Mail Men Become Pharmacists

The Ukrainian government has no money but plans to 'invest' in starting a public network of pharmacies to compete with the private pharmacies.

"KYIV, February 7 /UKRINFORM/. The government opens a network of state drugstores where prices will be 30% less against commercial drugstores.

For this, the authorized fund of the Ukrposhta (Ukrainian state-run mail service enterprise) will be increased by UAH 150 million (USD 1/UAH 8.00), so that by the end of 2010, 500 state drugstores will be set up on its basis, First Vice Prime Minister Oleksandr Turchynov has said following a ceremony of opening the first state drugstore in Kyiv on the basis of the Ukrposhta enterprise."

http://www.ukrinform.ua/eng/order/?id=180344

Likely scenarios for the future

1) optimistic scenario: there will no money to actually implement this plan

2) pessimistic scenario: a couple of years from now, the low price public pharmacies are in need of constant subsidization. Private pharmacies cannot compete in the subsidized market segment and concentrate on the higher quality import segment. Given their lower turn-over, prices they charge are higher than before the start-up of the public network.

The Cost of Protest

"To recap, an average sum that the loser of the race will have to cough up for a Maidan protester a day will be from 40 to 60 dollars. With 50 thousand persons needed only in Kyiv, the defeat in the run-off will cost the sponsors of one of the candidates a pretty penny of USD 2-3 million a day. Considering that at least two or three weeks will be needed to announce a second run-off, the costs of the Kyiv rallies will run into USD 60-65 million."

http://eng.weekly.ua/pulse/politics/2010/02/04/094510.html

Ukrainian Election Forecasts from Bookmakers

All the bookmakers place a higher probability on a Yanukovych win, and the gap in the odds is quite substantial.

http://www.finchannel.com/Main_News/Ukraine/57657_Bookmakers_Accepting_Bets_On_Yanukovych's_Victory_At_Presidential_Elections_Of_1:1.25-1:1.45/

Google as a State Owned Company in Ukraine

A very nice blog on how one would do a Google search if Google was owned by the Ukrainian state

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/02/04/ukraine-if-google-were-a-state-owned-company/

Buying Votes in Ukraine

An interesting article on the cost of votes in the parliament

http://eng.weekly.ua/pulse/theme/2010/01/27/180925.html

McDonalds In Russia

A very interesting article on how McDonalds gradually outsourced its production to local producers - it would be interesting to see how far McDonalds has succeeded in doing this in Ukraine

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/business/global/02mcdonalds.html?hp

Teaching Entrepreneurship

Below is an interesting initiative but the practical implementation might be another issue

and the last paragraph of this announcement shows part of the problem - 'state order for training such workers'. Rather than giving students info on the demand for specific skills and let students make decisions, the government will 'order' the training of workers...

Ukrainian schoolchildren to study principles of entrepreneurship

KYIV, February 1 /UKRINFORM/. The Ukrainian government has ordered the Education and Science Ministry to work out within three months the question of introducing at schools the study of a new discipline entitled "The Principles of Entrepreneurship," UKRINFORM has reported, citing the osvita.org.ua educational portal.

The statement reads that the ministry should also put forwards proposals on a plan of measures on the development of the system of training qualified workers from schoolchildren and issuing respective certificates to them.

The Labor and Social Policy Ministry and other executive government agencies were ordered to submit to the Economy Ministry each year reports on the labor market's demand for qualified workers with the goal of forming state order for training such workers.

http://www.ukrinform.ua/eng/order/?id=179856