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Poland is now among the 20 largest economies
171–180 of 944 posts
Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. F…
Europe is the birthplace of democracy, socialism, feminism and secularism.
Ofcourse Christ conservatives hate it.
Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies
#173They've done well for themselves for sure . 20 years ago, Poland was sending seasonal workers to the UK to pick tomatoes. Brexit largely won because of anti Eastern Europe immigration
> Eastern Europe immigration
It’s hard to believe those type of people actually wanted to replace it with non European immigration, though (which is what happened). Of course cause and effect is a complex concept to wrap ones head around..
Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies
#174How it happened?
(Source: I'm working with polish companies)
1. Hard working people
2. Biggest recipient of EU subsidies used for projects which generates more profit. Infrastructure, internet, etc. To compare, Czechia used it for stupid things like bicycle lanes, child playgrounds etc.
3. Building permit is very easy to get for basically anything. Yes, this way you can sometimes get chaotic new buildings, but this can be solved later. In comparison, in Czechia, obtaining a building permit is difficult and depends on the whim of the official. Also we have basically non-existent property taxes, so new homes are unaffordable for everybody and only used as an investment.
4. Not allowing imigration from countries where people don't want to work and with hugely different religions and customs. This worked for Czechia too though, our biggest immigrants are Ukranians which are also slavs and very hard working. Official statistics is, that they paid in taxes more than they got from social support.
Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies
#175I 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…
Think of it as an investment. The rest of the EU also benefits from their hard work, and economic prosperity. Other countries in the EU have also enjoyed economic growth and support over the years. I'm old enough to remember internal borders with passport checks in Europe, before the wall fell and Poland was still on the other side of that. Nice to see them moving on from that. Thanks to the EU free movement of peopl…
The question is not whether it is an investment or whether it is not.
The question is whether growth is objective and fair or whether it is not.
For comparison of wealth in Poland, ALL net-subsidies would have to be deducted, because this is essentially wealth taken from other countries, and distributed to poorer areas in the EU. I am not disputing that this leads to more growth; I am disputing the "country xyz is now rich" while not even mentioning the subsidies. And that reuters article does not mention that at all.
It also has to be mentioned because the crazy bureaucrats in Brussels want to aggressively expand eastwards. They think that the richer areas in the EU need to pay for that expansion. I simply fail to agree with that "logic" at all and I also consider it hugely unfair to richer areas. The richer areas made good decisions; now this is being negated by bureaucrats in Brussels. That is unfair. (This is not meant against Poland, but against the constant expansionistic agenda from Brussels.)
Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
My sibling comment understates the critique. There is no such thing as "average IQ". Countries don't IQ test representative samples of their population, so hucksters like Richard Lynn just make shit up and pull samples from mental institutions (where IQ tests are used, as they should be, as diagnostics). This is a pretty simple and obvious observation. Have you ever been asked to take a proctored IQ test to help esta…
Possible conscripts are usually IQ tested in some way. If you have national consciption, then it would be a pretty good sample of the 18 year old male population.
Some armed forces administer general cognitive tests (like the US does with the ASVAB --- of course, not a random sample in the US, since we don't conscript) but most of these are not in fact IQ tests. Additionally, some western countries have done cross-sectional IQ tests for scientific reasons. In most countries, neither applies. Richard Lynn, responsible for the most widely known and cited "national IQ score" numbers, really did rely on mental health hospitals, and really did impute made-up scores to countries where he found literally no data at all.
What you do see are attempts to synthesize IQ from aggregate economic and educational attainment data. But obviously these are really just proxies for economic development, which then begs the question.
Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies
#177Vacuuming working age population from Ukraine since 2014. Poland did everything right, while Ukrainian governments and businesses were smirking "What are you going to do?" during salary discussions.
"What are you going to do" was a phrase you could hear in Poland as well in 90ties and early 2000th. What differentiated PL w/ UA in my opinion is 2 things: 1. Lack of oligarchy - which in fact was not obvious outcome and little bit of luck on our part and little bit of cultural zeitgeist of 90ties and 00ths. 2. No east-west dithering - PL knew right away to which economic and cultural sphere wanted to belong
> 2. No east-west dithering - PL knew right away to which economic and cultural sphere wanted to belong
I wonder how much the Catholic vs. Orthodox background affected things there
Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I'm wondering how much of the net contribution comes from tech companies and how it compares to the loss of taxes due to Ireland acting as a tax haven for tech companies.
EDIT: Net contributions seem to be $3bn/year (total, independent of tech) while loss for other EU countries due to corporate tax evasion is $6bn/year.
Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies
#179I 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…
It's important to understand the difference between handouts and investments with an expected ROI.
It's unfortunate that 0th order thinking jumps to this framing, it's one reason I always laugh when people talk about SpaceX taking 'government handouts' without these folks realizing the 100x ROI the government got out of their investment. All investments are 'hand outs' but not all 'hand outs' are investments.
Clear thinking at a large enough scale will prevent a populace from self destructing due to stupidity about this topic.
Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies
#180I 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…
Think of it as an investment. The rest of the EU also benefits from their hard work, and economic prosperity. Other countries in the EU have also enjoyed economic growth and support over the years. I'm old enough to remember internal borders with passport checks in Europe, before the wall fell and Poland was still on the other side of that. Nice to see them moving on from that. Thanks to the EU free movement of peopl…
"I'm old enough to remember internal borders with passport checks in Europe"
Did you recently crossed borders? On many the checks are there again, because of fear of immigration terrorism or something, so the people could see, politicians were doing something to make them feel safe (but what I could see when passing borders, especially between poland and germany, were looong lines of trucks, so much for free flowing goods).
Not sure of the current situation, though, but last summer and autumn was horrible with checks (probably still better than what was before, but having experienced the real open border situation, having them restricted again is frustrating).