Bulgarians The Most Upbeat Europeans in The Recession

This report basically says that Bulgaria is the most optimistic and up beat European country in this doom and gloom of worldwide recession. I have to admit that many people I socialise with hear are not depressed even though many of them are out of work. It has always been hard to earn a living here and on a pension you will find poverty at a depth never imagined. Bulgarians can cope with recession better than any other European country because they are well versed with dealing with hard times. Living on a self-sufficient level comes natural to Bulgarians and work and money here is a bonus to many.

Hit harder in GDP terms by the financial crisis than any region on earth, citizens from across Central and Eastern Europe can, and often do, regale you with tales of economic woe.

But a new index published Wednesday says financial misery will be spread as unevenly across the ex-communist states this year as it was in 2009 — while optimism will be found in some surprising places.

According to Moody’ s ‘Misery Index,’ which adds projections of fiscal deficits to unemployment numbers as a measure of economic gloom, the least miserable of the 23 states ranked will be (drum roll)… Bulgaria.

Slammed by the financial crisis and enduring spending cuts from a center-right government determined to balance 2010’s budget, this may come as a surprise for many in the EU’s poorest member state. But Moody’s says expectations of a negligible 2010 budget deficit combined with predictions of a jobless rate below 10% will see the EU newcomer even less downbeat than super-rich Switzerland next year, where real economy indicators have fared far better than the European average.

Less curious is the plight of Baltic economies Latvia and Lithuania. Suffering from emergency budget cuts and double-digit GDP contractions their citizens are tipped to be almost three times as miserable the Bulgarians - and were only pipped to the inglorious title ‘most miserable’ by fallen-star Spain, where mushrooming dole queues are making it all but impossible to crack a smile.

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com