Aidonian's blog

so the year 2022 is coming to an end. It was a different year than last year.

Early march it was decided by the Belgian goverment that masks are no longer required. Which is good news and bad news. If you work at a place where you have to tell people that they have to wear their masks correctly, this might be good news, because that was annoying to do so. It lead to all kind of pointless discussions with egotistical people.

Masks are good if you are sick. It prevents you from infecting other people. And i hope that after the last two years, people would have learned that lesson. Appearently not. During winter time, a lot of people got sick but not with covid, but also common cold, flu,etc… Downside of wearing masks for the last two years is that your immune system isn’t quite used to dealing with virusses as it normally would have. the immune system itself still functions as it normally would, but due to lack of contact with flu, common cold, it takes more time to counter those virusses and people experience it worser than before.

Last winter the gas prices were already high and this summer they were even higher due to the war in Ukraine. Russian gas was cut off and energy companies were getting richer by demanding high prices. A fixed energy contract? Forget it. They stopped them because they saw the euro signs in variable contracts where they can exploit people and companies but more strain on the economy as well. Before the summer of 2022 the BTW of electricity was 21%. Due to the high prices they reduced it to 6%. FYI the BTW for caviar and energy in Belgium up and till the summer of 2022 were both 21%. This is how insane it is that energy is considered a luxery product. In 2008 liberals promised people that the buyer would benefit from privatisation of the energy market. Truth is, we didn’t. The small companies were bought up by the bigger ones and in turn these were bought up by the mastodons. The uproar came when news came that when the year bills came to many people that shocked them when they had to pay couple of thousands euro’s extra on top of what they already payed. I own a 1 bedroom appartment and i had to pay 1200 euro extra where mostly came from the gas prices. Needless to say, this is problematic. I heard about people who had to pau up to 2500 or 3000 euro’s.

France took action and lowered the prices with tax money. But here in Belgium we can take the extra profits they make away from it to decrease the energy bills. If we can put the price on 70 euro’s (in Belgium energy is produced in 35 euro’s) so at that price of 70 euro’s, its still double. Why keep it at 200 or 300 euro’s per mkwh. There were talks that on a European level to put a minimal price but that landed at around 275 i think, which is way to high.

Because of the covid pandemic and the energy crisis, goverments, local and federal had to go to austerity measures to contain their expensives. But the way its done, it means to sell buildings, or shut down departments that generated income, which means that while the budget for this year might be ok, the next year they will hav similar problems. When the income goes down due to selling of buildings of departments, it means that the expenses stay the same but the income goes down. Which creates problems that leads to austerity measures that made things even worse. So why do it then? who profits from it? Well, not the goverment or the public. Its the private companies who benefit from it.

The same can be said of the Russo-Ukrainian war. Its basicly a proxy war between NATO & Russia where the Ukrainians bleed for the greed and power of the NATO, especially USA. USA benefits from this war. They sell their polluted and expensive gas to Europe instead of the cheaper Russian oil. The weapons they sell to Ukraine is another factor that plays heavily in the war to make sure that the war doesnt stop through diplomatic talks. The third reason is that the western companies are excited about the rebuilding of the war torn country. So its in the interest of the USA that the war doesn’t come to an end anytime soon. Why the proxy war? Well the west is realising that the economical power is shifting towards the east. They want to prevent that. This war started first as a civil war between pro Russia factions in the donbass and the Ukrainian goverment who are attacking the donbass region.

The hypocrisy surrounding the refugees from Ukraine is appaling. Some journalists call them the real refugees which is racist like all other refugees are not real refugees. The welcoming of the Ukrainian refugees is in sharp contrast that other refugees didn’t get. Fact that people who went to Ukraine to fight are considered “hero’s” while others who went to Syria to fight where considered as “terrorists” and rightfully so. The hypocrisy is appaling here.

Than we arrive at the russian hate that blosomed after the start of the war. Russiaphobia is real just like sinephobia after the start of the pandemic. Suddenly Russians were bad people. The political leaders, soldiers who are fighting in Ukraine, of Russia are that for sure, but the general public are not. I have seen and heard Russians in the west and online are harassed for just beign Russian or people for speaking Russian.

In 2023 i hope that the war will come to an end. I hope so. The Russiaphobia will linger on for a while. When the elites are fighting, its the common people who are suffering and we see that here clearly. I hope the next year will be better, but i fear it will not be the case.