"... Normally in central Europe, it is easier to raise taxes than cut spending, so the eventual spending cuts may be smaller. Hungary also remains highly vulnerable to emerging-market fatigue in its currency and stockmarkets (although this week's riots seem not to have unsettled investors much). But the most important question about the programme is not whether it will work—given a chance, it will—but whether voters will accept it.

Before the election, the government clearly did not believe that they would. Now Hungarians are waking up to discover that they have been lied to for years. That is hardly the best way to reconcile them to austerity. Perhaps the best that can be said is that Mr Gyurcsany is at last being brutally frank in confronting problems that he (and the opposition) long pretended did not exist. He is gambling that his majority will hold together long enough for his austerity programme to start working, for the economy to recover and for his party to be re-elected again. (As he put it, “they can go ahead and rally in front of parliament...It's no big deal if we lose some support. We'll get it back.”)

A lot is riding on this gamble: not just Hungary's economy, but the adoption of the euro by new members and the very reputation of central Europe (now somewhat besmirched by the waywardness of Poland's rulers, the thuggery of Slovakia's and the non-existence of a Czech government). Given a choice between being honest with voters and winning an election, Mr Gyurcsany picked the second—as most politicians would. Given a choice between tough decisions and muddling through, he has now opted, unusually, for the first. Mr Gyurcsany is doing the right thing in the wrong way. Unfortunately for him, this week he was found out. "

Recently I was asked to stay longer in Switzerland due tight schedule in the ongoing project. It was easy decision as Dóra will be in Romania during that time anyways. So, I will stay till 17th November.

In practice that means I will have more time for sightseeing. So far I have visited Zurich, Seengen, Lenzburg, Bern, Fribourg and some neighboring areas of Zurich. I will go to Luzern next weekend and I also have plans for Geneve and Lausanne. But after those I have no decisions yet.

Maybe I go somehow over mountains. I saw advertisement about train connection going up and down along mountains towards south. Or I could take a look to neighboring countries. Italy, Austria, Germany or France. Oh, and Liechtenstein.

"The events in Hungary fuel concerns that the European Union’s newest members are facing growing political instability and resistance to reforms required for their economic integration.

Poland's increasingly rickety coalition has shown no stomach for cutting bloated social spending and has attacked pro-reform central bank governor Leszek Balcerowicz.

Slovakia this year dumped a reformist government that transformed had transformed its sleepy economy into the “Tatra Tiger” for a populist coalition that includes the far-right Slovak National Party."

Read the full article from FT

Busy day in international politics. In the morning the hot topic was nightly riots in Hungary because of the leaked audio recording in which prime minister stated they have lied to get elected again. Then afternoon brought news from Thailand as the military coup happened.

Both events came more or less from nowhere but they take longer time to settle down. I know nothing about Thailand but Hungary's case is more closer to me. Last election result was really tight and support for the government has been declining after numerous tax and benefit reforms. Now this latest event is not really helping the situation... or who knows.

Let's speculate a little bit:

A. Leak was done by someone who does not favor government. The aim is to force PM to resign.

B. Leak was done on purpose by government in order to make it clear that reforms are needed.

And outcomes could be:

1. Riots cool down, PM continues and reforms take place as planned.
2. Riots continue, PM resigns and someone from government takes place.
3. Riots continue, PM resigns and someone from opposition takes place.
4. Riots continue, government forced to have early parliament elections.

In any case I hope the situation calms down and issue is solved one way or another. This event does help world to know that Hungary exists but the message is pretty bad. On the other hand, would you be surprised to hear lie and politics in same sentence?

Today I made a day trip to Bern which is the capital of Switzerland. It is smaller than Zurich, though. I met a company colleague there and he guided me through sights of that nice city. We also had chats about every day life, IT and so on. One thing got my attention while we were talking about how there is a lot of discussion about moving jobs to China and India.

His opinion was that it isn't that big issue in Switzerland because swiss companies somehow favor companies using swiss labor. Also the real benefits of outsourcing have turned out to be marginal. I think there are maybe two different motivators to move IT-development to developing country. First is the cost saving and the other one is lack of skilled people in domestic labor market.

The lower cost of software development is not really as simple matter as it seems. Skilled professionals know their value and when there is demand for such skills salaries tend to raise. Naturally it takes time to catch up but this affects anyways. Language, culture and working style differences are affecting as well being physically far away. Setting up an ad-hoc meeting is impossible so details need to be specified beforehand. However, several companies are investing on this and apparently some of them are getting some extra under the line because of this.

