Ko enkrat prideš na radar svetovnih medijev s slabimi novicami, se tega slovesa težko znebiš. In težko se izogneš negativnim eksternalijam. Tudi New York Times, ki je sicer Slovenijo omenjal le v zvezi s športom (denimo ko je Slovenija igrala proti ZDA v nogometu in košarki), danes poroča o njej kot o padlem angelu ter bankrotu modela “slovenskega gradualizma”.

Mired in recession, weighed down by crippled banks and battered by the bond markets, Slovenia’s fall from grace has cast doubt on an economic transition that was once the envy of Central and Eastern Europe.

When Yugoslavia fell apart in 1991, newly independent Slovenia kept most of its best assets in domestic hands rather than selling them to foreigners in a flurry of privatizations the way some other countries did. That caution, and resistance to the sorts of change that outsiders would have brought — known here as “Slovenian gradualism” — is now being second-guessed. Some even wonder whether the country suffered from having such a promising start.

New York Times je bil seveda površen pri analizi vzrokov in fundamentov te krize, toda prepoznal je začetek procesa padanja v pivovarski vojni (2002-2004) in v spopadu elit za kapital ob začetku Jaševega prvega mandata (2004-2008):

Buyouts and mergers peaked during the first term of Mr. Jansa, who was prime minister from 2004 to 2008. […]

Mr. Jansa’s first government was a power broker because state-run funds still held stakes in many companies. One cause célèbre was the so-called brewery wars in which Pivovarna Lasko acquired its rival, Union, in 2005 to avert a takeover by InBev of Belgium.

Keeping ownership in Slovene hands was a crucial goal. On its Web site, Pivovarna Lasko still cites a quotation about it from 1940, which begins: “This is not a factory like those built with foreign capital, which came to engulf our land in slavery and misery.”

Vir: New York Times