The need to consolidate public budgets is perhaps already evident, even to those political parties that have long perceived resources as limitless and freely available. Investors worldwide eagerly await opportunities to lend to debt-ridden Slovakia. Consolidation plans are beginning to emerge, the Financial Policy Institute at the Ministry of Finance has published the impact of austerity and tax measures on GDP.
Do you also feel that communication is somehow getting faster and easier for us before national election? Statuses, clickbait headlines, short Tik-Tok videos, captions on Instagram photos. If you do not condense the information into three words, do not even bother saying anything. Okay, maybe my age and nostalgia are writing this out of me and it has always been this way, just by analog means. But what I see, even without nostalgia, is the decline of electoral agendas.
Recently publicized case of a child who was not reimbursed by his health insurance company for a requested medicine illustrates the broken world of medicine. Lots of regulations and little market is supposed to protect patients, but it often works exactly the opposite. A three-year-old boy from Slovakia suffers from Dravet syndrome, a severe form of congenital epilepsy characterized by dozens of seizures each day.
This year, the Economics Olympiad attracted once again the interest of more than 10,000 young Slovaks and helped them to gain appreciation and recognition for their knowledge and skills in the fields of economics and finance. The sixth year of the Economics Olympiad for high-school students was concluded with the finals, which took place on Thursday, 4th May 2023 at the Hotel Devín in Bratislava.
INESS once again organized the popular conference Free Market Road Show in cooperation with the Austrian Economics Center as part of the international conference tour. Its main focus was the current problems of the energy market in Europe, the challenges faced by entrepreneurs as well as energy suppliers.
Education is like an enormous oceanic ship where no one can change the course quickly, even if everyone can see that they are heading for an iceberg. Enough politicians have been burned in Slovakia who have taken command, announced a new course, and started turning the steering wheel, but nothing happened to the ship.
Public healthcare should also work with priorities. What has more priority? Financial or geographical accessibility? Quality or quantity? What should be clearly free and, conversely, what is the Slovak patient-insured-consumer willing to pay for?
Since 2006, most of the time Slovakia has been ruled by politicians who have emphasized the role of the welfare state. The concept of pre-election welfare packages has become more popular and has become an integral part of mainstream politics, regardless of the phase of the election cycle.
The term “wage” and its size are very important in national discussions about labor markets, taxes and insurance payments, but also part of international comparisons for investors deciding to build a factory or to place investments in a specific country. A lot of confusion has been created by the introduction of gross wage with arbitrary distinction between “employee paid” and “employer paid” taxes and contributions.
It makes a big difference whether the state directly funds the operation of restaurants or “merely” mandates the issuance of food stamps, or whether restaurants are funded by paying customers.
