News / POLAND'S CREDIT CRAZE [34]


No, this is not going the same way as the US. The problem in the US is two fold: a decade long policy of cheap credit, under Greenspan, and a Gov (and FED) policy of forcing banks to lend money to sub prime borrowers in a suicidal drive to promote home ownership.

If and when you see polish interest rates come down to, say, 2%, in a bid to "stimulate" the economy, u can bet ur house that serious trouble is lying ahead.


That is because real life inflation is way higher than the official interest rates which means u r better off borrowing, buying now and repaying later.

Everybody feels and understands this even if they don't have a clue about economics.

That's the reason for the current borrowing binge.

Inflation is evil for it gratifies instantaneous spending and discourages people from saving.


You got it the other way around. Saving IS what makes an economy stronger because that means there are more savings that banks can lend to entrepreneurs which means more capital which means productivity gains, wage gains and overall wealth gains.

When there are no real savings to lend, banks create money out of thin air which ultimately leads to inflation and bankruptcies.

Germany's wirtschaftswunder is due to their high rate of savings. The UK and US's current misery is due to their borrowing and spending, and lack of savings.

PJ

News / Polish economy, the US Dollar, the PLN and the Polish real estate bubble. [25]

A month is a long time in currency trading :)

Euro, Pound Tumble on Bets European Central Banks to Cut Rates

PJ

News / Polish economy, the US Dollar, the PLN and the Polish real estate bubble. [25]

According to today's news, EUR and GBP are further going down, on recession fears and imminent rate cuts.

PJ

Travel / My 3 weeks in Poland.... I didn't want to leave. [33]

These are personal preferences, not much worth debating in my view. If they appeal to you more than say German or British birds, be it. I do not have any general view on this, for or against. Ive seen good and bad everywhere.

Travel / My 3 weeks in Poland.... I didn't want to leave. [33]


Well, despite all the frustrated western souls you encounter on this forum who believe eastern women are the best thing after sliced bread, most western men are happy with their local women and wouldn't consider any eastern alternative. This is a fact, eastern western relationship are extremely tiny in number and hence no one is "reaping" communist benefit as u claim. The truth, which u pretend to ignore, is that western men, on average, are richer than eastern men and women are always attracted to more successful men no matter what. So if anything, some western men are reaping the benefits of poverty brought about by communism.

Second, banning market values, and private property, is actually what brought communism down on its knees and ultimately its demise. In the absence of market prices that signal consumer demand (or lack thereof), central planners are blind as to how best allocate scarce resources to serve the population. Typically you end up with nuclear ballistic missiles and highly educated population by no meat in the shops and having to wait a lifetime to get a rickety car. Also, the absence of people's right to own private property basically turns them into nihilist cynics. Thats what communist era men were like. Last but not least, a police state basically turns everybody into a spy on everybody else. In my view, nothing to reap out of this grim picture, be it women or anything else.

Third, the problems in the typical western family as a whole are not due to the free market. Au contraire, the free market has actually contributed to the increase in wealth and well being in the west. Western social problems are inflicted by the state ripping families and communities apart due to coercive and intrusive legislation, and outright theft. This is a massive subject and a forum like this one is no place to debate it. A few of the culprits are the following: rampant inflation that eroded purchase power and decimated savings, and hence preventing most men from being able to raise a family on their own these days; social security pitting the old against the young and preventing people from investing in raising children as a means of providing for older age; various family and employment coercive laws that literally ripped families apart.

PJ

Travel / My 3 weeks in Poland.... I didn't want to leave. [33]


Well my friend, if you believe that people shouldn't import western goods and should instead be happy using their scarcely available local crap products in the name of "national interest" and if you believe that the MTV is subversive and should be taken off the air, I don't think there is much to discuss. You are entitled to your views.

Suffices to say that I very much doubt that u r driving a polish made care nor are you currently using a polish (or a Warsaw pact country for that matter) made operating system on your computer.

PJ

Travel / My 3 weeks in Poland.... I didn't want to leave. [33]

There is NOTHING good about communism and socialism, including being brought up in such a despicable environment.

