Author Archive

We’ve weathered our first opening up to free trade The first experience of post-communist Slovakia with free markets was a big shock to our uncompetitive and poorly managed companies which failed to rise to the challenge. Over time, they have been replaced by new ones, often with foreign owners – […]

In the village where I’m living you can meet people from different nations. Mostly Slovaks and Hungarians. A few Czechs, Serbs, some Vietnamese and Chinese. Sometimes Gypsies. And also someone of clearly Sub-Saharan origin. A football championship between various groups living in our area took place recently at our local stadium where I […]

No doubt about it, the situation of women in society has improved dramatically. My great-grandmother, for instance, probably left her native village for the first time when she ran away from the forced marriage arranged for her. She emigrated to the States and after a while returned with quite a […]

While developing countries move towards the welfare state, European countries need to redesign their welfare model. European states have become so big they are now unwieldy. Basic safety nets have been stretched to unexpected sizes and because the state supports everything that “people deserve”, it’s getting harder and harder to […]

By definition, healthcare plays an important role in any country’s economy, along with the food industry and many other sectors. One of the differences, though, is that, depending on the patient’s health state, it could become very expensive. This makes it the natural province for insurance companies. In Slovakia health […]