He who laughs last laughs best, Madam Minister.

By Lutfi Dervishi

The Minister of Economy and Innovation mentioned me today and added that she laughed a lot.

It's good. Laughter is good for health, especially when the questions are simple. It's better to laugh than to cry.

But your arithmetic, honorable minister, x + x + x = 3x, does not answer the question of why the lek has overvalued to these proportions, while exports, production, and purchasing power are not showing the same muscle.

Therefore, my question remains quite simple, you could even call it naive: is the long-term appreciation of the lek explained only by tourism, remittances and foreign investments, or are there also euros circulating in the market that official statistics cannot capture?

I don't remember who said it, but it has remained with me as one of the most beautiful definitions of economics: 'beyond the complexity of numbers, calculations, doctrines and models, economics is the simplest and most practical science. It is measured at the table of the worker and the retiree.'

The calculator is very accurate at adding up, but it is not a washing machine and, above all, it cannot explain the euro's decline.

I have some more serious questions for you, Madam Minister, this time not for humor.

How many de jure foreign companies, registered and reported as foreign direct capital or investment, have de facto Albanian owners, Albanian capital and Albanian investment?

Is it enough for a company to be registered in the Cayman Islands, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Malta or Delaware to automatically change the flag of the owner, capital and investment?

How many companies operating in hydrocarbons and oil, in PPP concessions, in pharmaceutical trade, construction, infrastructure, strategic investments and resorts are actually 'postbox' companies, meaning they only have an address abroad, but their ownership, capital and real control are in Albania?

How much of this money that statistics record as foreign investment is, in fact, Albanian capital that has taken a tourist tour through tax havens and returned to its homeland with a foreign passport?

Arithmetic is not enough here, a little knowledge of chemistry is also needed. An ignorant person, like me, may also demand transparency on the beneficial owner, the source of capital, and the real origin of the investment.

Your answer can be serious or even humorous. It just needs to be in numbers.

As has been made public, I am not an economic expert. But as a free man, I have the right to disagree with you, when on March 25, 2022 you declared that '140 euros per month is enough for an Albanian not to be considered poor.'

Back then, those 140 euros were 16,867 lek. Today, with the 'super strong' lek, they are around 13,100 lek.

I don't know if you understand that this example alone is enough to make the 'choir of rich people' look like the Academy of Sciences?

Since the debate about reading and knowledge has recently been opened, for these summer holidays I would suggest a less relaxing, but perhaps more useful, reading: SPAK data and some investigative files on millions in drug trafficking cash, fictitious invoices, businesses used for money laundering, and investments in resorts and construction.

If you don't have them, I can offer them to you, for free of course, so you don't waste time looking for them in the 'lightning sheets'.

Then, in the fall, we can return to the debate, on this or any other topic, and laugh again.

Because, as the old saying goes, he who laughs last laughs best.

That's it for today, for him.