But I haven't seen too many articles describing how offsourcing has changed life in the target country. Even though the salary is low in wester scale but it is way above average there. It also brings a lot of know-how. I am rather curious to see what is the role of South-America and Africa in this offsourcing.

For example, Kenya is taking action to improve its Internet connection. Setting up an industrial factory takes years and requires plenty of capital. However, developing software is totally different. Workstations are cheap, it is possible to use free software tools and it requires some bright minds with education. I have no clue what is the potential hiding there as Africa is not just one war ridden, hungry and AIDS carrying country. Maybe offsourcing is something that helps to improve life there.

I have spent lately some time reading finnish business discussion forums in order to get some hints how people are expecting economy and especially housing prices to develop. But today I spotted a thread about pyramid marketing and how those marketers have started to use violence in order to silence criticism. Here is an article about the incident (in Finnish)

It is so surprising how same old scheme works all over again. Promises of easy and passive income appeal to greedy and materialistic people - you just get money when other work for you. I have heard those marketing speeches as my friend contacted me long time ago and said that he has some new business and he would like me to join. Actually he did not say too much as there was a mentor who did speaking. It didn't take too long to realize what it was about. I felt somewhat mixed as I didn't now shall I throw them out or start to laugh to absurdness of the idea. Well, I did let them finish and I said that this "business" is not for me. They were persuading and finally they gave me a CD to listen. On that CD there was some fanatic guy telling how also you could get rich, all over again same story with different words.

This kind of business is in some cases illegal and in any case it is unethical and misleading. You don't have to have a degree in mathematics to see how impossible it is. It will benefit you only if you set up your own scheme. But do you want to make your living as selling over priced junk and sacrificing your friendships in name of recruiting? Sure it beats selling drugs but it is definitely against my ethics.

Some additional links for further reading:
Verkostomarkkinointi - Bisnestä vai huijausta?
What's Wrong With Multi-Level Marketing?
Plenty of critical material available, just use your favorite Internet search.

I have spent over half of my stay in Zurich and I have some thoughts to share.

People at this office already remember my face and I am one of them. This is a little bit problematic because I can't follow their swiss German too well. That doesn't keep me from attending coffee breaks and trying to understand them. However, I comment and ask in English and sometimes discussion turns to English for a while. I see here two ways. Either learn the language or try to change the language to English. Sometimes people talk me in a simple high German and I am able to have some chat which is pretty nice.

The project I have been working on is not the nicest one. But unfortunately everybody thinks it is somehow horrible. The difference is how people show it. Some are okay with that it is somewhat awkward but they are working without complaining. Then other might complain every day several times about the customer, tools and project. The fact is that we cannot change it too much. But individuals attitude makes big difference. I have had zero motivation days even though I have been involved only a little bit over one month. Both good and bad mood are spreading to your team mates even though you are not thinking about it. That is something I should be more aware.

This has been also a test for myself how well I can work individually. My supervisor and coach had a holiday of two weeks and he comes back on Monday. During that time I avoided asking help without putting some effort solving problem myself. I have to say that kicking your own lazy butt forward is not easy sometimes. I think that it is essential to be able to see the problem from several aspects. Otherwise you will be stuck so easily and you will end up staring the screen forever without any progress. It is also very easy to get distracted from your "productive state". Noise, thinking girlfriend, checking some news, reading email etc. It takes serious effort to get back to that mental state and it is so easy to drop out from it.

I am not going to give a grade to myself here. It has been valuable experience, I have churned out some working code and I have met a lot of interesting people. And I think I have learned something about myself.

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I was lucky enough to get a free weekend visit to Budapest from Zurich. I arrived on Friday afternoon and I had to leave on Sunday noon. But despite to short time I enjoyed. I spent all that time with Dóra whom I haven't seen for around five weeks and we also had our two-year-together anniversary. Next time we will see in Romania somewhere October or November... Another month or two but time flies.

As I have some background with AIESEC and I think it is a really great organization I decided to contact some local AIESEC people here in Zurich. So, I searched the email of LCP of AIESEC Zurich and I asked whether they have any meetings or such. And yesterday I joined their local gathering and had a beer with them at the university while chatting about common AIESEC topics. Great!

Yesterday here was a Langstrasse street party. Also, at the same time on the other side of the city there was the night of the museums. Very different happenings.

Today I was just looking from this flat's kitchen window and I spotted a man having his morning cigarette. It looked somehow interesting so I just took this photo.

There are always such shops popping up. Check this blog:

Trails » Web Shop Scams

Greedy and lazy individuals are easy to cheat. Pyramid marketing, fake Internet shops, health products - you name it. When it promises 50% prices, passive income (my favorite), instant weight loss or erection people just lose their common sense.