- This is another dark side to kind Albania - Surely12 years ago all these kind Albanians know their cars are stolen, don't they think it's wrong to drive a stolen car ? If not how would they feel if their car is stolen from them ? UK newspaper, NYT newspaper,

Daily Telegraph (UK) ISSUE 1677 Tuesday 28 December 1999 Minister arrives for crime talks in ’stolen’ Mercedes By Paul Anast in Athens Interpol ALBANIA’S Minister of Public Order, Spartak Poci, was left kicking his heels on the Greek border yesterday when his official car was confiscated as stolen.

- His embarrassment was made worse by the fact that he was arriving for the signing of an agreement to combat cross-border crime. When Greek customs officials ran a computer check on Mr Poci’s Mercedes S-350 luxury limousine, as required by the Schengen accords on movement across European borders, they determined that it had been stolen in Italy. The Greeks explained that they had no choice but to confiscate the limousine because an order for its impounding had been put out by Italy and Interpol. The Albanian minister’s Greek host, Michael Chrysochoides, the Public Order Minister, sped to the rescue by offering a Greek state limousine to pick up the stranded visitor.

- Maybe that was all 10 years ago - I see that story was from 1998 and Albanians seem very moral these days. There are still many Mercedes around maybe the majority of those are from 1998 when the whole country was crazy ...perhaps newer cars aren't stolen, but probably bought with Mafia money.

- FOOTBALL ... When the world cup was on every man seemed to watch every match.

- The girl working there said Albanians should have special low prices at British university.

- I know what she is saying that most Albanians have less cash than Britons, but you have be careful with this generalisation, it becomes racism, and pricing by race is wrong.
- 1. Rich subsidized by the poor - If you price by race, then you see rich Albanian families with a benefit - it's much more likely a rich mafia family will send their kids to a British university than poor Albanian families - so you'd end up with average British families subsidiizing rich Albanians who are mainly Mafia
- 2. Albanians are not as poor as they think They see that foreigners have money. This is partially an effect of poor foreigners not traveling so Albanians don't see the poor from other countries. They see they have lower salaries than most other countries in Western Europe, but on a global scale Albania has pretty high salaries it's in the top 50, even in Europe places like Belarus are worse off. And the Albanian complaining about his €200/month is far better off than a Cuban on €20/month or West African on $10/year ...
- 3. Albanians have houses and cars, but not cash - I see the average middle class Albania owns his house , he would have bought it for cash cos the banks don't give loans . Also he will have a Mercedes parked outside. Whereas the average American will have borrowed the money from the bank for his house and car (which will be much cheaper than a Mercedes) .. so he really doesn't have much money as his house and car really belong to the bank.

- When Albania changes and they are able to go to the bank and get mortgages then Some Albanians will be very rich as they will be able to mortagage their houses and walk away with huge piles of cash

- If Tirana people are complaining about huge rents then surely they are paying it to other Albanians who are doing well from this business.
- 4. Wages only seem low cos the Lek is low - if confidence rises in the Lek it will rise ..for example if corruption stops then foreign companies start to build factories in Albania they will have to buy Lek and it's values vs Euro will rise. In Korea their wages rose 5 fold just due to this currency rise ..if this happened in Albania the average wage would rise from €200 to €1000 per month.
When I lived in Ghana cos the currency was so low the average salary was $10 (ten) per year.
- 5. Albanian wages are low, cos productivity is Lower - in a Museum they have 3 people do sitting around jobs earning 200E each when in another country they can have 1 person and pay them 600+
when productivity increases salaries will increase

- I asked her how much she paid ...she actually paid nothing as she got a scholarship... so the mafia families paying full price are actually subsidising her. The British universities took from the mafia families and gave to her.

- Ismail Kadare's first novel, The General of the Dead Army.
This is supposed to be Albania's best writer ? Maybe his poetry is very good, cos this novel isn't
1. It's slow, what he says in 300 pages could be done in 100
2. The tone is grey and boring
3. The twist is contrived

- I skim read his 2nd book : The Palace of Dreams published in 1980, the book was almost immediately banned, showing that Kadare wasn't totally in support of totalitarian dictatorship. It's in the same vein as Kafka, We by Zamiam the prototype of Brave New World and 1984. It is a not suble attack as the novel portrays a sultan who cates a huge government department to analyse peoples dreams a clear allegory to Hoxha wasting huge resources trying to monitor the people based on his own paranoid fantasies.

- see Shkrodra page pc566t

- On Saturday I met 4 different Albanians who worked in the UK and a guy in a village shop. He spoke good English and said the UK Home Office had sent him back, but his brother lives in UK. "Ah Kosovo trick" I said. "Yes, that's right, my brother gave himself a Muslim name and said he'd lost his papers"

- Jesus, are the UK Home Office incompetent or what ? Not only are people in the northern Albania mostly not Muslims they also speak Ghesh Albanian language, whereas Kosovans changed to the standard Tosk Albanian of South Albania 40 years ago. The language is 15% different you only have to get them to say "40" or "potato" to hear the difference.

- OK I have earnt a few hundred dollars in countries without a permit, but their's is a bigger scam.
-1. They are exploiting the British taxpayer
But more importantly
- 2. Albanians jumping the queue causes genuine refugees to die
- If Albanians get in then they jumping the queue, probably in front of some people who probably have a much bigger claim to asylum. So some poor African guy gets killed by his own government for his politics, whilst at the same time some already relatively Albanian gets even wealthier by conning his way into the UK.

But the UK gains

1. from cheaper more flexible labour ( ..a boss only saves a little cos he still pays the Albanian at least the minimum wage.)

2. Cos it's a cheap way of developing Albania
- 2a. Albanians sending money to Albania helps build Albania so we in the UK save on foreign aid
- 2b. and prevent wars that might cost the UK a lot of money
- 2c. Albanians exposed to UK culture learn good modern values like how to live without corruption and when they return they educate the Albanian in Albania with the same value

3. UK Landlords and shops benefit from the money Albanians spend

4. It helps get the Albanians in Albania addicted to UK products. He thinks he has gained cos he rents a room to a UK tourist for €20, but actually what happens is he then buys into the dream of a UK education for his children and takes a €100,000 loan to pay for it. So over the next 20 years he works in Albania, but sends that €100,000 into the UK economy. That's how it works with Indians etc. We have the English language and dream country whilst very few UK students will come spend any money in Albania.

5. It helps get the Albanian Governments addicted to UK products. As above it's the same for all the other building up of Albania, the UK can't sell itself many new roads, hospitals military etc cos the UK is already developed and has all that stuff, whereas over the next 20 years Albania will end up buying loads of stuff from the UK.