Nehemia Shtrasler

Olmert wants to survive politically. With one hand, he is repulsing pressure from the state comptroller and calls for a state commission of inquiry, and with the other, he wants to throw money at all of us.

The joy has ebbed. The promising leader has become a lame duck.

Both Olmert and Labor MK Avishay Braverman must tell the people the truth - that it is impossible to continue with business as usual. It is also impossible to both suffer from the damages of the war and also to destroy the economy.

The IDF budget for this year is enormous - NIS 46.5 billion, excluding the special supplements for the war effort. This figure does not appear in the graphs the IDF is handing out to analysts. The figure there is different - NIS 33.5 billion.

It appears that one of the illnesses caused by this war has been a loss of a sense of proportion. Were this not the case, it would be difficult to understand how the public debate in recent days is revolving around money and not blood.

While Olmert and Peretz would like to see fingers pointed at Netanyahu as the man responsible for the blunders in the war, let us not be deceived.

Israel has always said it has nothing against the Lebanese people and does not want to harm Lebanon, only the PLO (then) and Hezbollah (now). But in practice, it has harmed, destroyed and humiliated the Lebanese time after time.

Olmert is disturbed by the criticism of the failure to achieve the war's goals, and he is trying by words alone to turn this reality into achievements, both for the government and for himself.

Based on what has happened in the field, nothing remains of the grandiose goals of the beginning of the war. Soon we will regret the deals we rejected at its start.

It is no secret that the matter of the budget troubles the Israel Defense Forces' leadership a great deal. Prior to the outbreak of war, Chief of Staff Dan Halutz made a major effort to convince politicians and the media alike that the planned cuts must be called off.

The civilians - Olmert and Peretz - felt inferior to the generals, and within minutes made a fatal decision and set unattainable, pretentious goals.

The previous recession began with the tourism industry, which is so sensitive to security related events. What happened then is happening again now.

The good news is that the Housing Ministry will embark on a project to transfer the ownership of apartments from the Israel Lands Administration (ILA) to private ownership. The bad news is this is a change that doesn't deal with the great damage the ILA causes the public.

At the beginning of this week, Ben-Nun presented his 'reform,' which is in fact the complete opposite of a reform. Instead of stimulating competition, it strengthens the IEC's power as a monopoly.

A real reform in the education system -one that will pass the administrative scepter to school principals.

The chairman of the Knesset House Committee, Kadima MK Ruhama Avraham, knows what's truly important for an MK. She knows that publicity for her is most important.

It is impossible to fight poverty with a cessation of growth in the econonomy.

Hirchson has taken an accelerated course in macroeconomics. The course was administered by members of his own budget division, who declared him a diligent pupil.

So who wants privatization anyway? Who is the idiot who wants to replace the excellent service that is provided today by the public sector?

The public sector wages report for 2004 shows that senior bank officials comprised the top 14 spots on the list ranking government-paid wages

Will we be fortunate enough to make it through the summer safe and sound? Are we in for more power outages like the one we experienced early last week?

A finance minister cannot allow himself to be 'good' nor can a finance minister take the social crown upon himself.

Justice Minister Haim Ramon's proposal requesting that excessive salaries not be recognized for tax purposes infringes on property rights, but it does so in a proportionate fashion, and for an appropriate purpose: achieving social stability.

The social platform in a nutshell: he who works on Shabbat is an exploited slave, employers a gang of exploiters.

Organized labor is using the Labor party to fight structural reform which would open up the market for competition and benefit consumers