Final Word from Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Tweeten

A record number of Czechs are out of work, but the Czech and Slovak elite made an ostentatious display of attending a snow-polo tournament over the weekend at the invitation of one of the Five Families, J&T. In keeping with the tone, Patrik Tkáč of J&T told Euro that politicians and businesspeople have been getting together for thousands of years and will continue to do so. Corruption has been around forever, he said, while democracy is only 250 years old or so. In his articles in HN, lawyer Radek Pokorný argues that Czechs have nothing to be ashamed of in terms of their moral standards, because the Anglo-Saxon world is simply better at playing the game of looking ethical. Being decent and honest apparently isn't natural human behavior, Pokorný says, and there's not much that can be done about it. What lesson are we supposed to draw from this? That the Czech "elite," crisis or no crisis, will continue to take and lavishly spend their 20% and will dispense with the hypocrisy of pretending that it should be otherwise.[Czech Republic Pokorný Wagner Penta PPF KKCG RPG NWR Hospodářské noviny]