Hoping for a crisis

Unemployment is at a 10-year low, wages are rising at a robust rate, and the state budget ran a surplus last year, yet ČSSD approved a long-term agenda over the weekend that states that the low overall tax burden is undermining the state budget and forcing broad cuts in spending. ČSSD is out of sync with the time. It has a typical center-left strategy for dealing with the problems in the country - blame foreign investors and oligarchs, raise taxes on the rich - but the problems it is attacking aren't visible on a large scale. Sure, Czechs have apprehensions about the future, but their worries aren't so great that they have a big impact on daily behavior. Otherwise, home sales wouldn't be booming, and retail spending wouldn't have risen by close to 6% last year. ČSSD has chosen its strategy, and it's too late to start peddling optimism. The best it can hope for is that the economy turns sour in the next six months and thereby validates its current economic concerns.