Jan Oravec

Arrival of Uber, which provides a cheaper alternative compared to traditional taxi services, has stirred up a debate in Slovakia. The participants are two camps divided by two completely different points of view regarding the question what Uber represents.

The story of Singapore does not match the usual idea of combining democracy and the market economy. While in the developed countries of the West, democracy has been threatening the functioning of the market economy, Singapore and its authoritarian regime has maintained the status of the easiest country to do business in.

The euro indeed plays a major role in the Greek drama, but the ultimate cause of the Greek economic turmoil lies somewhere else. The real problem is that the architects of the euro used it as a turbo that was meant to speed up the integration engine of the eurozone, while encouraging other European countries to do so as well.

If the hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs, small and big businesses alike, took as long to deal with their daily existential crises, every last one of them would have already gone bankrupt. At the same time, politicians don\'t have to worry about it.

Is there a difference between a starting entrepreneur and a disabled person? Yes, there is, and it\'s a big one. A disabled person has much fewer options if he or she wants to get a government aid compared to a starting entrepreneur. I remembered this joke when I was reading one of the government strategies. But the joke may soon become a reality if the government decides to implement it. And that\'s not funny at all.

We can find examples of negative interest rates in countries throughout history. But these are geographically or time-isolated cases. However, today we live in a world where more and more things are turning upside down. And one of such things is the fact that negative interest rates are shifting from a deviation to a norm (for the time being only within the financial system).

In the last few years, the compound word “start-up” has established itself in the Slovak language and is successfully edging out the original term – “a beginning entrepreneur”. A start-up, a start-uper, the start-up scene, a start-up strategy, a start-up investment – the media are packed to the rafters with such collocations. This is not […]

Nominants of Syriza haven’t even settled comfortably in their key chairs in the new Greek government yet and new prime minister together with finance minister have already made their first compromise and step back from their pre-electoral promises. They refrained form talking about the debt write-off, started talking about restructurization of debt and went on a European tour to find out from creditors which particular forms of restructurization could be acceptable.

Carrousel of changes at the Slovakian Ministry of Education is not an anomaly but rather an illustration of the instability and unpredictability, which in public sector seems to be adopted as systemic solution.

So, what can we expect from this newly formed Juncker´s bunch? Through closer look at the list of newly approved Euro Commissioners, we cannot overlook, at least, two positions where first one is definitely a positive message, while the second is clearly a bad one.