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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Yatsenyuk Calls for 'Khrushchyovkas 2'



Arseniy Yatsenyuk: The only way to solve this is to actually build some sort of “Khrushchyovkas 2,” that is, cheap and affordable housing whereby, with funding from the community and with minimum down payments from these people, such people could be resettled.


Somebody get him his Lenin Prize in Architecture and Economics!

A much more effective way would be to build khrushchyovkas for the corrupt Ukrainian elites and resettle them to the Zone of Alienation for a year or two.

This program would breathe new life into the government’s anti-corruption efforts, facilitating affordable housing that meets the requirements of the 21st century.

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/111725.html
Original source: http://ictv.ua

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, even though I think Yatseniuk is very intelligent and very articulate and has a great command of facts - he screwed the pooch on this one.

In Ukraine, government is indeed not the solution, in its current form - it is the problem.

Seems to me he should indeed focus his efforts on reforming the government, instead of creating tiny little government housing cubicles to keep the people in perpetual economic serfdom and in government-created economic ghettos.

While the "political elite" continue to amass billions through abuse of government and congratulate themselves on "addressing the affordable housing problem in Ukraine."

Taras said...

Intelligent, articulate, and elitist.

Ukrainian elitists, big or small, view non-elite Ukrainians as bydlo to be goaded and herded while the elites hoard billions of dollars via corrupt governance.

Anonymous said...

Well, Taras, as much as it pains me to say it, so far they seem to be right.

The only true political party that I have seen in Ukraine seems to be one organized by Lutsenko - National Self-defense, or Narodna Samooborona.

By true political party, I mean one not based on a group of oligarchs getting together to protect their own interests, but one based on some type of ideology and principles.

I am, of course, not counting the commies.

As Anders Aslund and others pointed out quite a while back, there are no true political parties in Ukraine - only ex-sovok oligarch thugs who got together to compete, and abuse government, against other groups of oligarch thugs.

The people rightly expected that there would be a breakthrough with the Orange Revolution.

Tragically, Yushchenko screwed the pooch. One certainly can't expect anything out of Yanukovych, which is the same-ol', same-ol' sovok stuff, covered in slick platitudes from American PR types like Paul Manafort.

But, truly, what have the people done? Nothing.

They are rightly disappointed, and are rightly furious.

But democracy requires participation - and the people in Ukraine seem not to be willing to step forward, to put forward their candidates in order to stamp out the "political elite" and put in some true reforms, so that government stops functioning just for the benefit of the "political elite," and starts functioning for the common good.

The people in Ukraine need to cowboy up - or they will continue to be treated to Khrushchovkas, like beasts of burden and cattle.

Taras said...

I totally agree with Anders Aslund.

Narodna Samooborona boasts its own cadre of oligarchs (or, rather, oligarchlets), some of whom the media links to the Luzhnikov group.

Indeed, ordinary Ukrainians have under-participated in democracy, leaving the job to the elites and, in effect, leaving the country with a kleptoplutocracy.

Change often comes with crisis.

If this crisis gets worse — and there’s every indication it will — the cattle might become the catharsis.

Taras said...

You have a good point there!

Bulgakov’s Heart of a Dog offers an interesting cross-era cultural bridge for comparing the communist elites of the 1920s with the capitalist elites of today.