You shouldn't confuse a social trait that derives from the need to live in a close community and care about that community due to abject poverty and utter scarcity of goods and services, with any alleged benefits of communism.

PJ

Travel / My 3 weeks in Poland.... I didn't want to leave. [33]


Are you trying to make a statement? ;)

PJ

Travel / My 3 weeks in Poland.... I didn't want to leave. [33]


Fair enough.

The novelty will wear off but enjoy it while it lasts.

PJ

Travel / My 3 weeks in Poland.... I didn't want to leave. [33]


Precisely, there are few worse places than eastern Europe in December/January. The days are short, the weather is crap, the people are even gloomier than their usual self, you cant walk anywhere without getting yourself into a real mess from the mixture of mud and melting snow, the roads are dangerous, the whole population turns into a bunch of sad, rude and heavily clothed zombies rushing to warmth. I can go on for ever.

But hey, if that is ur thing, so be it.

PJ

Travel / My 3 weeks in Poland.... I didn't want to leave. [33]


Easy.

PJ

Travel / My 3 weeks in Poland.... I didn't want to leave. [33]


I don't want to sound sarcastic but if you fell head over heels for Poland, it doesn't look like you traveled much in your life for a 35 year old Brit.

PJ

History / It's a shame that we poles arent making this kind of movies anymore. [8]

I haven't seen any of the post-80s polish movies, including Katyn, but Andrzej Wajda's early works are awesome.

The fact that his own father, a Polish cavalry officer, was murdered by the Soviets during the Katyn massacre adds a personal touch to the movie, nevertheless the guys is a true giant.

PJ

History / Why we talk about Nazis not Germans [138]


Well I doubt that u had much choice in the matter as, up to recently, anything decent in Poland had to come from Germany and any decent company had to have German partners.

What's ur point anyhow? I personally live in Germany, have been living here for years and have no problem whatsoever with the locals.

Now if u fancy banging on about WWII, please do, am sure u will find many listening ears and eager debaters on this forum.

I was merely pointing out that the Poles and the Russians tend to talk about WWII as if the events were still vivid in their memories whereas most people in the west have moved on, in the sense that WWII events are a distant memory.

PJ

News / Adult movie producers looking for 'actresses' in Poland or just a weirdo? [120]

Your answer is irrelevant to the question I asked and I am older than what you seem to imply.

and I may add that your mr-nice-guy puritanism smacks of utter hypocrisy.

PJ

News / Why the American economy is not going to fail - take a lesson from Poland [48]


Wealth can be sucked into a black hole particularly when it is heavily taxed, socialised or nationalised. Just look at how the soviet union collapsed and its industrial base was left to rot and decay. That's wealth destruction. A lot of wonderful estates in France r being sold off cause the owners can no longer afford to pay the, literally, wealth tax. That's also wealth destruction.

On the free market, individuals and private enterprises generate wealth and the state merely destroys it.

This is crucial. If u don't get this u might as well go back read ur Economics 101.


Bar a bloody revolution, the super rich are too smart to go down. If they r not smart enough, they hire the smartest people around to make sure they don't go down.


You seem to be a "picky" believer in the Free Market. You shouldn't. Free Market is basically guaranteed property rights and the freedom to engage in exchange of goods and services. No more and no less. It doesn't crash the poor, it doesn't favour the rich, nor does it decimate the middle class. All these woes are the direct result of government meddling, coercion and theft.

PJ

News / Adult movie producers looking for 'actresses' in Poland or just a weirdo? [120]


Are you an orthodox priest in disguise?


Amen.

I suppose you really are then.

PJ

History / Why we talk about Nazis not Germans [138]


Brainy women are a total turn off. I told her that in another thread.

As Shakespeare once said, there must be some mystery in love -- and there can be no mystery between intellectual equals.

PJ

History / Why we talk about Nazis not Germans [138]

I guess Lukasz fancies himself as a hotshot prime minister, standing in front of the clamoring Polish masses, in an inevitable rendez-vous with History that befits his destiny, and eloquently roars: "We... "

PJ

History / Why we talk about Nazis not Germans [138]

Who is "We" ?

