A slight look on the bright side...

I went for a walk with my video camera on Sunday, May 24 and recorded some ordinary stuff in Riga. This is just to show that the impending economic collapse is not very visible when the weather is fine and people still take to the streets and parks. The charity event that I mention at the start of the video raised some LVL 270 000 for a group of kids in need of special medical care, mainly from small contributions using phone-ins and collections on the street.

Othewise, even the Foreign Investors Council in Latvia (FICIL) has been saying that the economy could shrink by 20 % (the most recent figure was 18 %). Ilmars Rimševics, the governor of the Bank of Latvia, said in an interview that if international loans do not come through, there could be some kind of ration coupon system by the end of the year (!?). Rationing usually happens when there is a shortage of good, no sign of that. However, some towns in Latvia are providing social welfare in kind by allotting small gardens and vegetable seeds to the poor instead of cash payments. The idea is kind of reasonable, but also a symptom of the impending collapse of the social safety net in this country.

Anyway, here is the relatively happy video: