Talk:Privatization in Croatia

NPOV?

The article is ideologically biased. It violates wikipedia NPOV standards by asserting disputable claims as if they were facts. Also, for many claims the article does not reference any sources.

1. For example, regarding privatization the article states: "this was far from transparent and fully legal".

However, if we put aside some indisputable minor irregularities, how many people have been validly convicted for supposed privatization crimes? Without relevant data and references, assertions like this one remain a mere opinion, not a proven fact. On the contraty, it seems completely plausible that the privatization was generally carried out lawfully (apart of already mentioned minor irregularities). It is another question whether these laws were "just", I grant that here the diversity of opinions is possible, but that's completely different discussion.

2. The article states: "The fact that the new government's legal system was inneficient and slow, as well as the wider context of the Yugoslav wars caused numerous incidents known collectively in Croatia as the "Privatization robbery" (privatizacijska pljačka)."

The term "numerous incidents" is imprecise. Many of those so-called "incidents" were artificially created and exaggerated by leftist media, but have never been proven as criminal. The term "robbery" is tendentious.

3. The article states: "This proved very lucrative for the new owners, but in the vast majority of cases this (along with the separation from the previously secured Yugoslav markets) also caused the bankruptcy of the (previously successful) firm, causing the unemployment of thousands of citizens, a problem Croatia still struggles with to this day."

Fist, socialist firms were generally not successful (especialy not on the free market) and each of them had a lot of its own problems even before the war. Second, it is not enough merely to claim that they bakrupted simply due to the privatization. It remains to be seen what was the main reason for their bankrupcy and subsequent mass unemployment, a lot of factors have to be taken into account: socialist heritage of unsuccesful mastodont and birocratized companies, direct and indirect war damages, loss of ex-yugoslav market, etc. Moreover, the complete economy of the nation was under heavy pressure due to the facts such as: mass of workers was mobilized in the army; the state had to take care of many hundreds of thousands of refugees (from Bosnia as well as from Croatia); complete absence of tourism-related incomes (which are major incomes for Croatia) during the war years as well as during the few subsequent years, etc. Now, we may disagree about the relative importance of all those factors for total condition of Croatian economy, but it is certainly not fair to simply impute all evils to privatization, without even considering other factors. Serious assessment has to take them all into account and try to estimate their relative importance, but it seems that this haven't been done yet. It is easier to parrot leftist demagogy and propaganda.

4. The article states: "It is also beyond doubt that not few shadowy figures who moved close to Tuđman, the centre of power in Croatian society, profited from this enormously, having amassed wealth with suspicious celerity."

Well, if it is really "beyond doubt", than it shouldn't be a problem to prove it. To me, this phrase resembles the oft repeated but never proved (or even argumented) thesis about "200 richest families" supposedly favored by Tuđman. Leftists based a lot of their rhetorics in the end of 1990-s on those mythical 200 richest families, and even promissed to make public their names, but have never done so.

5. The article states: "the majority of Croats are of the opinion that Tuđman could and should have prevented at least a part of these malfeasances because nothing similar has happened to Slovenia with who Croatia has been inside Yugoslavia."

While it is probably true that "the majoritiy of Croats are of the opinion", this is nevertheless a clear example of the "argumentum ad populum". Also, the opinion of this "majority of Croats" is clearly influenced by dominant leftist media. Where is the proof that the "majority opinion" is right?

Etc, etc...

PinkPantherZG (talk) 15:41, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed the article does need work, but your approach to the matter appears to be biased as well. You do not attempt to improve the article by finding sources about the privatization controversy, you try to diminish its existence. There indeed was a privatization controversy, with names such as Kutle or Pašalić immediately springing to mind, and it resulted in the unemployment of just under 400,000 people. WEe should not be trying to diminish its impact on Croatian society. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 15:56, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

The very subject of the article as presented in the intro seems to be POV. First, it limits the article to a more specific controversy than the article's title suggests (ie. privatization controversies are ongoing in Croatia, so the subject cannot be limited to just the Tudjman era). We should move this to the more general Privatization in Croatia, where it can be given a wider and more balanced treatment. It doesn't seem fair to have a "controversy" article without a "general" article.--Thewanderer (talk) 01:09, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I understand your point, but surely we won't make an article that concerns itself with legal every-day aspects of Croatia's privatization? I think the focus should be on the "controversial" parts of the process, and that the name should reflect this. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 01:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Quite frankly, it is POV to want to focus on the controversial parts of the process. From WP:NPOV: Sometimes the article title itself may be a source of contention and polarization. This is especially true for titles that suggest a viewpoint either "for" or "against" any given issue. A neutral article title is very important because it ensures that the article topic is placed in the proper context. Therefore, encyclopedic article titles are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality. The article might cover the same material but with less emotive words, or might cover broader material which helps ensure a neutral view (for example, renaming "Criticisms of drugs" to "Societal views on drugs"). Neutral titles encourage multiple viewpoints and responsible article writing.--Thewanderer (talk) 01:38, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Like I said, I know what you mean, but "controversy" isn't necessarily POV. There is no POV conclusion that can be drawn, there could have been maleficences, but there also might not have been, that's a controversy. The title is not "Croatian Privatization Robbery", that would be POV. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 02:03, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

This is exactly the kind of thing I am objecting to. You mention Kutle and Pašalić. But the court found Kutle not guilty ([1]). Pašalić, AFAIK, has never even been charged. But leftist media had its own agenda and convicted those people without trial, ruining their reputation, probably forever. Those media shaped public opinion and now "everybody knows" these people are "criminals", and to doubt it is probably as useless as to fight with the windmills... PinkPantherZG (talk) 09:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Courts in Croatia are almost a laughing stock, their inefficiency and corruption (more so before than now) are public knowledge. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 11:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, we may agree or disagree about the effectiveness of Croatian courts, but if we are talking about guilt and crime, we certainly need some more objective criteria than some vague public opinion, shaped by sensationalist left-wing media. You can not just declare somebody is a criminal, without any proof. Usually everybody is considered innocent untill the oposite is proved. PinkPantherZG (talk) 13:40, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I did not declare anybody a criminal, if you read my posts more carefully. I just said that we should not allow the effects of the devastating privatization to be obscured and diminished. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 22:42, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, maybe I misunderstood your point. In that case, I apologize. But in that case it is not clear in what context did you mention Kutle and Pašalić? And why didn't you react earlier, when I responded that their guilt has never been proved? You then aimed your criticism at Croatian courts, rather then at my alleged misunderstanding, which should have already been apparent at that time.
Anyway, in discussing the "privatization controversy", I think we should clearly distinguish two aspects: (a) lawfulness of privatization, and (b) its economical effects. It should be obvious that these are two different things (though they might be related). Moreover, when talking about lawfulness in context of privatization, we should distinguish: (a.1.) lawfulness of the act of privatization itself, and (a.2.) lawfulness of subsequent actions of new owners (after the privatization). Regarding the effects of privatization: while it is undeniable that Croatian economy had (and has) a number of problems during and after the privatization, to ascribe all those problems to privatization would, in my opinion, constitute a logical fallacy post hoc, ergo propter hoc. There is simply no evidence that the privatization itself (and not other factors, mentioned earlier) caused those problems (or even that it was the main factor in their emergence). PinkPantherZG (talk) 17:14, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Please use references that are NOT yellow press based.--Croq (talk) 18:34, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

This article has nothing to do with facts. Main source of data are, like it is written in links, newspapers which are politically oriented (no matter in which direction). Same newspapers convicted Gotovina,Markač and Čermak in Hague trial, and they were proven not guilty (a lot of lawsuits because of lies and slanders are filed against that newspapers). They wrote stories about "Tudjman's 200 families" and promised to publish their names, but never did so, even though they claimed to have papers from "President Tudjman's safe". So this article is based on "public opionion" which is really opinion of the person who wrote it. Articles musn't be based on opinions! I would also like to point out that dr.Tudjman was never convicted for such crime, so this article is violating fundamental provisions of the Croatian Constitution, as well as UN's "Universal declaration of human rights" which say that the person is innocent until proven guilty, and according to that it should be edited.Johnny029 (talk) 14:02, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Merge proposal

It has been proposed since 2012 that this article is merged into the Economy of Croatia one. Like user Johnny029 wrote, this has nothing to do with facts. 90% of the article is pure unsourced POV, so the few sourced claims that have sense should just be put into the main article about the economy, and this one removed. Tzowu (talk) 23:43, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I think privatization in Croatia merits a standalone article. There were dozens, if not hundreds, of well-documented cases of illegal or barely legal privatizations of now ruined companies, and the consensus in the general public is that the entire thing was handled haphazardly, to say the least. And I think cca 20 years is a safely removed timeframe to make that kind of judgment. We also have many ongoing investigations and several high-profile convictions, as well as copious content about business ventures of people connected to Tudjman and HDZ. There's a lot to talk about here. Timbouctou (talk) 00:25, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, the general public condemns literally every privatization that occurred in the last 25 years, even the good ones. Privatization in Croatia was not that different from any other former socialist country in Eastern Europe, apart from it being carried out on one of the lowest levels [2]. Everyone experienced difficulties and suspicious actions, yet there is only one article here about that with a couple of yellow press sources, while the main part of it is a pure personal view of the situation, unsourced for 7 years. The Hungarians also added the privatization section in their main article about economy (Economy of Hungary#Transition to a market economy). Tzowu (talk) 20:56, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

This would then probably be better suited to Privatization in Croatia, similarly to Privatization in Russia, Privatization in Slovakia, etc. Timbouctou (talk) 21:13, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Why not? I'd agree with that, although I still think a merge would be a better option, but OK. Tzowu (talk) 00:07, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

I think expanding the scope would be a good way forward. There are quality sources which discuss the privatization in Croatia in general, and the unavoidable shady dealings which were no doubt part of it could be covered by more specific local media sources. Timbouctou (talk) 21:50, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

History whitewashing

Attempts to vilify opinion that are contrary to the taste of Croatian oligarchy are pathetic. There are plenty of evidences in illegal, criminal and immoral acts against Croatian legal framework, Croatian economy and the fabric of Croatian society. AFter all, 8 very senior officials of Croatian Privatization Fund were investigated and arrested, latter sentenced, but only under the pressure of EU. (Source - Encyclopedia Britannica) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.170.158.38 (talk) 10:48, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Another example of illegal nature of the Croatian privatization process could be found in the law that governed the process. Article 8 of the Law stated: "The enterprise in the process of transformation cannot credit the purchase of the shares nor be a guarantee of the loans ..." The fact that corrupt Croatian courts did not make any conviction based on the Art. 8 does not give any rights to claim to the contrary. It is very well known fact that so called "managerial loans" were guaranteed by the enterprises. As the loans turned bad, the banks were taking over the enterprises, but the Croatian prosecutors went silent. The bank that almost went bankrupt was PBZ, saved and restructured by the Government before being sold. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.170.158.38 (talk) 11:05, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

May 2015

What is now the problem? Are you stalking me maybe? The text was not about the privatization and was biased. Totally ignoring the 99% of the privatization. So I have restored the previous version. Now we can discuss what changes would you like in the article. feel free to present them here and we can discuss them and work on a consensus. --Tuvixer (talk) 17:28, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Tell me about stalking, you removed well sourced content that was added by me long time ago and replaced it with original research and not a single reliable source. If you have sources add it to the current text. Tzowu (talk) 17:38, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

No. You and timbouctou have completely changed this article. You have added your biased nonsense just to make the article by your liking. YOU DO NOT OWN THIS ARTICLE. OK? Pleas stop this. Present the changes to the article here and we can work on a consensus. For now the restored version should be in the article and in the end we can create a article that consist of your contributions as well as with the restored version, are you ok with that? --Tuvixer (talk) 17:42, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Of course not, previous version was original research and biased unsourced claims. Current one is well sourced and I don't see a reason to add anything from previous versions of the article. If you have some sources than add them on the current one, you can bash on that evil, evil, evil Tuđman all you want, just find sources. Tzowu (talk) 17:56, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

