The carried-on-foot heart attack
How to burn the future of a country?
Before starting this article, I asked professional translators to assist me in translating a Hungarian term. An undetected heart attack (often only discovered during an autopsy, which reveals that the patient had several before the fatal one) is referred to as a "carried on foot" heart attack in Hungarian. This term also has some less serious uses. A stupid person is often jokingly described as a survivor of a "carried on foot brain death." We found that none of the possible English translations can quite show the amount of fatalism in the term.
A carried-on-foot heart attack is something you know about, even if you are in denial. You know it happened, or at least feel that something is amiss. You know how it’s going to end. You know you should change things and go to a doctor. But you carry on, saying it is what it is.
In my Hungarian blog, I started using the term "carried on foot state default" (“lábon kihordott államcsőd” in Hungarian)a while ago to describe the state of affairs in almost every area of the public sector. In this article, I will define and explain the term and provide some examples.
But first, since we are discussing an Eastern European phenomenon, let’s include a joke about it. In fact, there are many jokes about it. The late President Reagan introduced some of them to the Western audience. Here is another one.
The Glorious Express Train to Perfect Communism is thundering towards its destination, with the comrades aboard feeling happy and confident. They have given up all their worldly belongings to secure a ticket and are eager to reach their destination. However, the train starts to slow down. The conductor walks along the carriages and informs the passengers that the locomotive is consuming coal at an unexpected rate. As a result, all the wooden parts of the interior will be removed and used to fuel the locomotive. The passengers, dedicated to reaching the Glorious Future of Communism, agree to this arrangement, considering the loss of a table or seat a minor inconvenience.
Shortly after, the conductor returns, announcing that even the wooden structural elements of the carriages are now required. The passengers, still eager to arrive at Communism, gladly assist in dismantling the carriages and assembling in the one carriage left untouched. However, despite their efforts, the train continues to slow down and eventually comes to a stop. Under the leadership of the conductor, the passengers dismantle the railroad behind the train and use it as fuel for the locomotive. Eventually, the train stops once again.
At this point, the passengers discuss dismantling the track ahead of the locomotive. However, they soon realize the problem and express their concerns to the conductor, stating that they have burned everything they had - the way back and potentially their future. They ask the conductor how they will be able to reach Perfect Communism. The conductor cheerily replies, "Can’t you see comrades? We have just arrived!"
The Glorious Train Hungary is heading towards "a sovereign, independent, illiberal nation-state."
Many passengers have realized that we have already burned everything. However, millions still believe that a glorious future awaits at the end of the ride. Some, like myself, have long realized that megalomania will have consequences, and we have sacrificed our past, present, and future to fuel a train going nowhere. (Seriously, this is the most optimistic description of it.)
Bankrupt but functional?
Given how much EU funds and Hungarian taxpayer money was siphoned out from the country through the vast system of Orbán’s crony capitalism, the country should have gone bankrupt years ago. It did not. In fact, we have a decent rating from all the major rating agencies. How is that possible?
By letting everything silently rot away. We feed the money that should go into public services into the firebox of the Glorious Train Hungary. I estimate that we are in a phase where the carriages and the tracks behind us are gone.
In the past decade, vital systems such as healthcare, education, and public transport have undergone an interesting transformation in Hungary. Significant investments have been made in hardware, including purchasing hundreds of buses and trains for the Budapest metro area and renovating numerous schools and hospitals. These were marketed to the public as enhancements but barely covered amortization.
However, during this time, human resources within these systems have decreased, with thousands of teachers, doctors, and other public servants leaving their positions.
The decline in the quality of these services has been slow but steady.
This is not uncommon in Hungarian history. Almost everyone in Eastern Europe knows how to obtain services or resources promised on paper but unavailable. We build a network of connections and favors to compensate for the missing public services. However, people also learn to accept this reality. In Eastern Europe, no one truly expects free healthcare to be entirely free.
These systems used to be unreliable but consistently so. They were slowly decaying, so at least they were perceived as stable. However, the decay is now noticeable to everyone, mainly because replacing human resources is difficult, and expensive hardware is starting to wear out. The impact was heightened when the EU froze payments for Hungary.
Orbán responded by spending gzillions on propaganda. They introduced a gaggle of imaginary foes. Gays, liberals, vegans, anti-Hungarian brusselite eurocrats, George Soros, armies of Muslim terrorists, and most recently, “wokes” appear in the everyday news. The propaganda machine performs coordinated attacks. Most recently, they are “Wokebusters.” Many Hungarian voters think that although our healthcare or education systems might be worse than, say, the German ones, at least we are free from woke terrorism.
This scheme effectively deflects attention from the actual problems. However, the crumbling systems have begun to exhibit extremely difficult-to-hide symptoms. Even the clumsiest opposition can identify and promise to resolve these issues.
Railways beyond repair
During the summer, the Hungarian railway system started to show signs of total collapse. In the summer, hourly trains connect Budapest with Lake Balaton. No one expects these trains to be on time or in good condition. They are old and shabby, but they do get the job done.
But this summer, the extreme heat and lack of maintenance caused significant delays, occasionally even blocking lines. Slowly, the transportation system's “on-foot heart attacks” are becoming more frequent. The public started to perceive that this might be a genuine collapse.
The government's hatchet man, János Lázár, was assigned to handle the situation. He fired the senior management of the Hungarian railways, but that doesn’t buy new trains and tracks. Ironically, he was the one (in an earlier hatchet man role) to cancel the acquisition of 100 new Siemens locomotives.
We are now in a situation where it's hard to distinguish between collapse and diminished functionality. Healthcare, education, social care, and similar systems are also beyond the tipping point.
The trick to governing Hungary is to convince people that we are up and running, even as we collapse.
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Uhh ez jöhetne magyarul is ha lehet. Úgy könnyebben osztható és rég láttam ennyire szépen összeszedve és egyszerűen elmagyarázva.
Re Keleti, I would add two details:
1. Lázár dismissed not only the buying of new locomotives, but several big projects, one of which would have involved the renovation of the rails and switches around Keleti.
2. Keleti is not only “one of the three main railway stations of Budapest”: it is the biggest one, terminus of almost all intercity trains.