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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

#381

Post by jakubadamw »

niemandhier wrote: post #76

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…

It’s a factor that’s not any more significant than the Marshall Plan was in your Wirtschaftswunder in the 1970s, which, oddly enough, a lot of Germans have no issue attributing to a domestic merit alone. Funny how that works!

If it was the EU contributions that were the dominant force here, Germany could… simply do the same and prop up its own struggling economy with money printed by the ECB. Instead, it prefers to see it crumble under an obese welfare state that largely funds inactive third-world fake asylum seekers. So clearly, there’s way more nuance to economic success than simply having funds redirected from one account to another.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#382

Post by kevmo »

niemandhier wrote: post #76

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…

Government investment works. That's why America's billionaires are mostly just people stealing as much of it as they can.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#383

Post by Jensson »

shimman wrote: post #163
andsoitis wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not like capitalists are creating anything valuable, Some capitalists create enormous value, some destroy it, some are essentially passive recipients of returns generated by others. Capitalists provide real productive functions like capital allocation, risk-bearing, founding, governance, monitoring, etc.

No capitalists just provide money, something other entities can as well. Often better too. Capitalists are completely useless when they have no workers, so I don't understand your points outside of "wow capitalists require a lot of workers to exist." Hence the rush towards LLM systems, the dream of perpetual labor machine is too enticing. There is also no risks for capitalists, do we live on the same planet where the…

> There is also no risks for capitalists

So you argue no capitalists ever lost money? It happens all the time, the risk is real.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#384

Post by sgt »

smcl wrote: post #82
keiferski wrote: post #52

As an American that’s lived in Poland for the last decade: - it was kind of inevitable once Poland stopped being oppressed by its neighbors. The USSR, Nazi Germany, the German Empire / Prussia, Austria, Imperial Russia, etc. have basically been dividing the country since the 1780s. Without these restrictions, Poland is a natural leader in its region purely on population alone. - A general lack of ideological “mind vi…

> A general lack of ideological “mind viruses” Yeah when Poland banned abortion and declared a number of "LGBT free zones" a lot of Poles I know came here to Czech Republic

I don't think most poles dislike you if you're gay, it's just that the woke mind virus went too far and Poland is still normal.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#385

Post by swiftcoder »

FinnKuhn wrote: post #362
Quarrel wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WTF is up with Luxembourg on that graph? It is a tax haven, with one of the highest GDP / person in the world, why is it, by magnitudes, the biggest recipient of EU largesse / person??!

Lots of people who work in Luxembourg don't live there so anything "per capita" is a bit misleading. Additionally a lot of the EU's institutions are based there or have offices there, some of which might count as investments as well. Lastly, everything there is really expensive. So you need to invest a larger amount to achieve the same thing as elsewhere.

A bunch of foreign companies also incorporate their EU subsidiaries there (presumably due to some tax benefit). I imagine that distorts their GDP quite badly as well.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#386

Post by jvanderbot »

praptak wrote: post #197
ptdorf wrote: post #21

Educated AND motivated workforce will do the trick. All the polish I know that work in IT enjoy handwork as well. They are hard workers.

As a Polish IT worker I feel that we enjoy hardwork too much. I'm talking here about "kultura zapierdolu" [0] which is what we call the specific Polish version of culture of unhealthy work/life balance. [0] https://lubimyczytac.pl/ksiazka/5124728/czesc-pracy-o-kultur...

I always take minor issue with this.

I feel like one uberhard worker has an unhealthy return. But a group of uberhard workers have a healthy return - they compound each others hard work and build a prosperous _environment_.

My wife and I work very hard, as do our colleagues. But together we've built a pretty healthy routine, home, and (for now at least) financial situation. This has enabled us to have kids more easily than most, travel, etc.

The hardest workers /busiest folks I know are farmfolk relatives, and they also have a level of social connection and family connection that I envy all the time. It's mostly from them showing up to help with _everything_.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#387

Post by 4ashJu »

ElevenLathe wrote: post #301
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. The self-congratulatory narrative around "EU funds" is obnoxious and ignorant. As you say, Poland's economic growth was similar before it had joined the EU. (Many economists then thought Poland's accession in 2004 was premature and should have been postponed.) Causes were cultural (there is a strong, traditional entrepreneurial streak in Polish culture) and related to the economic reforms undertaken during th…

Can't agree more. Given its geography and population, one would expect Poland to be a major economy, but it's been occupied or even completely erased from existence for large stretches of industrial modernity. The period since 1989 is the longest stretch of true sovereignty that Poland has had since the 18th century. The fucking krauts (both the German/Prussian and the Austrian/Hapsburg varieties) can and should toss…

Not really, the old smaller European Community should be restored and Poland can become the 51st US state for buffer purposes.

Times were much better.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#388

Post by memish »

DarkNova6 wrote: post #157

Investment, infrastructure, education. Same as China. Same as every other growing country. What the US and most other western countries do are: Let infrastructure rot, defund education, reroute money to large corporations. This is how you end up with failed state.

Education hasn't been defunded. I don't know why so many people keep posting that misinformation when the opposite is true.

Inflation-adjusted funding per student rose from $14,969 to $20,322 over the past two decades.

K-12 funding rose $1,610 per student in real terms between 2020 and 2023 alone.

"Schools in the United States spend an average of $20,387 per pupil, which is the 3rd highest amount per pupil (after adjusting to local currency values) among the 40 other developed nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)."

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#389

Post by 4ashJu »

mamonster wrote: post #254
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. The self-congratulatory narrative around "EU funds" is obnoxious and ignorant. As you say, Poland's economic growth was similar before it had joined the EU. (Many economists then thought Poland's accession in 2004 was premature and should have been postponed.) Causes were cultural (there is a strong, traditional entrepreneurial streak in Polish culture) and related to the economic reforms undertaken during th…

>Also worth noting: Poland didn't receive a dime of reparations after the War. Poland received virtually all of the lands that were considered Prussia though.

Indeed it received Pomerania and the industrial center Silesia. Russia got East Prussia.

Probably worth more than the EUR 1 trillion fantasy figure that Polish right wingers demand.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#390

Post by Quarrel »

FinnKuhn wrote: post #362
Quarrel wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WTF is up with Luxembourg on that graph? It is a tax haven, with one of the highest GDP / person in the world, why is it, by magnitudes, the biggest recipient of EU largesse / person??!

Lots of people who work in Luxembourg don't live there so anything "per capita" is a bit misleading. Additionally a lot of the EU's institutions are based there or have offices there, some of which might count as investments as well. Lastly, everything there is really expensive. So you need to invest a larger amount to achieve the same thing as elsewhere.

These are reasons why it might not be the largest provider of funds per capita, not why it would be by orders of magnitude the biggest recipient.

I have been to Luxembourg and to Hungary, Bulgaria & Greece - the otherwise obvious contenders for "poorest" in the EU and Luxembourg should not be in the picture.

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