It has been argued that this dire situation is proportional to the country's culpability in initiating the wars of this decade, and because of this the suffering of the country and its people may be deemed to be just and fair. However, to decide if this thesis is really factually and morally valid, we need to ascertain first what the suffering of the Serb people is exactly and secondly if there is a collective guilt which can be laid on the Serb people commensurate with this suffering. Social and economic problems have been accumulating for more than 50 years in Serbia, and these, together with the latest devastation of what remained of the economy, have resulted in an enormous increase in unemployment. The remaining part of the population earns an average of 60 DM per month. Inflation is ever present, and the hard currency rates on the black market are twice as high as the official ones.
Dissatisfaction grows every day, and tension manifests itself in the form of riots.
The rule of Slobodan Milosevic and his state administration react rigidly to any attempt to solve these problems, using repression and brutality. A country of relatively rich resources, especially agricultural ones, is standing on the edge of hunger, and the agricultural sector itself is being systematically annihilated year by year. It is widely suspected that even Serb Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic has been actively involved in these exports. The affair has been something of a scandal in Serbia, but there have been no legal or any other real consequences for him or his enterprise. A similar situation arose with Vice-President of the Serb government Dragan Tomic, who is also the director of a household furnishings factory Simpo.