What is wrong with you? Croatia is still feeling the consequences of the criminal acts done in the privatization. You are insulting all citizens of Croatia by your biased edits, please stop that. It all can be sourced. Unlike your biased edits that you selectively added while ignoring the negative aspects of the privation. I don't understand why are you doing that. If you live in Croatia you can see everywhere people collecting food from the garbage. That started during the tuđman and because of tuđman. --Tuvixer (talk) 18:05, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Today Croatia is feeling the consequences of a poor cope with the financial crisis of 2008, a huge public sector and high taxes. Every country had difficulties with a swift from a planned economy to a market economy in the 1990s and that is presented in the article ("corruption, cronyism, and a general lack of transparency stymied economic reforms and foreign investment"). Or was Tuđman responsible for the errors in privatization in Hungary, Russia, Poland...? Croatia even had one of the lowest levels of privatization in eastern Europe and that is one of the problems, if we used direct sales as a primary method and privatized large state-owned companies before 2000 then we would have a higher growth and lower debt, just like Estonia which today has a 10% debt to GDP ratio.

Btw, yellow press is not a good source. Tzowu (talk) 18:15, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

hdz lead by tuđman and with his blessing started the process that will in the end devastate Croatia. Make a few persons, especially tuđman family, rich, and everyone else poor. He wanted to do in 5 years something that lasted for centuries in other countries. But you do not accept the arguments because probably you don't even live in Croatia, and you have been feed up with your parents and the church a stupid propaganda that the nationalists are good. While in facts nationalist destroyed Croatia and it is questionable if Croatia will exist in ten years or so. And that is all their fault. --Tuvixer (talk) 18:30, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Seriously, bringing in my parents and my place of living in a discussion on Wikipedia? I'm afraid that you are not reading my comments, I didn't say that privatization was great in Croatia, it was far from that and many people got rich in a day for nothing. Just like in other countries, look at our neighbour Hungary. Everyone had problems, that's not disputed. But this was 20 years ago, we have different problems today and I already pointed them out. "Nationalists" were not in power for at least more than 15 years and today SDP is in power. Today we need deregulation, lower taxes and reforms in the public sector. Problem with the 1990s was not privatization itself because it was necessary, but the way it was done. Tzowu (talk) 18:39, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't want to argue with you. Just can we make possible that the restored text, which I have sourced, and all your text can be included in the article. what do you say on that?--Tuvixer (talk) 18:41, 1 May 2015 (UTC) And all that theft and destroying during the privatization still affect the lives of people today in Croatia. We could be much better of if the privatization was not implemented by the tuđman and nationalists who profited during the privatization. --Tuvixer (talk) 18:46, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

We can add text that is sourced, not OR and personal opinions and preferably without yellow press. Anything can be found in yellow press Tzowu (talk) 18:47, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

What is yellow press? Tell me what is for you yellow press?--Tuvixer (talk) 18:49, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Well I try not to add anything written in mass media whatsoever and use scholarly sources, at least content found on Google Books. So you think that this article doesn't incriminate Tuđman and HDZ enough. Good, I'll find something against them and add it to the article, not a copy-paste from nacional.hr, and keep a WP:NPOV. A Neutral point of view. Tzowu (talk) 18:56, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Are you ok with the current form of the article?--Tuvixer (talk) 18:58, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

No, it's biased and half of it is unsourced. For example, there is no proof that Tuđman ever said or decided anything about "200 families".[3] I'll give my proposal a bit later. Tzowu (talk) 19:04, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Everyone knows that he sad "200 families", and if you know anything about the process of state development after the absolute monarchies until today, you will know that Croatia lacked the rich families who pushed the western countries trough a stage in that development. --Tuvixer (talk) 19:16, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

"Everyone knows", yet there is no video of that, no audio, nor a quotation of the alleged statement.Tzowu (talk) 21:04, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Why the table? Because the table shows the effects of the privatization. If you are against that OK, it doesn't have to be in the article. What about the rest of it, is it balanced enough now? If you are fine with this we can remove the dispute and cleanup tags. Tzowu (talk) 21:38, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