History / Why we talk about Nazis not Germans [138]


Well then, how about using the "Krauts" instead ?

History / Why we talk about Nazis not Germans [138]


If anything that everyone should learn from WWII, communism and other other atrocities, is to fear your own government more than anything and to never depend on them for anything. Governments are incompetent, corrupt, expansive and coercive, and only the sick and mental accesses the ultimate power.

And frankly, no point in big solemn speeches, people have already understood that. Over a million Pole chose not to wait for their government to sort out their country and voted with their feet. Most of them will never come back to settle. And this in time of peace.

Also the only way of making sure "this will never happen again" is to make sure to have the means to f off right in time before it happens.

PJ

News / Why the American economy is not going to fail - take a lesson from Poland [48]


Darius, the free market economy hasn't failed for it has never left academia's book shelves to start with. What has failed is government meddling, regulations and control.

It is the Fed that went on a reckless cheap money policy during the 90s that kick started the enormous amounts of malinvestments, the dot com bubble, the housing bubble and so forth. I remember Greenspan boasting that he had finally laid the the ghost of inflation to rest. How he must be eating humble pie at the mo.

It is the government that forced the banks to relax their lending criteria, also during the 90s, and hand out mortgages to people who couldn't afford them to promote home ownership in one of those "nobody left behind" absurd populist drives.

As for today, government is there yet again meddling, regulating and "trying" to sort the crisis that it has created in the first place. What they should do is precisely nothing. Companies should be allowed to go bust, interest rates should be raised to their appropriate market level to encourage savings and discourage reckless lending, and more importantly, prices MUST be allowed to go down. Trouble is such policy would create a recession and most politicians are haunted by America's great depression.

Throwing money at the problem, wont solve it, it will merely compound it and delay it.

PJ

History / Why we talk about Nazis not Germans [138]


Allow me to disagree. Most people have moved on. Its only the Poles and the Russians that keep on banging on WWII forever, and ever, and ever..

It's like as if the war ended in 1945, and then u lot went into collective coma until 1990, u then woke up with WWII timeline still so vivid in your heads.

I say move on, get a life.

I suppose people in the west have had about 45 years more than u did to indulge themselves, enjoy liberty and the fruits of private property and free enterprise, which by now have made WWII a distant memory.

PJ

UK, Ireland / What is in Poland that England doesn't have? [142]

Play the ball, not the man.

PJ

UK, Ireland / What is in Poland that England doesn't have? [142]


A sense of resigned acceptance and the sense that something dreadful bordering on the absurd is just about to occur whenever I stand in front of any clerk or get in touch with any customer service in Poland (or anywhere east of Berlin for that matter).

PJ

UK, Ireland / What is in Poland that England doesn't have? [142]


Shelly, you disappoint me.

Surely u forgot to type "French" right before Spanish? :)

PJ

UK, Ireland / What is in Poland that England doesn't have? [142]


yawn.

Gets tiresome after a while listening to all the unconditional Poland enthusiasts.

Now if you lot didn't have a life in your own countries and then somehow found your own happiness in Poland, fair enough, but it doesn't mean the place is everybody's Eldorado. Far from it, it still is an ex communist country that doesn't come up to scratch when compared to western Europe.

There are good people, timeless traditions and beautiful places all over the world, including Afghanistan mind you, and Poland is no exception.

PJ

UK, Ireland / What is in Poland that England doesn't have? [142]


coming from Pole, that's beyond laughable.

About 500,000 (give or take a few 100k) seem to have left "wonderful" Poland and emigrated to the UK. Surely you must be aware of the reasons why they like England more.

Nothing wrong with being proud of one's country but writing pseudo romanticised prose about the alleged "thrills" of a post communist country is pretty futile.

PJ

Law / Maybe poland shouldnt look to follow ireland's economy... [6]


What's wrong with the Irish model?

Are you saying Poland should slap a 50% tax on corporate profits, 60% tax on personal income and increase red tape?