Our lungs and our wallets are on fire! The causes are different, but it is one and the same thing that cannot put out the fires. Are you confused now? That's because you don't live in Turkey. Imagine living in a country where your income - if you have a job at all - is practically the same, but prices are constantly rising. The government claims the country's economy is booming. The only thing to do is to get poorer every day. The official statistics office published this month the highest inflation rate in the last twenty years: 19 percent. The people on the street and the head of the central bank appointed by Erdogan find this rate unreliable: "All price increases are over 30 percent ..."

On the Turkish version of the column


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Erdogan says: “I am an economist.” As if he were not the architect of this situation, his statements were: “From now on, inflation will not continue to rise.” If it did, he immediately changed the head of the statistics office.

Should inflation dare to rise even after the latest statement, he will probably have them arrested.

His decisions led the economy deep into crisis. As Erdogan's power increased, our purchasing power decreased. A look at the monthly published data on poverty and the minimum wage shows that this has been below the hunger line for almost all months of the past five years. In 59 of the last 67 months, people in this country were unable to really eat their fill. Only the AKP leadership is of the opinion that nobody is hungry. Erdogan's advisor Yasin Aktay says: “Anyone who says: 'I'm hungry' is not hungry; those who are hungry do not shout that they are hungry. "

Meanwhile, millions whose steady incomes are decreasing every day are growing credit card debt just because they buy groceries. In order to pay off debts, citizens take out loans at ever higher interest rates. Of the roughly 80 million inhabitants, over 34.5 million have loan debts. And it's not just citizens who are in debt. The hole is also growing in the state treasury. In the past eighteen months, central government debt rose from 1.33 trillion liras to 2.03 trillion.

Studies by two internationally renowned market research companies show how daily worries have affected our psyche.

According to the Ipsos study, 82 percent of Turks are concerned about the future.

While concern increased by two percent worldwide, the number of concerned citizens in Turkey soared from 55 percent to 82 percent in five years.

We come to the second study.

We are Mediterranean people, we like to laugh, you know that.

However, the Global Emotions Report, which is updated annually by Gallup, shows that we have forgotten how to laugh.

According to the 116 country study, Turkey is the country where people laugh the least.

In the countries with the highest levels of anger and stress, however, we made it into the top five.

Couldn't you have deleted earlier?

How should we laugh, it's not just in our wallets! The country's lungs are on fire too. In the heavenly beautiful corners of Turkey, tens of thousands of hectares of forest have burned to ashes in the past two weeks. When the heat rose above the normal level of the season, fires broke out first in Antalya, then also in Bodrum and Marmaris. Unfortunately, there was not a single aircraft that could have been used to extinguish the fires in the main tourist regions of Turkey. Not because we are poor. Our President has a fleet of thirteen planes and we are rich enough to send eight planes alone to Cyprus for a picnic, which he attended. We have $ 2.5 billion to pay for the Russian-made S-400 missiles waiting in the depots. We are also able toBuild a $ 20 million mosque in Ghana, adorned with Italian marble. Unfortunately, we could not spend the four million dollars for the maintenance of the fire fighting planes that were rotting away in the halls of the Turkish Aviation Association. Instead, we preferred to pay $ 23.4 million for three fire-fighting planes leased from Russia during the summer months. Foreign Minister Cavusoglu meanwhile asked the citizens for money with the words "Our people are generous".4 million dollars for three fire-fighting planes leased from Russia during the summer months. Foreign Minister Cavusoglu meanwhile asked the citizens for money with the words "Our people are generous".4 million dollars for three fire-fighting planes leased from Russia during the summer months. Foreign Minister Cavusoglu meanwhile asked the citizens for money with the words "Our people are generous".