The quality of a comment

Submitted by Turkish Style (Turkey), Dec 7, 2009 at 14:00

I have this response for Solomon Taragano (Israel), Nov 28, 2009 about my comment (modern Turkey??). I have read it and I am feeling very sorry about my country. There are things that I have not realized and Solomon from israel knows better than me. (ıts strange though since I have not much information about israel's current economic situation as Solomon does about Turkey. I will briefly try to answer to his comments.

He says;

"Turkish economy. Figures released this week show that the budget deficit increased thirteenfold in the first six months of 2009. Foreign investment fell by half in the first five months of the year. One in four youths are now unemployed. To crown it all, GDP shrank by a record 13.8% in the year to the first quarter, putting Turkey among the economies worst hit by the global recession The IMF expects the economy to contract by 5.1% this year, after registering average annual growth of 6% in the past six years."

When you read such a comment you feel like everything in the world is fine, The US unemployment rates are normal, there is no such a thing like global financial crisis (maybe Solomon claims that it is beacuse of Erdogan or Islamists or Mohammedanism). The reality is as you all know there is a such a thing like global financial crisis. Iceland has bankrupted. All other European countries have prepared rescue packages for their financial instutions and the stimulus packages of billions of dollars. It was only Turkey who did not helped any of its financial sector or asked for help to IMF for a stand by agreement with some countries like india and china. The comments below are taken from Reuters web site:

Reuters - Ratings agency Fitch on Thursday upgraded Turkey's long-term foreign currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) two notches to 'BB+' from 'BB-' due to its resilience to the crisis and the easing of earlier restraints such as inflation. Fitch added Turkey has shown that its credit fundamentals and debt tolerance are stronger than previously thought.

"The upgrade reflects Turkey's relative resilience to the severe stress test of the global financial crisis and some easing in prior acute constraints related to inflation, external finances and political risk", says Edward Parker, Head of Emerging Europe in Fitch's Sovereigns team. "In contrast to previous shocks, Turkey has been able to implement counter-cyclical fiscal and monetary policies without sparking an exchange rate crisis, and interest rates have fallen to single digits for the first time in its modern history", Fitch added.

"This is long overdue and we expect other ratings agencies to follow suit. It's ridiculous that Turkey has been rated below Egypt for such a long time. The fact that they are on the cusp of being investment grade is testimony to how well they've done through the financial crisis," said Timothy Ash, Emerging Europe head of research at Royal Bank of Scotland

But Solomon "the one man rating agency" has better forecasts than fitch of course. lets remember what he says:

"When the global financial storm struck in the autumn of 2008, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, boasted that "the crisis has bypassed Turkey". He also claimed that there was no need for his country to renew a standby deal with the IMF that expired in May 2008. He has since been forced to eat his words. "We do not have a full-blown crisis, but everything has got significantly worse," says a Western economist in Istanbul". (Fitch is an eastern rating agency as we all know??)

No wonder Mr Erdogan has now begun to talk of doing a deal with the IMF after all.Whether Turkey gets help form the IMF or not Turkey is financially a bankrupt country and the latest financial crisis further complicated the situation. Hover, the AKP government and Mr.Erdogan are in denial of the facts.No matter what type of accounting tricks used to present the economical figures to show Turkey's economy is doing well, the following facts on Turkey's economy shows us the real picture. The experts in the western rating agencies should read this comments because they are completely blind to see the facts. Solomon can show them the real picture as he did us by the statements above

In his comments he lists 11 facts (?) about Turkish eceonomy. I will not mention all of them but I just want to focus on the 6th one

6. Unemployment rate is around 14 % (official government number), 30 % real on the street

You can not claim something that you can not prove; 30% on the street???. I really wonder how could you be able to get the on street numbers. (a real time data). If you have found a way to do it then we can establish business together and sell those 'on time data'. A company giving the governments and corporations a report on the "real unemployment figures" would be very valuable. Also we could extend the business giving the countries "real inflation data" and may be "real gdp data"

The below is the preliminary report of OECD for Turkey:

Output is on track for a record year-on-year decline in 2009 of 6½ per cent. However, four quarters of negative growth ended with a strong rebound in the second quarter of 2009. After recovering more moderately in the rest of the year, GDP is projected to expand by 3¾ per cent in 2010 and 4½ per cent in 2011. (http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/5/51/20213268.pdf) (if a problem exists please visit www.oecd.org and search Turkey)

The growth rates should mean something to you Solomon. I can find many web sites or articles or reports or comments of experts on every sector. Does this mean that AKP and Erdogan are always correct in what they have done and are they always right. Of course not. Human beings and the organizations which are also composed of human beings are always prone to mistakes. They have done in the past and will do in the future. what is important here is what they aim. AKP is trying to be a part of European Union and sometimes the nationalist movements in Turkey accuses them for betraying to their country. I really wonder how can you be a country like you say "Turkey is on the path of being first Pakistan like country, but not stopping there, and following the path to be Afghanistan like country" and at the same time trying to get a membership of EU with a strong opposition inside the country coming from left parties and nationalists.

So Solomon I really am sorry but this "Turkey is, unfortunately, economically bankrupt country" will grow and prosper. The problem is why you guys think like this. Any person without any knowledge about Turkey can use internet and can easily understand that your comments are not true in most polite way. I also know that you are smart enough to use those tools and get in those web sites and have the real and objective data and comments (there can not be a subjective data though, only you can have a subjective comment or in your case ideological) So why you do it?

If I would write in my previous comment (Modern Turkey???) that Israel is our best friend and what they have done recently is fine and they were only protecting their country. The united states is an ally of us. What arabs do to Israel is cruel, then probably Turkey would not be a bankrupted country. But again as I told you in my previous comment "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH"

Please make your comments objectively, base on trusted institutions and their reports and if possible the latest ones. Believe me that will make more sense,will be worth to think about and respond to it. I will not answer from now on such comments especially the ideological ones. Although having or pursuing an ideology is okay as long as you base your ideas on the objective datas and criterias what is not okay is you can tell the public what is not true as an accepted fact. You have to prove it first and the method to prove your case should not be a comment such as " a western economics said this and that...without giving his name or the web site or article where he said that (even that does not guarantee it to be correct).

I would be thankful to anyone that will objectively disprove my cases because what I believe is that the important thing is, to live in this world peacefully with respecting to our differences. I have no problem with any christian or any jew. I respect to their ideas and their faiths. There can always be some minority who are extremists and behave very cruel in the name of any group, any country or society. But I believe in the end humanity will win. So when you make a comment please be aware of this notion. If I made any mistake I am ready to apologize. So should you...

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