Rep.: The year to come won't be any easier. On the contrary, it will be more difficult. Things will become clear. After 365 days, at the end of 2006, we will know the exact way to go. A.V.: I think we will know it sooner. The great battle for the EU accession is to be fought this winter. The European Commission's report due in spring is a test. If last summer we made no preparations for winter, maybe this winter we will make preparations for next summer. (...) Rep.: Are we by any chance living with a paradoxical reality? There has lately been much talk about too much money in Romanian society. But employees complain about low wages. And I think they are right. Does our society have much money or not? There has started debate on it and I have heard some analysts saying it is ridiculous today to say that Romania has got extra money. I think this is worthy of some details. A.V.: We are indeed confronted with a paradox. There is much money in Romania. But Romanians have little money. There is no need of experts' analyses to learn what is visible. The money gained in Romania is low. The average raw salary barely reaches 200 Euro. (...) Rep.: There are government voices, National Bank voices and voices of financial analysts claiming there is much money in the country. How come there is money, but the country is thrifty with employees? Does it keep it in safes, whereas large categories of employees ask for larger salaries and the government wouldn't agree? Or they agree to raise the salaries of education employees after 1-month strike? A.V.: In order to understand such negations � there is money, but the government wouldn't meet employees' claims � we need to take a look at money circulation in Romanian society. Everybody knows this: currency emission is the National Bank's prerogative. But BNR (the National Bank of Romania) makes money up to a point, if there is work for money. Or if there is currency entry. But money doesn't reach economy straight. And it doesn't reach economy anyway. This is why many factories don't pay for taxes: because they have no money. Or wages bring large taxes only when percents are counted. But when they start to count money, they see it is very little. Why doesn't economy have more money? It's simple: because much money can't be justified. Money from the National Bank becomes real money after undergoing another fabrication process: the one in real economy. This is exactly what Eminescu was writing in 1880: "Is there less work? Then there is necessarily less money." Therefore the true many factories are in real economy. One of the most profitable that developed states are relying on more and more is called by a fashionable name: services. We have such a factory too. But it hasn't been restructured yet. In Romania there is little money also because few services are produced. Rep.: What do you mean by services are produced? Doesn't it lack sense? We know production is production, with two basic parts: primary and secondary. They are just services. A.V.: We have been thought to think like this for decades. Old Marxist economy books had it that services didn't produce, but just "filtered" production. This was our old-fashioned view within the Material Production System. Today history rejects this system. (...) Rep.: Let me come back to money. Little capital is one of the bleeding wounds in Romanian economy. It is about fix capital: new industrial platforms, new devices and new machines for efficiency and liquidity. This is about money for investments. The inflation stream has caused a long series of crises: internal credit, currency, production and consume. But the crisis of capital is above all. The need of capital has become vital. Therefore there are low wages because money is available in economy in order to pay for work and it is little. But still people show obvious lack of consume. Where to take the money from? A.V.: The thirst for consume is a positive sign, because money becomes more and inflation gets down. We can remember what happened to us when prices moved faster than gains. Years after years we bought little for much money. Inflation was speedy and destroyed our income. Now things are obviously changing. Inflation is losing. And the income moves faster than prices, which effects in growing consume. Not just consume of bread, like in the past era. Consume in general: food, non-food and services. (...) Rep.: But we need money to circulate, not to stay in National Bank deposits. Is there any solution to make this money reach economy and people? A.V.: Yes, there is a solution: as credits via the banks. But credits can only go where there is efficiency and efficient work. There has been much talk about a Chinese saying: it is not wise to give a hungry man a fish, for he will be hungry again after eating it. It is wise to give him a fishing rod and teach him how to fish. This saying is an excellent synthesis of money distribution and wealth. It is just that in Romania such a program didn't matter much. The powerful ones, the noisy ones crying out for fish were given fish. This is why unbalance seized economy. Even if lots of enterprises were given fishing rods instead of fish, governments surrendered to blackmail and protected them against competition. Inflation guaranteed subvention from people and from small and profitable enterprises. They were given the chance to make profit from monopoly prices, although they produced less, cheaper and sometimes worse products. But now after not to optimistic conclusions were reached, it would indeed be dangerous for enterprises to be given fishing rods instead of fish, now that here are tough competition, financial discipline and non-inflation climate. It is not the program that failed, but the use of it. Rep.: Let us stop here, hoping that health economy will bring larger internal raw product, hence more added values. Larger production of goods and services, able to stimulate both people's income and consume.