As in other countries around the globe, the frantic efforts by the Hungarian government to concoct and communicate a response to the deepening economic crisis have resulted in a number of false starts and embarrassing U-turns. But it's hard to think of any more pathetic and infuriating than some seemingly antithetical statements made last week by Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány and Economy Minister Gordon Bajnai regarding the role they expect foreign investment to play in saving Hungary's economy from the abyss.

Just consider the following dispatch by newswire MTI:

Hungary's government plans to introduce an economic policy aimed at stimulating the flagging economy by encouraging foreign companies to invest in the country, Gordon Bajnai, the economy and national development minister, told a news conference on Tuesday.

Unfortunately, it seems like Bajnai's boss missed the news, because less than 48 hours later we got this:

Hungary's new economic policy is "patriotic" and will be built on the country's self-financing capability while cutting the burdens on businesses, Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany said at a conference on Thursday…. The past 10-15 years of Hungarian economic policy has been built on foreign resources and technology whereas the new Hungarian economic policy will be built on domestic resources, Gyurcsany told a finance conference organised by Hungarian investment association BAMOSZ and the DEMOS Foundation.

So from what we can tell, the policy of the government is to stimulate the country's flagging economy by encouraging foreign companies to invest here, and the way it will encourage foreign companies to invest here is to… say that the country is now planning on a "patriotic" economic policy that doesn't depend on foreign investment.

Unless there was something really lost in translation here, we'd say the government really thinks foreign investors are idiots. Though given that there are still so many here after so many years of this kind of official idiocy, maybe they are right.