Welcome to Turkey Erdogan Style

Submitted by Solomon Taragano (Israel), Dec 8, 2009 at 20:11

Dear Sir,

First of all I was born in Istanbul and lived in Yesilkoy. Although I currently reside in Israel I still have a soft spot for this wonderful country called Turkey. The figures I presented in my post are mainly based on information I have gathered from friends and assosiates in Turkey as well as other sources.

My post had nothing to the with the rest of the world but Turkey. My info comes from Turkish writers such as Sinan Ikinci who wrote in wsws.org and I quote:

"economists with Islamist sympathies tried hard to downplay the crisis in Turkey while wholesale and retail trade, construction and manufacturing are the worst hit economic sectors. They recorded massive drops of 25.4 percent, 18.9 percent and 18.5 percent, respectively. Private consumption, which dropped by 4.6 percent in the last quarter of 2008, plummeted by 9.2 percent in the first quarter of this year. This is an even steeper decline than the one experienced during the devastating 2001 financial crisis.

In terms of real GDP, this figure marks the steepest quarterly decline in economic growth since 1945, when the economy was in depression due to the Second World War. When calculated in terms of the US dollar, the contraction in the Turkish economy is 29 percent. In addition to sustaining a 13.8 percent contraction in fixed prices, the Turkish economy recorded a 2.2 percent decline in current prices in the first quarter of the year. This is a "first" in the modern history of Turkish capitalism and points out a very dangerous trend of wage deflation. The GDP figures make clear that Turkey is one of the worst affected economies in the world. Only Estonia and Latvia are falling at a faster rate.

Since the middle of 2008, the AKP government and in particular its prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have been complacently arguing that the country's economy will not be seriously affected by the global crisis. They claimed that Turkey would be among the group of countries that would be relatively less affected. During this period, Erdogan repeated this claim on a number of occasions. The realities of Turkish economy are now making a mockery of his and his party's unfounded claims. AKP government forecasted a growth of 4 percent for the Turkish economy in 2009 and stubbornly refused to change its prediction although the alarm bells were ringing for quite a long time. Then, just a few months ago, this figure was revised to a negative 3.6 percent growth. It is now clear that this target is also far from being realistic. Actually, this was crystal clear even on the very day the new target was announced.

Economic growth for Turkey as estimated by different institutions are as follows: the Economist Intelligence Unit: -4.5 percent; the International Monetary Fund (IMF): -5.1 percent; the World Bank: -5.5 percent; and the OECD: -5.9 percent. Although they are all significantly higher than the government's forecast, they are also too optimistic. Last week, Citigroup lowered its forecast for Turkey's economic growth for 2009 from -4 percent to -7 percent. The Economists Platform in Turkey revised its economic growth expectation from -5.1 percent to -7.2 percent.

I have gathered more info about Turkey from Yavuz Canevi the former Central bank Governer. The newspaper Zaman was also a source.

"According to figures released by the state's statistics bureau in early December, Turkey's industrial output fell by 8.5 percent in October, the third month in a row production recorded negative growth, while in November the number of industrial plants in use dropped by a record 9.7 percent to just 72.9 percent, compared to the same month in 2007."

As for the figures I stated all you need to do is look it up under the title: Economic and financial indicaters for Turkey's economy.

You seem to be quoting Lars Rasmussen's article about the Fitch ratings. The role of rating agencies in the market turmoil of 2009 was very clear. The accuracy of the ratings as well as the integrity of the ratings process was questioned by G20 in April.

You seem to be confused about my post. It has nothing to do with Israel or whether Turkey is an ally of the USA or Israel. This was strictly about Turkey and its economy and those responsible in the government.

You are no different than the Turkish government in blaming the crisis on the global meldown or believe its own lies.

It is the Mohammedanism and the policies of Erdogan that has brought Turkey to its demise. Kemalism is being attacked from all sides as Turkey steps closer to becoming another Iran.

My sources include:

Zaman newspapers

The Economist

wsws.org

IMF

World Bank

OECD

Citigroup

and many more I have forgotten. So please next time instead of attacking my integrity and my motives for writing such a post, you should question your own for such a response as to accuse me of being anti-Turkish.

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