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Czech consumers made Martin Roman a very rich man. Every time they flipped the light switch or rode a train, metro car or tram made by Škoda Transportation, his net worth rose. That is, if the ownership details uncovered over the years by MFD are true. MFD's revelations ultimately led to Roman's departure from ČEZ, but he still has all that ill-gotten gain and needs to do something with it. MFD revealed today that investors connected to him (meaning, presumably, his frontmen) have taken over the Špindlerův Mlýn ski resort. Equipped with this knowledge, Czechs can continue to put money into Roman's pocket by trekking to Špindl and ponying up for a ski pass. Or, they can ski elsewhere and leave Špindl to the billionaires. They can let Roman and his pals see, for once, what it's like to run a business without the benefit of a monopoly and without the compelled participation of millions of Czech consumers.
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When a company makes a bad investment and needs to reflect this in its accounts, it takes a write-down. The company usually does it as a one-off charge, with the hope of recovering from it in the next reporting period. This is basically what the Czech National Bank did on behalf of the country. All crown-denominated assets were written down by 5%, with the stated goal of producing higher economic growth next time. The country has been spending more than Kč 1 trillion per year, but without the desired effect. If the CR were a company, and if the CNB were its finance department, it would examine the outlays to determine where things went wrong. And lo and behold, it would find bad investments like the Blanka tunnel, ČEZ's foreign acquisitions and domestic divestitures, and all those overpriced IT projects. Yet nowhere in the CNB's explanation for the currency intervention do we find anything about the people who in effect forced the de valuation of the Czech crown by stealing the country blind.
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China’s $100,000 aid ‘measly,’ judged by its Phl mining take
Talk about fair-weather friend. “As hundreds of thousands of Filipinos struggled to find food, water, shelter and the bodies of loved ones in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan, China quickly dipped into its world-leading $3.7 trillion of currency reserves and came up with … all of $100,000.” That Bloomberg news lead captured the general recoil at how the world’s second-largest economy treats an Asian neighbor. Other headlines stated “cheapskate,” “paltry,” “miserly” and, in one mainland-Chinese daily, “ungenerous.”
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