see no tangible assistance or implementation of job creation or new skills training. As such, government pronouncements are skeptically seen as mere lip service of politicians attempting to placate the electorate and prevent more miner unrest. The money was inadequate, they say, the development and implementation of laws and programs set up too late, and no infrastructure was ever established to support the development of new industries like tourism. Within the Jiu Valley opinions and rumors abound as to what the future potentially holds. Many miners feel that coal mining in Romania is a moribund industry that will never regain its position of significance. Some still hope that the industry will experience resurgence and point to the example of the Hungarian government, which, after closing their mines under international pressure, was compelled by the powerful reaction of the miners to reopen them. Miners salaries, estimated at $400–500/month as of January 2006, are considerably higher than the average in Jiu Valley which lag far behind the national average income. Miners who have been laid off by the mines are to receive a severance pay, but often saw this eaten away by the hyperinflation in the late 1990s, and was only brought under control in the past several years (2006). During the first redundancies, what little income in lei was not spent immediately for basic necessities was typically not deposited in banks (which were seen as unreliable) but was exchanged for U.S. dollars or Deutschmarks and hidden in their homes. By 2000 this had begun to change as the Romanian banks became more efficient and competitive, and as public confidence began to grow, so did deposits. With the redundancy pay-offs, some of the miners expressed interests in starting their own businesses and see the Jiu Valley develop a tourist industry, but the impediments to both are painfully obvious and everywhere. The original redundancy payments, estimated at a total maximum of 100% of 12 month salaries (paid upfront), plus an additional 50-60% of monthly salary paid over the next 18 months, was hardly enough to buy inventory or start a business, particularly when adding in the cost of dealing with bureaucracy and corruption. Before 2000, if the money was not invested with a high enough return, the high Romanian inflation soon ate the savings away. Furthermore, while many residents looked to the development of tourism as a substitute industry, this possibility seemed limited