Royalty

I never have been, am not, and never will be a fan of the royal family, or a royalist in se - there could be a slight difference between the two.

But the regular nagging and moaning about the cost of that institution in Belgium is more than I can bear.

There are millions of management teams worldwide, and tens, maybe hundreds of them in Belgium, who cost a zillion times more than our "national team".

And the heroes of free enterprise generally cannot even start to claim that there is a direct, provable relation between their sky high winnings (remunerations is not the right word), i.e. their cost to the entities they are supposed to lead - and their efficiency, or the economic and financial results which they "generate". More often than not, when they generate results they do so by cutting labor costs : lowering the cost of their product and shifting the burden to the detriment of society as a whole.

By comparison with many of those - often self declared - heroes, our royal team might come out clear winners in efficiency and "social productivity" after all.

So let's stop whining about the cost of our royal family, and address the real problems !