“When Wall Street sneezes, the rest of us get pneumonia.”
Thus Mr. Aleksandar Stojkov, an International Economics teaching assisstant on the Faculty of Law in Skopje, remarked on the influence the United States has on world economics.
It was everything but an everyday experience to have not only him, but also two other distinguished guest speakers willing to discuss the omnipresent issue of the current ecomonic crisis with interested Nova students. Although the initial topic was not the crisis itself, the discussion slowly shifted in that direction as the first question a student posed was whether Macedonia can ever find its way out of it.
While Macedonia is entering its “financial Dunkirk” along with many other countries, most of which both more developed and more able to “cure themselves” from it, Nova students feel more eager than ever before to ask and demand answers, to suggest solutions and see whether their ideas are valid and where their faults might lie.
The week before the spring break, Nova had the honor of hosting Mr. Petar Gosev (Governor of the National Bank of Macedonia), Mr. Georgi Trenkovski (general manager of Re-Medika), and Mr. Aleksandar Stojkov, who successfully stirred up a discussion worth participating in.
After Mr. Viktor Novakovski led us into the discussion by reiterating who our guests were and listing their past achievements, the question-and-answer session was swiftly opened with AP Economics students starting to pose their questions. The discussion which quickly turned into a debate proved that Nova has more than a few future economists.
The much anticipated question of whether and how Macedonia can overcome the global economic crisis came first. Mr. Gosev’s opinion was that because of the fact that no one could predict it, different countries have a different stanza on how the crisis can be overcome. As instances he singled out USA and UK wanting to increase the current expenditure, and Germany and France thinking that that is a risk they are not ready to undertake yet. When it comes to Macedonia, Mr. Gosev singled out the real sector as the sector through which we can feel the consequences of the crisis the most. He rightly reminded us that each country has a different economy – Macedonia, for example, having an open, “shock-absorbing” economy in which we are trying to achieve a balance between export and import.
Mr. Stojkov’s opinion, on the other hand, was that the consequences we feel we feel because we haven’t been enough financially integrated. The incessant fiscal expansion, he said, brought about crisis. As the external vulnerability indicators are deteriorating, Macedonia is being deeply plunged into international problems it wouldn’t have felt otherwise.
Another question on which our guest speakers lingered is the issue of the restrictive policy which our National Bank has been implementing. “Why is this restrictive policy needed?”, a student asked. Mr. Gosev, as the most competent of the three to answer the question, being the governor of the National Bank himself, said that Macedonia is facing a period of increased demand and decreased supply. The result is a deficit. Instead of the banks increasing the loans they provide, they should realize that giving loans is what could result in bankruptcy. The salaries are big, pensions as well - the country spends enormous amounts of money; all of this ruining the balance which should exist. The solution, he said, is a restoring the balance.
A debate which was originally intended to last one period lasted two. As it drew to its close, the students seemed satisfied with the answers they received. The discussion acted both as an incentive for current Economics students to further pursue this subject, and prompted students who haven't had it yet to take it up, for it is a subject not as boring as most people make it out to be.
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