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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

#871

Post by cromka »

Fokamul wrote: post #174

How 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 c…

> Biggest recipient of EU subsidies us

Yet again this nonsene. Per Capita, which is where this matters, Poland is nowhere near the top of that list.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#872

Post by cromka »

jansan wrote: post #64

Living only a good hour away from the Polish border I must say that this is really great for our region, too. When the income difference was higher, there was a lot of property crime (mostly cars, but also other things) originating from Poland. I went to a Polish village just at border once and you could feel the crime there. Young guys driving too expensive cars despite houses being run down, suspicious looks if you…

Yeah, as a Pole, it's crazy how much safer it's gotten and how quickly. There's almost no petty crime in Poland nowadays. And I totally see where the stereotypes were coming from, we definitely exported some of the worst element to the Western EU for many years. Happy this is no longer the case.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#873

Post by cromka »

nabbed wrote: post #742

I wish I could go back in time and tell my 10 year old self to knock it off with the polish jokes (which were all the rage at that time, although I can remember only one now).

These jokes were for a reason. The Polish imigranta weren't exactly the cream of the crop. Even we, the Poles from Poland, would laugh at those Pollack from Greenpoint/Jackowo jokes.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#874

Post by cromka »

pjc50 wrote: post #365
mazurnification wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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

Lack of oligarchy is starting to look like an absolutely critical ingredient, and it's lucky that Poland escaped from the PiS trying to turn it into an oligarchy.

I think they meant post 1990 situation.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#875

Post by cromka »

pbowyer wrote: post #235
mdre wrote: post #9

And yet it's still not all roses in the actual everyday life given that we have higher prices than Germany (food, phones, computers) while earning 3x less. But it surely beats how we had it the 90s.

What's led to the higher prices than Germany? Usually substantially lower earnings would mean lower prices, even if not substantially lower (look at the UK, higher prices than much (all?) of Europe, average earnings slightly less).

Smaller market, I think. While Polish manufacturers have no incentive to keep price low for the local market as they can just sell to the West at EU common market price.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#876

Post by cromka »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #842

I am French but travelled extensively to Poalnd and lived there for some time. This is a truly wonderful country. The one thing that is a insurmontable barrier to go and live there (I considered that) is the healthcare sstem. It is completely broken. You have free healthcare where people behave like beggars in front of the demi-god MD. They do not pay him for hs work, officially, but there is money slipped under he t…

> but there is money slipped under he table to make things work.

Corruption like this is almost non-existent anymore. Was very much the case 10 years ago and earlier. Docs make serious money now, they don't need to risk it with bribery.

> Finally the medicines/drugs are not refunded. You have to pay for them. This is wild for someone coming from France.

Sorry, WHAT? This was never the case, where are you getting this from?

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#877

Post by mejutoco »

rayiner wrote: post #860
mejutoco wrote: post #839

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That all sounds reasonable. My concern was with your quote > GDP/capita aligns very closely with material standard of living for the median person GDP per capita is an average. This means it does not align with the _median_ person, but with the average. I believe this is factual and undeniable. No doubt it is interesting too to try to find other metrics for different usages as well. > For purposes of comparing countr…

> GDP per capita is an average. This means it does not align with the _median_ person, but with the average. I believe this is factual and undeniable. That’s why I used the word “align” instead of the word “is.” If the ratio of mean to median is 1.3, if the mean doubles, the median also will double—the movement of the two values will be “aligned” even if one is offset from the other. That means when you’re talking ab…

From Cambridge dictionary:

> align: to be the same or similar, or to agree with each other; to make two things do this

But I get it, you are using it as correlation.

Still, if gdp per capita average is 130 and median is 100 (ratio is 1.3) there is a 30% difference. This is exactly why, even if they correlate they are not very similar aka they "do not agree with each other" as per the definition above. With your definition they "align".good enough for me. It aligns even better (more closely) to the median.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#878

Post by nephihaha »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #831
aldrich wrote: post #799

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not once has a European ever given the US credit for the Marshall Plan. How can you honestly say that though. A blatant overgeneralization of a large group of people, but this has been a recurring theme on HN lately. So I would agree that people spouting anti-US sentiment have been conveniently downplaying, leaving out, or haven't been educating themselves on, this important part of US-European history, but what's…

>How can you honestly say that though. A blatant overgeneralization of a large group of people, but this has been a recurring theme on HN lately. Perhaps there is a miscommunication. What I meant to say is, I have not seen it mentioned a single time over many hours of arguing on HN about the US/Europe relationship. It's not an 'overgeneralization', simply an observation. >In the meantime, streets have been named afte…

The relationship is complex. Remember the Marshall Plan was needed partly because massive amounts of European infrastructure and industry which had occurred in some cases long before the USA even joined the war. The USA had the benefit of being resource rich, but also geographically isolated which meant that the continental USA never suffered from severe bombing raids or threats of invasion. (Many European towns and cities ended up being levelled.) It fought the war on entirely different terms to Europeans. Even today this geographic factor plays out. Europe deals with the refugee crises caused by Middle Eastern wars far more than the USA does, and Russia could invade EU countries by land far more easily than the USA.

Europe has benefitted from the USA in some ways, but the USA doesn't always have to bear the consequences.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#880

Post by LaGrange »

MyHonestOpinon wrote: post #84
LaGrange wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were. And “hard workers” is code for “easily exploited.” Anyway the trick to explosive growth as a country is who you trade with and how you count things. We now sell things to Germany instead of USSR, of course there’s “growth.” There’s also some very real growth, quite a bit of it - but I wouldn’t put one bit of care in a “top 20 biggest economies” ranking. NL is one of the biggest food exporters in the world be…

Do you think the example of Poland is helping Ukraine resist and move towards the west?

I don't think we're Ukraine's "teachers," and our treatment of Ukraine was historically just as rough at times.
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