Media reports now and again offer the fleeting hope of the first signs of economic recovery hither and thither, but inasmuch as some Bulgarian officials are concerned, the credit crunch and the economic recession might as well have never happened.

Sure, they will pay lip service to the crisis and the measures needed to fight it, but their psyches are still firmly ensconced in that distant past when credit-fuelled growth seemed sustainable and paying inflated prices on land plots and on-paper real estate developments passed for investment.

In those times, Stoyan Stalev (remember him? he is the executive director of the government investment agency, not that one hears much about either him or the agency) had a presentation he would show all would-be foreign investors.

Last time I saw him deliver an address to potential investors, he was showing off the very same presentation earlier in spring.

Other than the perfunctory acknowledgment of the coming crisis, there was no indication that his agency had any contingency plans about how to deal with the new reality of the economic recession and declining investments.

Earlier this week, Bulgarian National Bank governor Ivan Iskrov, who has been making headlines for the wrong reasons in recent days, made his own return to the past by recounting how great the central bank has been run over the past five years.

I do not mean to impugn Iskrov’s track record, but the central bank has not been too successful in checking the rapid growth of lending at the height of the cheap credit and the revelations in October about a secret fiscal reserve deal with the Finance Ministry should have had a bigger impact than raised eyebrows.

Not that there is anything wrong with a recap of the central bank’s activity during Iskrov’s first term as governor, but delivering one just to pat yourself on the back in front of several ministers and more than 200 top executives at a forum meant to sum up the Cabinet’s first steps and next challenges, was simply poor taste.

Then again, Stalev and Iskrov are probably not alone in their refusal to face the new reality and remain stuck in the carefree times when the economy grew no matter what the government was doing and the toughest decision faced by the Cabinet was what to spend the Budget surplus on.

Most taxpayers cannot afford that luxury.