Except for the Russian thingy... this guy is just like the “Chicago Boys,” it should be an interesting term for him... and us.
A fiery Czech is poised to be the face of Europe
....Klaus, the 67-year-old president of the Czech Republic — an iconoclast with a perfectly clipped mustache — continues to provoke strong reactions. He has blamed what he calls the misguided fight against global warming for contributing to the international financial crisis, branded Al Gore an "apostle of arrogance" for his role in that fight, and accused the European Union of acting like a Communist state.,,,
An economist by training and a free marketeer by ideology, Klaus has criticized the course set by the union's departing leader, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France.....
Perhaps his greatest ire has been reserved for the European Union. In 2005, he called for it to be "scrapped." Now, he is a vocal opponent of the Lisbon Treaty, which aims to help Europe become more of an international player, but which he argues will strip countries of sovereignty.
On a state visit to Ireland this month, Klaus incensed the government and annoyed many in his own country by publicly praising Declan Ganley, a businessman and political activist who was influential in persuading a majority of Irish voters in June to reject the treaty.
And while other European leaders have criticized a newly assertive Russia, Klaus has forged close ties with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and recently distanced himself from the Czech government's criticism of Russia over the war with Georgia in August....
Those who know Klaus say his economic liberalism is an outgrowth of his upbringing. Born in 1941, he obtained an economics degree in 1963 and was deeply influenced by free market economists like Milton Friedman.
Klaus's son and namesake, Vaclav, recalled in an interview that when he was 13, his father told him to read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to better understand Communism's oppressiveness.
"If you lived under communism, then you are very sensitive to forces that try to control or limit human liberty," he said in an interview.
In 1989, during the Velvet Revolution that overthrew Czechoslovakia's Communist leaders, Klaus offered his services as an economist to Civic Forum, the group opposing the government. When the new government took control, he became finance minister. But his relationship with the dissidents quickly soured.
Havel recalled in his memoirs that Klaus had an aversion "to the rest of us, whom he had clearly consigned to the same Dumpster, with a sign on it saying 'left-wing intellectuals.' "
In 1991, Klaus founded a new center-right party, the Civic Democratic Party, which won elections in June 1992, making him prime minister. His radical privatization strategy — including a voucher scheme later emulated in Russia, where it led to the amassing of vast wealth by a few oligarchs — was marred by allegations of corruption, with Havel accusing Klaus of "gangster capitalism."
Ladislav Jakl, now Klaus's pony-tailed private secretary, said that the main difference between the leaders was that Havel sought to give people goodness whereas Klaus was determined to bestow freedom.
