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Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

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531–540 of 944 posts

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#531
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rest of the EU also benefits from their hard work I don't know. I want to agree with you, but a large part of the economic growth in Poland is off-shoring and cheap tax (~12% on contract) for tech workers. The average tech wage there now is pretty similar to the UK, and I don't really see many startups there - probably in part because of how bureaucratic their business system can be. I don't know if this influx…

You dont have money, you complain. You (as in your country) get the money, yet you still complain.

Sure, its not ideally distributed, but nowhete is. Such economic success will drag many parts of the country up. Yes, jobs not paid the best will have to commute from further. But compared to where Poland was 2 decades ago (been there many times), its great growth and success.

Plus you guys have correct mentality to by far the biggest threat to Europe - russia. Not so common in eastern Europe, russian-paid politicians are quite successful in some places. But of course Poland has a history with russia to remember so thats luckily not an option.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#532
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.

Were they not educated and motivated before?

Most educated and motivated Polish people were slaughtered by Germans and Russians in WW II then ones still alive working for or heavily oppressed by puppet soviet state.

One of the examples:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This is something I tell people I am generally politically/socially align with (liberals/progressives) when they start talking about “handouts for red states.” California and other areas were not developed on their own,…

> California and other areas were not developed on their own, they required years of sustained federal investment and interest in the area. In a similar way, Western Europe benefited from a lot of investment after WW2, while Eastern Europe didn't receive the same investment then. So the recent investment OP mentioned is just balancing the scales.

World War II significantly contributed to the development of the West Coast of the United States mid century. San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle harbors became crucial to the war effort in the pacific, leading to industrial expansion and the establishment of the UC system and the junior colleges in California, which eventually led to Silicon Valley, also the large water projects built 50-60 years earlier and the the transcontinental railroads built 50 years prior also didn’t hurt the expansion and growth of the West Coast of the United States either.

Building useful infrastructure, in the can do America of the past worked, the parasitic AI data centers currently, however, appear to be a financial dead end.

That era of America appears to be gone at the Federal level, infrastructure, schools, science, medicine, college, vaccines, voting etc. etc. don’t appear to be on the current menu.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#534

They have had good public education for the past decade or two and rank high in international student rankings. So, I would bet that high 'human capital' would be the cause here.

> They have had good public education for the past decade or two and rank high in international student rankings.

I suspect good public education is a symptom, not the cause.

The cause likely is valuing a good education. Culture always wins. You can give people who don't value it a good education and they'll barely benefit.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#535

I read Mila 18 by Leon Uris ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mila_18 ) decades ago and been a big admirer of Polish people since then.

The Warsaw Uprising Museum is an excellent place to visit if you're into WWII history.

Also the WWII museum in Gdansk.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. It is for as long, as the EU exists in its current form. The rise of anti-EU parties in both Poland and Germany makes it a risky investment.

There is pretty common trend of people complaining about X being bad coz EU but most of the time it turns into one of * It was pretty sensible EU directive implemented badly by national govt * It was pretty sensible EU directive implemented okay but communicated badly * Outright lie about the problem and the scope of it. One example: The people complained that "EU will force them to pay to scrap solar panels" The tru…

> Outright lie about the problem and the scope of it.

One of my favorites was “EU is banning juice”, when the definition of juice was being standardized and local producers of fruit-flavored sugar water couldn’t keep selling their beverages as “juice” anymore.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#537

The story is longer: Poland was the first country to make a remarkable peaceful transition from a bankrupt, failed Soviet satellite state. The shock therapy, plus NATO and EU aspirations, paved the way. It is a story of a country that made a lot of the right decisions along the way. Managed to keep consistent high growth, not a pony trick or boom/bust mode. Poland should be a role model for many other countries. Reco…

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Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#539
post #54
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you lose 20% of your population and then spend 50 years under communist rule because your allies sold you out, there’s really only one direction left to go—up. A lot of people either forget, or never learned, that Poland was once one of the largest and most influential states in Europe.Yes it was long time ago, but the potential was always there. The real challenge was surviving the consequences of being caught…

Sure, but the explanation is still Poland’s potential and its capacity to fulfil it. You could be free all you want and still plateau on some immediate post-war rebound gains.

Which in some ways is what happened here in Slovenia. We used to be doing much better than other communist countries (as a part of Yugoslavia), exited relatively peacefully, entered the EU, and everything seemed to be going great until the 2008 financial crisis.

Then it seems our politicians stopped being pragmatic and started bringing up ideological issues more often, which divided the population, while IMO not doing nearly enough to promote further development of the economy.

So now we have a population split on ideological issues, while Poland and Croatia are overtaking us economy-wise. We have had every advantage (geographically at the crossroads of multiple trade routes, sea access, EU funds, hard-working population, didn't turn into a Russia-style oligarchy...) but mostly slept on it.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#540

The story is longer: Poland was the first country to make a remarkable peaceful transition from a bankrupt, failed Soviet satellite state. The shock therapy, plus NATO and EU aspirations, paved the way. It is a story of a country that made a lot of the right decisions along the way. Managed to keep consistent high growth, not a pony trick or boom/bust mode. Poland should be a role model for many other countries. Reco…

>> Poland was the first country to make a remarkable peaceful transition from a bankrupt, failed Soviet satellite state. In what sense? Czechia is richer per capita. Almost all of the former Soviet satellite states in eastern Europe have had largely peaceful (since 1991) sustained economic growth. The exceptions are exactly those countries which continue to have Russian troops occupying portions, namely Belarus, Ukra…

The OP shows the per capita GDP growth of the former Soviet bloc states since 1990. Poland is #1 at 252%, Romania #2 at 148%; Czechia is last at 72%.
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