you are trying to argue that there are no basic utilities in the Balkans in 2024. Some basic research or even just contacting literally anyone who lives there will prove you wrong. It's so rudimentary and ridiculous - I have no idea how you have the gall to continue arguing something so absurd. Not to mention your ludicrous claim that North Koreans are better off than people in Southeastern Europe.
ridiculous
You're demonstrably wrong about most everything you claim and anyone can do a quick google search to see for themsevles (including you). Yes, there are interstate grids - you can go see them now if you wanted to. The highway systemS (there is more than one) are not "littered with checkpoints and violence". You can literally go and see for yourself. And the biggest problems with debt have little to do with the "liberal capital" you mention previously but they do have a lot to do with large-scale Chinese infrastructure projects. And even then, no Balkan country has adebt to GDP ratio of anything close to 100%. Do tell me again about this hedge fund you worked for - did you use numbers?
Any self-respecting expert from the region would call you out for being either delusional or simply trying to push an ideology regardless of facts. You are clearly regurgitating information about countries you've never been to and know nothing about. Where you got that information - well frankly, who cares. But it does resemble the propaganda of the old school socialist parties in the region who keep prattling off about how good things were before 1990 and how bad things are now when in fact the vast majority of politco-economic metrics clearly show the opposite is true.
In conclusion: you have no idea what you're talking about and anyone with an internet connection can confirm that.
Edit: Oh, and about that book. I don't write books of my personal experiences but I am a co-author of multiple books with comparative analysis in the region alonside other independent experts. Based on a lot of fieldwork. That is how I know you are spouting nonsense.
If you want to claim you've been to the Balkans but you refuse to acknowledge the destruction of its largest infrastructure projects, that's entirely you being ignorant for your own sake.
Nope, you just don't know the characteristics of the infrastructure you're talking about. Because if you did you would know a lot of those plants and manufacturing capacity were ineffective and propped up by a authoritarian systems. They were always a lost cause.
I haven't just been to the Balkans. I've lived there. I have work partners from all over the region and we talk everyday of every week about the.political and economic situation of the region.
That is how I know you are not versed in these matters.
And its obvious you are just grasping at straws at this point because you've made no attempt to refute my specific claims in the same.manner I refute yours. Because how could you - any basic desk research would clearly demonstrate you are wrong.
If you're seriously interested in the subject, I think you'd do well to look into the Yugoslavian automotive industry and its subsequent collapse.
Yeah, its too bad Balkan countries stopped producing cars after 1990 due to the sudden and mysterious lack of electricity, water, sewage and waste disposal. Then again, there's barely any roads or highways in Southeastern Europe to drive them on anyway. And the ones that do exist are barely usable because of the violent radical gangs patrolling them.
But hopefully one day the locals will be better off. Maybe even have basic utilities. Like North Koreans.
Unironically
Of course. Here's hoping the ongoing war in the Balkans ends soon and peoples in the region can have peaceful relations. You know, like North and South Korea. Or Ukraine and Russia. Or Israel and Palestine.
And if any of this doesn't make sense, I suggest you look up the history of the Yugoslavian automotive industry before and after the fall of the SFRY. Then it'll all fall into place. Unless you're in the Balkans, in which case you wouldn't be reading this because you don't have access to the internet. Unironically.
We've been tantalizingly close to a break through in North / South tensions. Hopefully, the collapse of the Yoon government means reconciliations can continue.
But one thing you don't see is terror attacks along the border. That's critical to a future reconciliation.
No doubt, there is a clear and unmistakable trend toward demilitirazation and reducing nuclear tensions on the Korean Peninsula these past few years.
The real issue is Serbia testing ICBMs and threatening Romania with nuclear warfare. Apparently the secret biological experiments the US has been conducting on Vucic are making him go crazy. Textbook example of a strategy of tension.
Reality truly is stranger than fiction.
Ah, yes. The Serbian space program.
They'll be sending their first satellite into orbit soon. You'd think they'd need basic utilities to do that but no - its all held together by duct tape and wishful thinking.
With the help of their neighbors in Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Montenegro, it seems. Amazing what Slavs can do when they're united, rather than at each others' throats.
Okay, now repeat that in Korean.