"The middle has basically stayed the same; it hasn't improved," said Lawrence F. Katz, an economist at Harvard University. "You've got an iPhone now and a better TV, but your median income hasn't changed. What's really changed is the penthouse has become supernice."

"As collateral damage, the Polish and Hungarian exposure has come to the fore, as they hold significant Swiss bank mortgages on property."

Jim, you need to know that amongst the Eastern European nations Hungary is the only one that does not have a property mortgage CHF exposure at all anymore! None.

You are right, we did, and actually it was widespread, but the Orban government with uncanny forsight and great courage has taken on the entire banking sector and neutralized all of it in three waves over a two year period and completed the termination of those loan shark mortgages just a couple of months ago. Talk about timing...

- First wave: the Orban governement forced the banks to allow those who could come up with the money to pay off their mortgages at the exchange rate when those CHF denominated loan shark mortgages incured. Those who had the means scraped all resources, family members chipped in from uncles to grandmothers to come up with the balance. This is when I had paid off my sister's mortgage also.

- Second wave: those who were unable to take advantage of this opportunity, the government established a mandatory exchange rate barrier. Voluntary for the debtors, mandatory for the banks. Basically they extended the payment period at a fixed exchage rate.

- Third wave (and this turned out to be VISIONARY) : the Orban government forced the banks to convert ALL foreign currency denominated property mortgages into Hungarian Forint (HUF) mortgages. Note that this took place just a couple of moths before the CHF depeg.

- Also note that the HUF is not pegged to any currency including USD, EUR etc. Orban wrote into our constitution years ago (and took a lot of heat for it in the EU) that our national currency is the Hungarian Forint. This may also turn out to be a visionary decision given what the near term future may hold for us all.

- Once on the subject, note also that Orban even wrote into our constitution that we are GMO free zone.

- What we have left in CHF are auto loans and consumers loans, but those are maturing soon, so those were left untouched for now. But the elephant in the room has been dealt with.

- The Polish and Romanian governments officially requested expert help from the Orban cabinet to advise them on the details how they did it because they are facing the full impact of the CHF depeg.

- And Orban even did all this very cleverly, hiding behind Supreme Court rulings. He started by calling on the Supreme court to rule on details of this whole issue...

- Didn't destroy the banks, didn't anger them to the point of no return, just went to the very limit (and then some more) without fatal consequences to himself or to us. Mind you, we may well get a colored revolution this coming spring as a payback for revolting all the time.

- One more thorn in their side is that Orban practically nationalized our Central Bank (by the way, happens to be the most beautiful building in the World, built in 1902 ....) hence the 2,5% loans that businesses can take advantage of these days, amongst a range of other beneficial policies.