Poland is now among the 20 largest economies • Hacker News Board

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#691

Post by generic92034 » Fri, May 08, 2026, 7:05 PM UTC

maxglute wrote: post #663

jmalicki wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samsung, Hyundai, or Huawei never happen without starting as FDI or cheap outsourcing.

FDI itself is not enough. Modern national champions happen because state protectionism, typically under autocratic industrial policy (Asian Tigers), in combination with FDI. Hyundai was suppose to be Honda, you can throw TSMC in there. There's no sign Poland is going to get national class to world class champions, because democracies more easily captured and EU forbids tier of subsidies and protectionism that enable…

EU trap? How far do you think Poland would have come economically without access to the EU common market and without EU subsidies?

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#692

Post by dismalaf » Fri, May 08, 2026, 7:06 PM UTC

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #682

dismalaf wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aware of the current economic state. The point is that capital holders decided doing risky things isn't worth it, so they invested in unproductive low-risk assets, then the government juiced the immigration rate, said assets rose, capital holders are making off like bandits leaving Canadians behind in a stagnant economy holding the proverbial bag...

It's those god damned boomers, man (more so terrible policy-making, which we're still very good at doing poorly today)

Who elects the policy makers?

Fact is, only ~25% of Canadians are net tax payers. The rest work for a government, are unemployed, disabled, retired, or receive more funding from the government than they put in. So yeah, it's the boomers, the government workers, unemployed, disabled, etc...

The status quo is what Canadians want. It's why anyone with ambition (ie. wants to work and/or be an entrepreneur) leaves.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#693

Post by rayiner » Fri, May 08, 2026, 7:11 PM UTC

mejutoco wrote: post #661

rayiner wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GDP/capita is often a relatively useless metric in modern times. "Often" is the wrong modifier. GDP/capita aligns very closely with material standard of living for the median person. If you look at the GDP/capita growth in India and China since 1990, or South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, since 1950, that reflects very real increases in material standards for ordinary people. There's two, relatively well-understood…

> GDP/capita aligns very closely with material standard of living for the median person GDP is an average, not a median, so it might align with the average person, not the median. The average/mean can hide many things (see Anscombe s quartet) which is one of the problems with GDP IMO.

It depends what you’re using the data for. If you’re comparing across countries, or looking at a developing country over time, it’s a relatively small factor. The ratio between the average and the median isn’t that big even in the U.S. (about 1.3). Meanwhile, Poland’s GDP per capita has tripled since 2005: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location....

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#694

Post by scotty79 » Fri, May 08, 2026, 7:14 PM UTC

kleiba2 wrote: post #585

avgDev wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of dev salaries are you seeing in Poland? I have family in Poland, they are from smaller villages and they ALWAYS complain about EU and the economy. I wonder if things are similar in large cities.

> and they ALWAYS complain about EU and the economy That's funny because Poland became dramatically richer after joining the EU, it allowed them access to one of the richest markets on Earth. I understand that if you're from a smaller village you might also have missed the enormous infrastructure investments (highways, airports, sewage systems, etc.) that have only been possible because of EU money. Then there's all…

> I understand that if you're from a smaller village you might also have missed the enormous infrastructure investments (highways, airports, sewage systems, etc.) that have only been possible because of EU money.

That's the key. There wasn't enough done to ensure that everyone can enjoy the benefits. That why at some point populists won the vote and ruled the country for 8 years. They are still kicking. Recently elected president of Poland is from the populist camp. They still have support even though they didn't really hide their kleptocratic tendencies. Fortunately somehow they didn't manage to do significant macroeconomic harm. But they stalled development of renewables for a decade.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#695

Post by delis-thumbs-7e » Fri, May 08, 2026, 7:16 PM UTC

gib444 wrote: post #378

delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As A Finn I’d like to see Canada figure out that “oh shit we could be a world superpower with all the smarts and natural resources we have” and start trading culture and goods with Nordic countries. We would rule!

Far north hemisphere, unite? A Canadian-British-Nordic partnership.

