Slovak household expenses / Why Slovakia is poor / Poverty in Slovakia / Are Slovaks poor? ? / Capitalism versus socialism – Tomáš Harustiak
Information is spreading on the Internet about how under socialism we saved as much as we could, while under capitalism we buy much more and save a little more. What is the reality?
Demand for goods and services:
In 2015, 35,772 entrepreneurs went bankrupt, which was 7.39% of the total number of 482,638 active entrepreneurs. The following years it was 7.49%, 6.9%, 8% and 9.69%. The average value is 8%. This means that the probability that the entrepreneur will go bankrupt in the first year is 8%. During 5 years it is 40% and during 10 years up to 80%! Those are really high numbers. Why do so many entrepreneurs fail, even though today they have low interest rates on loans? It looks like this is due to the very weak purchasing power of the population, or their demand for products and. Under socialism, there were no such number of bankrupt companies. Cities were crowded, pubs and shops were bursting at the seams. Wasn’t the purchasing power under socialism higher than today?
https://finstat.sk/analyzy/statistika-poctu-vzniknutych-a-zaniknutych-firiem
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Demand for food:
By adding up the individual items, we find that in 1993 a Slovak bought 652 kg of food, while in 2016 only 563 kg of food, which is a decrease of 13.6%! In the case of alcoholic beverages, a Slovak drank 116.5 liters in 1993, while in 2016 only 94.5 liters, which is a decrease of 18.8%! The consumption of milk and milk products decreased by 13.6% from 250.2 liters to 216.2 liters! The only thing in which the consumption compared to 1993 was used in the consumption of soft drinks from 105 to 211 liters, i.e. by 100%. However, it is not a big deal, since the non-alcoholic drinks here are water, mineral water, and raspberry drinks, which are on average very cheap. Their price is on average 0.4 euros per liter, which is 42 euros more per year at 105 liters, and only 3.5 euros per month. Soft drinks make up only a very small part of a Slovak’s shopping basket. We can therefore confidently state that in 2016 Slovaks bought approx. 15% less food than in 1993.
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Energy demand:
From the tables we can see that the average energy consumption in the years 1990, 1991, 1992 was the largest, while the following 3 years were always smaller. Energy includes gasoline and other petroleum products, electricity, gas, coal.
https://www.enerdata.net/estore/energy-market/slovakia/
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Demand for housing:
The annual average housing construction was roughly 200% for the higher level of socialism and 50% for the home compared to capitalism.
https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/default/files/documents/sk_2020_ltrs.pdf pp. 6-9
Today, the demand for own housing is less. The average young Slovak is almost 31 years old before he moves away from his parents, while in the age group from 25 to 34, up to 56.4% live with their parents!
https://index.sme.sk/c/22466507/prieskum-vacsina-mladych-slovakov-byva-so-svojimi-rodicmi.html
It is true that the demand for real estate was greater under socialism also due to the increased birth rate, which was roughly 63% higher compared to capitalism, on the other hand, housing construction was up to 200% higher in the case of apartments, i.e. 50% in the case of houses, which there is a rather more than 63% increase in the birth rate. On the other hand, the population was smaller in the past. We can therefore confidently declare that the demand for real estate per thousand inhabitants was several times higher under socialism than it is today!
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Demand for culture:
Today, a cultural object can be founded by the state or a private entrepreneur. Under socialism, however, cultural objects could only be built by the state, and since the state did not spend a lot of money on culture (as is the case today), there was a lack of cultural objects, although their average attendance was several times higher than under capitalism. The average number of visits per show/object are as follows:
Theater / 1993 = 277 people / 2017 = 180 people
Museum / 1993 = 9689 people / 2017 = 9462
Astronomical facility / 1993 = 9000 people / 2017 = 7343 people
Gallery / 1993 = 19500 people / 2017 = 9757
Libraries / 1993 = 286 people / 2017 = 180 people
Theater / 1993 = 277 people / 2017 = 222 people
Source : Slovak Republic in Numbers 2018 Page 37
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Transport request:
The total number of passengers transported by trains decreased by 10% in the case of public transport by up to 70%! It seems that if people traveled less.
The outage in state transport was partly replaced by passenger cars. The number of passenger cars has increased by up to 107% since 1993 compared to 2017! Although the number of cars increased, the number of kilometers driven per car decreased significantly, as the number increased by 109%, the daily consumption of gasoline measured in thousands of barrels increased from 10.93 to 14.35, i.e. by only 31%! This means that the number of cars has increased, but individual cars drive significantly less than cars in 1993.
https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Slovakia/gasoline_consumption/
Slovak Republic in numbers 2018 Pages 58-59
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Demand for clothing:
In 2019, Slovaks spent 1.48 billion euros on clothing per year, which is approximately only 23 euros per Slovak per month! I could not find the expenditure on clothing under socialism.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/575429/clothing-consumption-expenditure-slovakia/
So it could be summarized as follows. After the fall of socialism, we have less consumption of products and services, food, energy, housing, culture and transport. The only things we buy more today are cars and electrical technology – computer, television.
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HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT:
It is a popular myth today that during socialism, food was of poor quality and unhealthy, and socialist factories infected all of Slovakia with cancer. However, statistics do not support these assumptions, they directly contradict them. Paradoxically, the numbers for today’s deterioration of the health of the population.
PS: I give constant attention to the Christian page about miracles and signs in Christianity
https://paranormalnejavy1.webnode.sk/1-zazraky-a-znamenia-v-krestanstve/