Life / Do Poland take care about their Culture ? [39]


Not me - these guys are Poles. Anyone with Germanic blood is worthy of a beating in their eyes due to the oppression in the past.


If you were really Polish, you'd hate Ukrainians too.


Wow, so they betrayed their own people too? Are you really sure you want to be proud of being from such a family?

For what it's worth, Arabs in Poland tend to beat up racists.

Life / Do Poland take care about their Culture ? [39]


So, you know nothing about Arabs whatsoever. What a surprise, sunshine.


That's okay, you can come to Poland and work for some nice Arabs because no Pole will employ you.


Exactly as I said - internet redneck toughguy.

Tell you what though - if you want to claim your Polishness, I know some guys who don't like foreigners, especially ones with Germanic blood.

Life / Do Poland take care about their Culture ? [39]


Usually, such morons turn to racism when no-one likes them because they're the geeky little scrawny kid. Doesn't surprise me that he's running his mouth online - after all, he'd never dare to say anything about arabs to their faces.

Look at a lot of the racist BNP types - tough in a group, but cowardly when alone.


Don't speak Polish, can't be Polish. It's pretty simple really.


Gaelic was never spoken throughout the country - take Aberdeen for instance, the Pictish language was replaced by Scots, never by Gaelic.


Such rednecks aren't welcome here.

Life / Do Poland take care about their Culture ? [39]


So - you don't speak Polish fluently, you are of mongrel origin - really, you're about as Polish as me.

Must be tough when the other kids bully you, huh?

Life / Do Poland take care about their Culture ? [39]

Can't speak Polish, can't be Polish.

Life / Do Poland take care about their Culture ? [39]


So, can you speak Polish?

Law / How to register a new business in Poland [129]

Every post office can do this for you.

Apart from that, you can try: mbe.com.pl

Law / Question about the drinking laws of Poland. [45]


You can certainly drink.

But if you're caught drunk and underage, expect your parents/guardians to be fined.

Law / Thinking of opening up a Greek restaurant in Poland, bad idea or good? Jenkei [45]


It's worth pointing out that the food must be Polonised - Poles are dreadful for whining about food that doesn't have enough salt in for them.

Real Estate / Do any UK banks offer mortgages for Polish properties. [37]

The Pound is incredibly weak right now and yet the exchange rate is sitting at 4.55 or so. Even when the Zloty was at its all time strongest, with a pretty weak Pound - it was still no lower than 4.1 - and that didn't last long at all.

It would take a total collapse of the Pound for the Zloty to go below 4 - and even then, any collapse of the Pound would have a knock-on effect on the Euro and thus the Zloty anyway.

Real Estate / Do any UK banks offer mortgages for Polish properties. [37]


Not worth it at the minute - the government is proposing banning loans denominated in foreign currencies due to the amount of people burnt with CHF mortgages.

But for what it's worth, it's highly unlikely that the exchange rate will ever go below 4zl/1 pound.

News / Electronics v stadium hooligans to be implemented by Polish authorities [16]


Can't talk for elsewhere, but Lech are very proactive with stamping out hooliganism - every single person in the stadium needs to have a PESEL associated with their seat, and ID documents are checked against the PESEL on the ticket at the time of entry.

The system pretty much ensures that anyone causing trouble is identified and banned without much delay. I'm of the opinion that every single game in the top two leagues in Poland should have the same system.

Life / Do Poland take care about their Culture ? [39]



No, you're actually a Slavic-Germanic mongrel.

Only those with 100% Polish blood can call themselves Polish.

Life / How popular is Radio Maryja in Poland? [163]

The whole site - radiomaryja.pl.eu.org - is very interesting. Probably the most interesting statistic is the way that advertising is growing and growing on the station.

Life / $3,000-$4,000 a month - would we have enough money to live in Poland? [273]


Doesn't it depend on expectations?

I've read recently about someone in Geneva who was earning 800CHF A DAY, and yet still couldn't make it work financially.

Life / How popular is Radio Maryja in Poland? [163]


No?

radiomaryja.pl.eu.org/incidents.html

What is this, then?

News / Pubs in Poznan kick out Roma? [256]


Which laws would that be?

Study / Psychology in English at University of Warsaw. [9]

UW - you need to find out if they're operating to Polish standards (ie, entry is based on the score of the applicants, highest grades get in) or if they're operating more to the British model of every applicant is considered individually.

If it's to Polish standards, then simply put, you need high grades - you'll be considered on the basis of the subjects that they would expect to see from Matura students. The department will publish what they expect to see. But with 50% of people not getting in, it suggests that the course is quite popular - and will have high expectations.

Best bet would be to contact the admissions department and ask them how their admissions actually work.