Britain, well… I’ll take Scotland, they’re sensible. But rest of you, we can’t just look what you are doing to yourself. Please Britain, get some help.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#696

Post by mikem170 » Fri, May 08, 2026, 7:16 PM UTC

jandrewrogers wrote: post #476

Forgeties79 wrote: post #201

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,…

The argument that red states receive handouts is essentially a myth. Almost the entirety of the "handout" is social security/medicare based on where retirees live (notably the sunbelt), where military bases are located (rural areas of less populous states), and where most Federal land management offices and employees are located (the mountain west). Ironically, it counts Federal employment as "welfare" with more step…

This [0] mentions that social security, medicare, public assistance and military and other federal wages were a wash, as of 2018-2022 data:

> Digging deeper into the component parts of federal contribution, red and blue states received similar dollar amounts in direct payments on a nominal ($6.9 trillion) and per capita ($42,900) basis, much of which come in the form of payments from Social Security, Medicare, and public assistance programs, such as the earned income and child tax credits. The red and blue states also receive similar amounts for military and non-military wages (excluding the U.S. Post Office, which is self-funded) on a nominal ($650 billion) and per capita ($4,900) basis.

Tax receipts were listed as the most significant difference, and after that other things like military bases, block grants, federal contracts and highways, some going one way, and some the other.

The numbers were interesting. They added it up to $1 trillion going from blue to red states.

[0] https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118494/documents/...

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#697

Post by scotty79 » Fri, May 08, 2026, 7:16 PM UTC

kleiba2 wrote: post #588

baq wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is Poland for you. everyone complains about everything. perhaps that's the secret to success - there's always something to complain about and one in a hundred (or thousand) people actually does something about it.

> this is Poland for you. everyone complains about everything Must be the proximity to Germany...

It's quite incredible how close Poland and Germany are culturally. And how unaware both countries are about this.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#698

Post by tasuki » Fri, May 08, 2026, 7:18 PM UTC

badpun wrote: post #659

avgDev wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of dev salaries are you seeing in Poland? I have family in Poland, they are from smaller villages and they ALWAYS complain about EU and the economy. I wonder if things are similar in large cities.

Typical salary for a senior dev is around 20-30k PLN per month, which translates to $65k-$100k per year (gross). Also, a lot of devs do a little bit of tax avoidance that is currently not persecuted, which allows them to pay total taxes below 20% on that amount. So, your take-home pay is $50k-$80k.

> Typical salary for a senior dev is around 20-30k PLN per month

Typical, yes, though it's possible to earn way more than that. Not that 20-30k PLN per month is bad, the average Polish salary is perhaps around 9k and the median around 7k.

20-30k PLN goes a long way in Poland. Some seven years ago, I was spending around 7k PLN a month, living in the beautiful Warsaw old town, 50 metres from Kolumna Zygmunta, eating out all the time, and generally felt I was living like a king. Good times!

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#699

Post by wiseowise » Fri, May 08, 2026, 7:18 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #556

anikan_vader wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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…

Ukraine didn't have Russian troops occupying anything but the leased Crimean bases before the war started (and I do count the start of the war as being immediately after Euromaidan)... Yet in 2013, it was the second poorest country in Europe. (Ahead of Moldova, which has been occupied for decades, but significantly behind Belarus and Bulgaria)

> Ukraine didn't have Russian troops occupying anything but the leased Crimean bases before the war started

Do you seriously believe Russians would leave Crimea if Ukrainians didn’t renew the lease?

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#700

Post by scotty79 » Fri, May 08, 2026, 7:21 PM UTC

Leonard_of_Q wrote: post #665

alterom wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have family in Poland, they are from smaller villages and they ALWAYS complain about EU and the economy Ah, the Polish MAGA. Probably Russian-influenced as well.

[flagged]

No, he's right.

It's not republican vs democrat. It's about people who weren't lucky enough (and word lucky does a lot of work here) to feel the benefits of the progressive policies. People who are easily captured by populist grifters, using simplest scaremongering tactics that russian propaganda happily manufactures and disseminates in the West.

In US it stopped being republicans vs democrats many years ago. They just didn't throw away the old labels.