On Nov. 21, Serbian businessman Milan Beko called on Serbian President Boris Tadic to explain exactly what he had meant by asking the country's tycoons to give some of their wealth back, adding that the business community saw this as a warning and even as an announcement that the government could be planning to collect an extra profit tax from the rich.

"Unfortunately, this initiative by Tadic is vague, so we were hoping to see a concrete example of it demonstrated by the Democratic Party's well-to-do to see how it's supposed to look like, how much we need to give and to whom, to rule out any demagogy," Beko told TV B92.

If the initiative has its roots in Russia, and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's gesture of handing a pen to Oleg Deripaska to sign orders to to pay his workers, then we must bear in mind that Putin saved Deripaska's life in an economic sense, by sending the message that Russia is for Russians only, Beko added.

"Perhaps Tadic's was inspired by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's model, when he said that he expected returns for the state, and when this didn't happen, he began nationalizing," Beko said.