What effects? The only table should be that shows how many were owned by the public/state, and how many by private sector, year by year. I will see tomorrow.--Tuvixer (talk) 22:33, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

The table should stay as long as it is properly referenced, as it illustrates the effects of the privatization on Croatia's economy. Also, we can probably dispense with most of the paragraph that starts with Penić and ends with Košutić. This article is about the privatization and its impact on the country, that paragraph reads like a collection of local tabloid stuff and belong to the article on Franjo Tuđman, if anywhere at all. Also, whether Tuđman said the thing about 200 families is of marginal importance to the article. Timbouctou (talk) 13:31, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Tozwu and I have agreed to discuss the changes here, please stop this and discuss your problems here. --Tuvixer (talk) 13:43, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Please stop trolling talk pages of articles. Thanks. Timbouctou (talk) 13:47, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

What is wrong with you? Tozwu has agreed that there should be no table. Stop edit-waring.--Tuvixer (talk) 13:48, 2 May 2015 (UTC) Please stop ignoring the talk page, stop edit-warring and come here to discuss. Tozwu and I have agreed on some things, don't ignore the talk page. --Tuvixer (talk) 13:53, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Please stop trolling and edit-warring. This article is about the privatization and the table is a useful addition. On the other hand it is not about crap quoted from tabloids. Reverting ad infinitum and reading your babbling on and on about you being stalked is hardly a good use of my time. Thanks. Timbouctou (talk) 13:55, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Then stop following me and leave ma alone, ok? What is wrong with you, if you want changes then present them here, ok?? --Tuvixer (talk) 13:57, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Likewise, dude, likewise. Timbouctou (talk) 13:58, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

@timbouctou, why are you doing this? You have been warned and you are still doing this, please stop it and discuss it on this talk page, pleas, don't be mean. Ok? --Tuvixer (talk) 14:08, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Please stop trolling and edit-warring. Thanks. Timbouctou (talk) 14:25, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

You are the one who is doing that. You are a horrible person. I was just trying to edit some articles, and you have harassed me just because I am not a right-wing fanatic like yourself. I wonder how you can look yourself in the mirror. Please just leave me alone so I can edit and improve articles. Please, I beg you to leave me alone or you will leave me no other choice that to contact the authorities. I was just happy that I can edit Wikipedia and improve articles but you have made me regret that, you are a horrible person, please just leave me alone. --Tuvixer (talk) 15:10, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Let's talk normally. Dejan Košutić actually founded the Kaptol Bank himself, it wasn't a case of privatization so it doesn't really belong to this article. As for the table, the "Privatization revenues" numbers are from "The Impact of Privatization in Transition Economies, London School of Economics and Political Science", page 21, while the GDP growth is from the UN statistics. Deficit/surplus includes income from privatization. I found another table showing number of employed in private sector and those in state-owned enterprises from 1991-1994. I also have unemployment figures from 1994-2000 and inflation rates. I'll probably add those in the Economy of Croatia article. We can add all those figures or add just the most important ones, like GDP growth and private/public sector ratio or employment numbers. Tzowu (talk) 15:37, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Tuvixer is just a troll looking to waste more of our time, please ignore him. As for the article - isn't there a source listing more recent figures? The year 2002 was 13 years ago. I have a few books on economic transition of Croatia, I can take a look if there's something useful in there. Also, the article needs some introductory description of pre-privatization economy of Croatia, including workers' self-management and so on. It was not really a planned economy as seen in other eastern bloc countries. As for Košutić et al - that sort of crap is only of interest for local media and has no place in encyclopedia. Timbouctou (talk) 17:57, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't have a source for later figures on privatization revenues. We could add a background section about self-management era and a post 2000 section. I have sources with which I can write that. Tzowu (talk) 17:22, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Sounds good, we need a good description of pre-1990 economy. Unemployment levels might also be useful, I happen to have a table in my sandbox with data from 1959 to 1990. Timbouctou (talk) 17:28, 3 May 2015 (UTC)