Baksheesh is a good Turkish word that has found its’ place in most of the European languages. It is resonant as the jingle of handful of old ducats in a purse of deer leather, smells as sorbet and baklava, bringing memories from the old Orient Express…Baksheesh! In Bulgarian, in the vocabulary of the flaming street slang, this is how the taxi-drivers are called. How long? So long that seems like the word still smells as horse dung … because the nickname probably came to this world at the time of the cabmen’s taxi carriage. This time the news with an address in Sofia is unequivocal as a diagnosis: “The Baksheeshes” must have gone mad!” They decided to run up their tariffs with 150 percent. Yes, you have read right - with 150 percent and not even a percent less. Bulgaria is already in the European Union and the jugglers behind the steering-wheel want to hug the jackpot. The arguments of the guild sound prudent as pre-election promises. They haven’t changed their rates for two years already, and meanwhile the prices of the petrol are flying upwards with the speed of a “Concorde.” So the association of the taxi syndicates insists also for binding the rates with 50 percent of the price of the gasoline A 98. Stop! This eyewash doesn’t work even for children, who are still driving pedal strollers. The petrol and the diesel fuels are really persuading us every day that the next petrol crisis is reaching culmination, but… Yes, there is a “but”! More than 90 percent of the taxi cars / Is that all?/ drive on gas - propane-butane or methane. And these fuels from far back are sold at the price of spinach. Matter of policy, in which there is a social element. The legislation has obliged the taxi-drivers to drive new cars? And thank God! Only before four-five years their car fleet looked like a retro- parade, and this is undeserved compliment. Many of the taxis looked like they were raised from the dead and this was the truth because those have been bought from the car morgues of Western Europe. Another question is that most of the big taxi companies today are more leasing houses, selling cars in installments and the drivers have to turn the steering wheel 12 hours per day to earn something above the installment. Matter of professional choice! With the drastic increase of the rates a big part of the drivers will come out of the “grey economy” and will start to pay regularly taxes and insurances, assures a chief of a syndicate. Following the same logic if the meat becomes cheaper, the wolves will stop stealing the lambs. And the analogy with the wolves in any case is not accidental in a country where is the proverb saying: “The wolf may lose his teeth but never his nature!” Let us honestly acknowledge – “the Baksheeshes” in Bulgaria have the nature of wolves. Do you remember how many times in the last years, they occupied - literally - the parliament, placing themselves over any authority and law? Have you ever heard accidentally how much ‘inside’ are many of the drivers in providing prostitutes, in the business with stolen goods, in each and every fiddle, where they can take the catch. Is that you can’t see how after every crash between a “Baksheesh” and an ordinary person at the place of accident for a seconds heaps up a crowd of colleagues ready for a fight? Or you never came across a driver, having “a pump” - the magical device, multiplying the index of the counter in geometrical progression? The last request is during the 13 national holidays the yellow cars to drive on double rates. Is this really the last one? Why not a 50 percent increase for driving in the rush hours, another 50 percent in rainy weather and at least 150 percent on icy roads and fog at the same time? This also sounds logical. But in our case we are talking about reason, not about logic. “The Baksheeshes” must have gone mad? In fact they don’t look like raving mad! Even the teachers are teaching with locked mouths, “preparing” the society for their future strike. The autumn is the usual time for trade union protests. The rest will be adjusted by the market, where the demand determines the offering.