Study / Psychology in English at University of Warsaw. [9]


Don't count on it, unless the course is aimed (and priced) towards foreigners.


If the studies are paid for, then you won't have a problem. If you're applying on for free (ie, a normal programme aimed at Polish students), then it's impossible to say.

News / Poland goes bankrupt? [110]


Well - one thing you have to bear in mind is that Palikot's movement does have quite a lot of appeal in Poland from the liberals who voted for PO because there was no-one else - indeed, in terms of students, they've got quite a lot of support. Palikot is also enough of a showman to ensure that people keep talking about him. Looking at what he's been doing, there's certainly enough support there to take 5-7% of the vote. Likewise with the PJN lot - though I reckon *if* they do enough to get into the Sejm, then they'll come back into the PiS fold in exchange for Kaczynski's head (after another defeat).

I'd say it's far too early to speculate on just how the new factions will do in the elections.


And you're trying to tell me that these people purposefully hurt Poland? It's that kind of paranoid attitude that holds Poland back.


They certainly don't want to pay the extra 10% or so that Poland needs to pay for all these social welfare schemes.

News / Pubs in Poznan kick out Roma? [256]


Nah, he's throwing mud from his Callan school ;)

(for what it's worth, in Wroclaw, there's far more problems with homeless Poles than any Gypsies)

News / Poland goes bankrupt? [110]


It's very hard to say. Almost certainly, PO will win the election and PiS will lose. Apart from that, it's impossible to tell - it depends what the PJN and Palikot parties do. Either way, I don't think PO will have a clear mandate (45%+) to govern, though they should be able to form some sort of workable coalition. It's worth pointing out that at the minute, the government only has a majority of 10.

Either way, I don't think PO will lose power, but I don't think they'll have such a strong grip on it, either.


Yep, in the elections that I can. Spoiled my vote in the 2nd round of the Poznan Presidential election, too ;)

News / Poland goes bankrupt? [110]

There's an election coming soon, why don't they do something about it?

Sorry, but every single Solidarity-backed government has been a failure, except the first one - and even that fell apart very quickly.

Quite frankly, the people of Poland only have themselves to blame for wanting low taxes and high social care.

News / Poland goes bankrupt? [110]


One Window works fine here - although there's still the need to visit the Urzad Skarbowy on top of visiting the Urzad Miasta, it's a two second job. Certainly nothing to complain about - and it's not such a bad thing to have to visit the Urzad Skarbowy anyway, seeing as certain PKD codes require compulsory VAT registration - which the Urzad Miasta doesn't know about, because it's not their area of knowledge. The visit to the US is a checkbalance - no big deal.


And what else could they do, when the electoral math is stacked against them and with a very socialist population that will resist any attempt to cut their generous state subsidies?

I'm sorry, but I don't see much alternative in Poland - people wouldn't accept Estonian-style cuts. Remember, this is the country where railway workers go on hunger strike over a few redundancies!

News / Poland goes bankrupt? [110]


Which will put unemployment up. The UK example shows that the private sector simply isn't able to absorb those made redundant from public sector jobs.


Where will Poland get combat experience then?


What country would you choose to emulate with this approach?

The UK, France and Germany all have bureaucratic nightmares. Even Switzerland, the most successful country in the world is a bureaucratic nightmare.


Where's the money coming from to fund tax cuts? Bush's tactic of cutting taxes didn't work so well, did it?


Bingo. Most Poles cannot agree on what to do with the Government's shareholdings - but the example of Polkomtel should tell you that Governments cannot run big business.

News / Poland goes bankrupt? [110]


I don't think there any hard figures, unfortunately.

But you just need to look at some of the provisions to get an idea - police getting to retire after 15 years for instance. Given that the police tend to hire people with just high school education, that means you've got people of 33-34 walking around who are "retired".

It's very much my opinion that early retirement was used as a way to control unemployment in Poland.

News / Pubs in Poznan kick out Roma? [256]


I'm very much of the opinion that the only way to deal with them is to make it clear that they have to follow the law of the country. That means no more refusing to send children to school, no more dubious underage marriages, etc etc. And with it - they can be given help with integration and support to do so. But it needs to work both ways - no more begging on the street with small children, for example.

The problem is also so much in people's minds - for Cuba Libre for instance, it attracts a lot of young women who want to dance. I live here, I know the club, it's a safe place to go and doesn't attract idiots. But - if they allow the Roma in, then the young women that go there will stop going there out of fear for their safety. That means the wealthy men who also frequent the place (and I know a few!) will stop going, because there's now no ladies there for them. End result? Empty club.

News / Poland goes bankrupt? [110]


The problem is with the proportional representation system - every government in Poland since 1989 has had to worry about not only winning, but winning with enough of a majority. PO are in a terribly tough spot - the majority is against Tusk's ideology.


