The journalists are often accused of seeing only the color black in the variety of colors. They only find negative and grey tints in positive events and speeches and thus spoil the positive outcome of those speeches. And first of all the government officials complain about this and even try to blame the mass media of their failures and shortcomings.
They don’t directly blame the media. They say if you didn’t write the negative stuff things would be better. As a fresh example we may mention the words of Tigran Sargsyan, expressed in the interview to the 168-Zham days after he was appointed Prime Minister. “Our success greatly depends on the work you do (means the mass media – B.T.), depends on the right impulses you deliver to the society,” said Sargsyan and asked to send positive impulses to the society. During the interview the government hasn’t been formed yet and to the question how changes can be made if the same people keep occupying their posts Sargsyan said that these people will be changed during certin period. However, since the governmental cabinet is formed we can hardly believe that these people can bring positive changes to this country and as people say, “the red cow won’t change its skin.” It will be naïve to believe that Sargsyan was appointed Prime Minister to reform this country and change the current government members. It is more like the job of the psychologist than the economist to make the people be changed. In that case what is the main reason of choosing Tigran Sargsyan to become Prime Minister besides professionalism? The answer to this question becomes simple when we take a close look at the last economic developments. After Serzh Sargsyan’s meeting with the customs service officers certain steps were undertaken. We didn’t see those steps but instead saw their consequences. It is when the traders started to complain that now they pay more customs fees. If we review the issue in the “pro-state aspect” then the complaint is not justified. The government says that no legislative change has taken place and indirectly confesses that because of the awkwardness of the customs service in the past years the customs fees were not paid properly and that the budget suffered to a major extent. Thus, they have started to work legally, which caused the anger of the traders because no one wants to pay more. It means that they are complaining about the good thing, which is fight against the shade. But are they actually doing the wrong thing when they are complaining about the positive thing? Maybe not. During his past interview to our newspaper the former head of the State Tax Service Felix Tsolakyan said that if there is the right intention it is possible to find violation in the functioning of all the stores and shut them down. However, their issue is not to harm people. There are cases when the enforcement of the law brings less use than harm. They don’t usually speak about this but many of them realize this. For example, the driver may complaining about the behavior of the patrol but he benefits more to pay the 1000 AMD bribe than pay the legal 5000 AMD fine. There is one more issue, which we don’t speak about quite often. It is wrong to touch the money that had already been pocketed because a few people succeeded in becoming millionaires through legal and honest methods. If they start to investigate and examine the origin of the money of the rich people then our economy will ruin. No matter how unpleasant it is the main pillars of our economy are the oligarchs. There is another thing for them. The past biography of all the oligarchs is kept in secret and if they start to misbehave their “portfolios” will be opened and thy will be punished by the government. But the government can make them return to the legal field. However, there is a nuance here. The abovementioned relates to the businessmen and not the statesmen. Before starting to punish the small and medium businesses it would be not bad to publicly punish the corrupt statesmen and specifically those customs officers, who declined to work properly. As of the major businessmen then it’s quite known, who were the ones, who were warned to work legally and stop receiving exceeding incomes. The Customs Service of Armenia decided not to lag behind and thus released its own list of the 100 companies, which made the greatest payments. The STS list also has a separate column for the customs payments. Therefore the same information is repeated in the Customs Service list. However, it is not a problem as repetition is the mother of good knowledge. But not only the traders will suffer because the high customs fees but also the all of us as the prices for all the imported goods will soon go up. The next important issue is the gas price. Starting from May 1 the gas price will be increased by 1.5 times both for the petty and large consumers. As a chain it will cause the increase of the price of fuel, food and almost all the goods produced in Armenia. Thus we will have disastrous inflation pressure. It is the cruel reality and no sense to hide it. The government has little guilt in the increase of the gas price as the Russians increased the price. As of the customs fees then the government could organize it in a way not to rapidly harm the traders. However, in this case we have an issue to fill the 2.5 billion USD State Budget. The problem is that most part of the society doesn’t care about the justifications. They only blame the new government. The government knew that the gas price is going to increase and that in order to increase the pension it will be necessary to pressure on the businessmen. The injection always helps the patient but always hurts. Thus the government needs a Prime Minister, who would inject and would avoid populism statements. In this context there is no better candidate than Tigran Sargsyan. During the past several years he has always been one of the min targets of criticism because of the currency rates. And as we once mentioned he had never avoided answers and never said that everything was OK. Vice versa, he announces that if the internal producer of the country suffers as a result of the AMD revaluation he/she must apply newer and more competitive technologies in order to become competitive and that it is not the problem of the state. Now he will have to justify the steps of the government as a Prime Minister. It is not excluded that the current government knows its steps and perhaps the currently painful steps may bring fertile results in future. In other words Tigran Sargsyan has the role of the “injector-doctor.” However, it is hard to say when the patient will start to recover after he gets the shot. Who knows maybe the doctor is will be sent to retirement and the patient maybe moved to some other hospital and ask some other doctor, who has been in vacation, take care of him. In such cases when the patient leaves the hospital he thanks the doctor, who sends him home. They either don’t remember the injector-doctor or only remember the pain the doctor game him.