Will the last taxpayer to leave Latvia, please turn out the light!

The rumour today is that the government tends to close the Latvian borders in 3 months time and not let anyone else leave. It is so wonderfully Orwellian it may just be true. But there is no reason to do it then unless there are other plans afoot so that probably places Devaluation firmly into the first week of February. You heard it here first.

Of course I may just have given away another secret government misery plan so I apologise to Ventspils Police in advance. It is now nearly a year since they arrested Dmitrijs Smirnov the University lecturer (remember him readers?) for the heinous crime of daring to speak his mind freely about the economy. I always thought that was what we paid academics for in the first place!

LEAVES

5 years ago I went to Minsk. One of the abiding memories of that wonderful trip was the sight of 40 or so workers walking in a straight line in the park clearing leaves. A sure sign of Soviet control I felt. This week I saw the same leaf clearing in a park in Riga. I fear we have progressed backwards. I think it is a great idea that those unemployed should do something positive with their time but when we have literally hundreds of unemployed executives and teachers, why cannot we run lessons for them all and do something positive - back to school!

WASTE

My friend Lars who runs Swedish owned Ragn Sells waste company in Riga says that after steady drops in volume all year, waste (rubbish to the rest of us!) has now bottomed out. This says something important but I am not sure yet what.

My building supplier client Maris from Buvejam LV says that his customers have simply stopped phoning. Luckily he has Plan B in place and intends to be there for the recovery. We are about to start an advertising campaign. He says his friends who have shops are all saying the same. The slow decline is still going on and the next marker point will be February when the money stops for the last group made unemployed and the big 500 million cuts start to take effect. I fear that despite the good news of waste, we have the worst still to come.

FLAGS

I passed the Europa Hotel yesterday on Barona Iela. All the flags hanging outside were wrapped around the posts and looking very sorry. Self respect and attention to detail has gone. I think it probably sums up the sad way the country sees itself.