Anti-crisis measures remain a necessary but insufficient relief. The background of the social collapse runs through the minuses of the calculation for a month that ends fatally in “quick loans” which remains a problem that also affects the concept of the social state and which must be fixed beyond “quick extortions”. Solutions must also be sought for a large number of businesses that already pay five times more electricity and are at risk of being closed. These businesses have thousands of employees. The government is left to balance between the concept of the welfare state and the risk entrepreneurship that can produce unemployment in this difficult period of all-around crisis.
Author: Bardhyl Zaimi
The government has approved the package of new anti-crisis measures at a time when the prices of essential food products are double-priced. The data of the Statistics Agency show that the consumption basket for a four-member family amounts to approximately 46,000 denars, while the already guaranteed minimum wage is 18,000 denars, while the average wage is approximately 30,000 denars.
If an average is taken at the state level, calculating the average minimum wage, it turns out that a family calculating two employees for a month is approximately 200 euros minus. This means that each family needs approximately 200 euros to meet the needs of the consumer basket within the month.
But this is not the whole picture that we can see in this difficult time of unaffordable crisis, because a large number of families live only on an average or minimum wage. This minus within the month turns out to be much larger at the national level. It is precisely this lack of income that is forcing many citizens to look for “fatal” solutions in quick loans that operate with unaffordable interest rates. According to the information, quick loans are now a daily occurrence for many citizens, a fatal scheme that offers temporary solutions, but which extorts citizens to the core.
Precisely, following this fatal metastasis of the crisis, it is time for the government to intervene in the regulation of this banking business, especially now in times of crisis, when these entities profit tremendously from the difficulties and ruined status of the citizens. Of course, everyone has the free will to seek solutions from these undefined banking entities, but it remains in the hands of the government, based on the protection of the citizen and the concept of the welfare state, to control the interest rates for these entities, because they cannot function outside of any financial logic, penetrating with a gluttony of benefits over the social decomposition of citizens. Precisely this social decomposition makes it necessary to intervene in these entities that function legally but with extortion logic beyond the normal banking system.
Of course, the categories of citizens with low earnings who are looking for help to make ends meet remain victims of quick loans- debts. The government with the anti-crisis measures has already included this category of social cases, but this aid seems quite insufficient to fill the large gap of the consumption basket doubled due to the crisis and due to the speculative prices of traders registered by the market inspectorate.
However, the other dimension of the crisis is the premature increase in the price of electricity and the method of calculation that has placed businesses on the verge of bankruptcy. Some of the companies have complained that they are paying five times more bills these months compared to the same months last year with the same consumption of electricity. These companies have hundreds and thousands of employees who risk losing their jobs. This would further expand the social decomposition in the state. Economic chambers have sought a solution to the supply of electricity at free market prices as an opportunity to survive these businesses.
Anti-crisis measures seem to be welcome but insufficient in all those layers of social decomposition of the transition period. The government is left to balance between the concept of the welfare state and the risk entrepreneurship that can produce unemployment in this difficult period of all-around crisis. Any anomaly is addressed to the government, the system as a guarantor of minimal social welfare. For this reason, as the experts have emphasized, long-term and well-thought-out economic policies are needed that operate with all dimensions of the crisis to the depths of injustices and anomalies of the eternal transition. One of the experts’ suggestions was the importance, namely the temporary ban of non-essential capital investments and the focus on the acute dimensions of the crisis. Money in times of crisis should be known where it can be spent. The state and the government must know this!