But what kind of reforms are we speaking about? The real problem in Poland - pensions being unfunded due to insane provisions still hasn't been tackled regardless of who was in power. Tusk did manage to take an axe to some, such as abolishing early retirement for teachers - but it's still not enough. The miners should certainly be top of the hitlist, but we all know that they'll come and smash up Warsaw if their generous retirement provisions are attacked.

Don't forget, PO have managed to push through some decent reforms on the very low level that didn't attract much publicity, such as abolishing the nonsense that was applying for a NIP. As far as I can see, there's generally been an improvement in the small things that aren't controversial.


And it goes back to the electoral math. Pawlak is a populist - if Tusk attempts to make a tough decision that will threaten the PSL, Pawalk will oppose it. We've seen this several times already - and the very base of the PSL, farmers - will simply not accept any attempt to abolish KRUS. PO just simply don't have the votes to get anything really Thatcherite through - look at how Palikot's movement and the PJN are stealing some support from them, along with the SLD.


The ballet dancers are the perfect example though - what sensible country would allow them early retirement when their profession is already subsidised to the hilt?


Pain free by who? Again, the electoral math comes into play - many people simply do not support the selling off of the "crown jewels". Even within PO, there are enough socialist elements that won't support the full-scale privatisation of state assets, let alone the centrist PSL.


All of these things generate profit for the government. Why sell off something that's profitable?


It would almost certainly have been vetoed by Lech if started earlier. Don't forget - many beneficiaries of early retirement provisions are PiS supporters.


Maybe. But again - many Poles have a rather misguided view that supporting America there somehow means that America will protect Poland from Russia.


This, I agree. The final nail in the coffin came with Komorowski promising 50% discounts for students - at a time when the subsidy should have been slashed. Either way, it was one fight that the Government should have picked - most people have no sympathy for railway workers. The railways really are lurching from one disaster to another - and I don't think any party has the answer. The only solution now is for some sort of broad party consensus - but I just cannot see the SLD and PiS agreeing to make most of them redundant.


It's getting there. But don't forget - Poles have some sort of fetish for this sort of thing. They whine and moan about bureaucracy, but then implement ridiculously bureaucratic systems within their own companies.


Forget about it. They're too much sentimental nonsense attached to them for any government to do anything about them - until Poles realise that Communism has gone forever, the miners will always succeed with their "but...what about when we protested and died for you?" nonsense.

I'm more convinced than ever that the real problem in Poland lies with the fact that the majority of people are secretly socialist, even if they swear blind that they aren't. When they finally accept it, then we can see high taxes to pay for it all. I'm not opposing it, but the current system of "we like socialist policies, but we don't wanna pay for it" just leads to UK style ruin.

For what it's worth, I can't see any electoral combination at the minute that would see real reforms being passed.


The majority clearly does, otherwise they wouldn't vote for socialist parties. Looking at the composition of the Sejm - about 60-65% are clearly socialists.


More like accepting that while you pay teachers peanuts, you'll get monkeys and little else. For every person entering teaching who has a vocation for it, how many useless, incompetent idiots are getting jobs in schools because they couldn't do anything else?


See also : Poland 1991-2005. It could actually be said that PiS were probably the only party in Polish history that didn't give a damn about winning the next election - and look what happened to them.

The proportional system in Poland produces populist governments. Minority administrations can work (it's worked very well in Scotland), but the history of Poland seems to mean that opposition members refuse to cooperate at all costs.


So why do they keep voting for parties which like large bureaucratic structures?

News / Pubs in Poznan kick out Roma? [256]


And this is the whole problem - their way of life is totally incompatible with that of their host countries.

I'm of the opinion that the one failure after WW2 was the complete failure to create a small Roma nation somewhere in Eastern Europe - something about the size of Kosovo would have done the trick nicely. Certainly, they could have used part of Hungary/Ukraine/Romania for it.

News / Poland goes bankrupt? [110]

Not all reforms are socially sensitive? Even cutting public bureaucracy would have been met with huge outrage by Solidarity and the ilk - don't forget, the same people who are willing to use violence to achieve their aims.

Reforming the justice system? Easier said than done in a country where law professionals hold massive influence. Do you think that, for instance, lawyers want the system to be sped up?

As for increasing employment in administration - sorry to say, but the Polish public approves.


And you know why? Teachers had had enough of being paid peanuts, and the "rise" was partially eaten by the introduction of mandatory extra 2 hours a week anyway. If they didn't give teachers their raise, we'd have probably seen a strike - and then what?

But hey - paying people that educate our children well is a bad policy, huh?


Why would they if they're healthy?

We can only hope that things like Ciegelski will be allowed to go into bankruptcy and stop sucking up our cash.