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Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

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Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#121

I love the polish, but credit where credit is due: „Poland is the largest beneficiary of EU funds 2014-2020, with one in four euro going to Poland“ https://www.gov.pl/web/funds-regional-policy/poland-at-the-f... Update: The comments below this are strange. I ment: „Poland gets money, Poland transforms it into more money”. Is Poland more efficient in it than other countries? I do not know. Would Poland have generated…

There are many countries in the EU that get many more funds per person than Poland and have much worse outcomes. Some moron always show up with the "but it was all the EU subsidies" talking point, which is quite frankly part of racist tropes of eastern Europeans being dumb and worse than westerners. Could you imagine them accomplishing anything on their own? That's ridiculous. It's us, the western saviors, who did th…

> Some moron always show up with the "but it was all the EU subsides" talking point, which is quite frankly part of racist tropes of eastern Europeans being dumb and worse than westerners. Could you imagine them accomplishing anything on their own? That's ridiculous. It's us, the western saviors, who did this with our penny subsidies!

Ireland were in a similar position for instance (received €40bn in EU subsidies in the first 45 years of membership; now a net contributor).

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#122
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is how European social welfare works. And it is fantastic! Because the entirety of the EU is benefitting from it. Polish people have larger spending power, interesting and safe places to visit, etc. This is not a "present" given to Poland. This is ensuring a better life for all Europeans.

So you’re taking from others who earned it and give it someone that didn’t? Got it.

Yes, in the EU they call it 'sharing'

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#123
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is how European social welfare works. And it is fantastic! Because the entirety of the EU is benefitting from it. Polish people have larger spending power, interesting and safe places to visit, etc. This is not a "present" given to Poland. This is ensuring a better life for all Europeans.

In the 1980s, EU money was flowing to Spain, Portugal and Greece. And people complained about that too. But the result is inarguably positive. Those countries had only recently become democracies after decades of military dictatorships or otherwise unstable third-world style governments. Today they're the most dynamic economies in the EU in many respects, and their democracies are well established and functioning. Th…

I think this is the hidden reason why the American alt-right/far-right/MAGA/techbro types hate the EU with so much apoplectic rage. For all its problems, big-picture-like it actually works to gradually coalesce a huge rich continent with a bigger population than the US into something increasingly more coherent, and if it continues to work it will mean that the Western world now has two heavyweight leaders, not one. For people who tend to view the world as a giant zero-sum dominance competition, this is of course a big threat. One more big player = one more competitor.

(The techbros hate it for a different, if related, reason - they aren't nearly as successful at capturing regulators, astroturfing and controlling discourse, and otherwise taking charge of that second entity as they are with the hapless US federal government).

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#125
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is how European social welfare works. And it is fantastic! Because the entirety of the EU is benefitting from it. Polish people have larger spending power, interesting and safe places to visit, etc. This is not a "present" given to Poland. This is ensuring a better life for all Europeans.

So you’re taking from others who earned it and give it someone that didn’t? Got it.

This is what capitalists literally do with workers. It's not like capitalists are creating anything valuable, they're just leeches extracting wealth.

I rather have workers get the money than more corporate welfare.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#127
post #97

I love the polish, but credit where credit is due: „Poland is the largest beneficiary of EU funds 2014-2020, with one in four euro going to Poland“ https://www.gov.pl/web/funds-regional-policy/poland-at-the-f... Update: The comments below this are strange. I ment: „Poland gets money, Poland transforms it into more money”. Is Poland more efficient in it than other countries? I do not know. Would Poland have generated…

They're also the 3rd smallest net recipient of EU funds per capita: https://i.imgur.com/VlRkDMy.png

But that's not really meaningful in a "largest economy" point of view.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#128
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which, to be fair, laid the foundation for the well-educated part. The Soviets really valued STEM. They also quite valued emancipating women. Just for context, in the 60s, around 5% of chemistry PhDs in the US were women. In the Soviet Union, it was 40%! [0] Of course, that doesn't excuse all the other things they did, but the amount of badass female engineers from Eastern Europe I had the honor of working with is a…

How come eastern germany does so poorly?

Quite simple. They all left.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#129

I love the polish, but credit where credit is due: „Poland is the largest beneficiary of EU funds 2014-2020, with one in four euro going to Poland“ https://www.gov.pl/web/funds-regional-policy/poland-at-the-f... Update: The comments below this are strange. I ment: „Poland gets money, Poland transforms it into more money”. Is Poland more efficient in it than other countries? I do not know. Would Poland have generated…

You greatly overestimate its significance. The benefits are roughly 1% of the GDP. In 2023 Poland netted 8.2 bn€ [1]. The GDP was 751 bn€.

[1] https://www.pap.pl/en/news/poland-largest-recipient-eu-funds...

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#130
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is how European social welfare works. And it is fantastic! Because the entirety of the EU is benefitting from it. Polish people have larger spending power, interesting and safe places to visit, etc. This is not a "present" given to Poland. This is ensuring a better life for all Europeans.

In the 1980s, EU money was flowing to Spain, Portugal and Greece. And people complained about that too. But the result is inarguably positive. Those countries had only recently become democracies after decades of military dictatorships or otherwise unstable third-world style governments. Today they're the most dynamic economies in the EU in many respects, and their democracies are well established and functioning. Th…

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