Life / Why is Orange Poland such a crappy / expensive network? [53]

All operators offer a similar deal now. free calls/texts plus 2 - 5 gig internet, depends where you go. You can pay less if you dont take a phone, probably less than half the 100/m. I have to as I work my battery quite hard but you might not. But if you take a new phone every 2 years you'll pay around 100 a month and up front 800 to a grand for new iphone but you can always sell the old model for about that so you end up with a free phone evry couple of years. Ive timed my contract renewals for the end of the year so its give them time to get new models in (usually nov/dec while the germans get them oct).

Life / Why is Orange Poland such a crappy / expensive network? [53]

I dont know, Ive been with them for 12 years. To begin with I was paying over 500 a month on calls, paying for every call and no internet. Now I pay 100 get free everything and a new Iphone every 2 years. But its probably the case with most networks now, deals are much the same just packaged differently.

News / PiS to impose blanket retail tax in Poland [291]


From me it was an observation of what happened. Those lost jobs havent been filled which is why most Poles are offended when you mention the average wages is about 4500 brutto.


Baffled as why they all finish class by 12:30/2:30, a lot sooner than when I was a lad in the UK. From what I see from some of the kids here, a few more hours in school are desperately needed! And you cannot beat a good British private school btw.

News / PiS to impose blanket retail tax in Poland [291]

Private owned and run shops are pretty rare even in smaller town centres, maybe some Indian/Pakistani owned in the suburbs. You do get more in the villages particularly the tourist spots around the Peak District. But rents are way too high for the average person to afford a good spot. In any case there are so many waterdown supermarket or convience stores owned by the giants either directly or through franchise, making it hard for a one off shop to compete.

In Poland the smaller towns got hit the most as in came the Biedronka and took all the local business as often Biedronka was the only market in town, so naturally drew all the business thanks to choice and price. In these cases the biggest effects of money leaving the local economy are seen. Normally local shopkeepers would spend their small earnings in the own itself but Biedronka didnt and so other local businesses suffered as a result. Its one of the many reasons why the much smaller towns have been left behind and some are in worse condition than 20 years ago.

News / PiS to impose blanket retail tax in Poland [291]

Often the problem is in your own backyard and reluctance of local council to help. Above all the Pole is looked down on and treated as untrustworthy by urzedniki. But of course a lot of the grants that the government has provided, courtesy of the EU, have been wasted as it wasnt properly policed by the urzedy

News / PiS to impose blanket retail tax in Poland [291]

Polonius3, a simple example. Look how Biedronka began in Poland. They started from the beginning, with low prices and goods of a reasonable standard. They destroyed local shopkeepers. Over time they built their reputation and lifted their prices. Ask the average Pole and he'll tell you Biedronka is Polish! Thats how theyve managed to engrave their way into Polish everyday life. The gap in the market could have been filled by anyone. Its always filled by the fastest most forward thinking entrepreneur and entrepreneurs are lacking in Poland. Often Poles dont want to take risks with money, although Id say they take risks in other walks of life, so its not a pure risk averse thing.

News / Why has the US dollar reached almost 3.99 zł in Poland? [56]

Sterling would be much higher if not for the EU referendum, so there's still a chance it will be unwound. I cant see it much below 5,70. In fact I will strongly consider making a purchase there. Last year saw large outflow from emerging markets this year will be no different so zloty should stay weak relative to others.

As for the markets we have touched stocks for a long time. There could be an opportunity presenting itself shortly but it depends on how the central banks approach the matter. As for Poland, last year we disposed of pretty much most of no yielding for profit assets and are sitting on cash. We still have yielding assets and are looking to add but politics makes one sit on the sidelines expecting a better price.

News / Why has the US dollar reached almost 3.99 zł in Poland? [56]

Stockmarkets across the globe are falling and that means people are exiting trades in Asia and CEE, places deemed higher risk. So you are seeing outflows from the currencies. This is aside from domestic policy in Poland. This always happens when stockmarkets in developed nations fall sharply - people move into the dollar and US treasuries as they are deemed safe. The dollar should stop in its tracks in the near future but the euro may move even higher against the zloty as that does focus a lot on domestic issues in Poland since its the most liquid of the zloty currency pairs.

News / Demonstrations in Poland in defence of democracy. [2554]

Banks are cutting interest rates paid on savings and increases margins on current and future loans. They are also increasing charges for running accounts.
VAT will never go away, but retail tax is now said to considered for businesses with a certain turnover and it will be paid monthly. We are supposed to get something concrete by the end of the week PIS have said.

News / Do you believe that western Europe (ie EU) won`t punish Poland if Poland try to go out of EU? [44]


InPolska, most Poles who are working and have a mortgage arent in a position to up sticks and leave for the UK. Generally its the workshy layabouts that are the ones moving to jump on the benefits system. If you stand outside any one of the Polish shops that have sprouted up in England it wont take long for a group of "silownia" loving bald men in cheap tracksuits to start shouting loudly at each other with every second word Ku*** or H**. These people are word apart from the Poles that settled after the war or came in the years following.

News / EU debate on Poland [23]


World didnt exist before 300 years ago ;)
Its a nice fairy tale for Poland to dictate terms to rest of the world. I get it, its escapism in a way for some people. Poland can offer its central eastern location and relative cheap labour and in return getting huge funding and a massive export market on favourable terms in the EU.

News / Do you believe that western Europe (ie EU) won`t punish Poland if Poland try to go out of EU? [44]

For a start Szydlo has officially said she wont budge on Camerons insistence that new immigrants from EU have to wait 4 years before getting benefits. Entirely reasonable demand from the UK, requiring people put something into the system before getting paid out. But I digress. So its unlikely Cameron is going to be smiling in any photos with her as he is already getting bad press in the UK.

On the point of UK leaving the EU, the UK pays in more than it gets out from the EU while London is the financial capital of the world and this is largely down to geography/timezone. So it makes it a focal point for US EU and Asian banking, so you are going to have to do business with London whether EU or no EU for the UK (not saying any transition wont be bumpy). Poland on the other hand doesnt have such a strong hand, its still developing

News / Do you believe that western Europe (ie EU) won`t punish Poland if Poland try to go out of EU? [44]


All starts and finishes with money. Monies paid by the EU to Poland will at some level have to be reimbursed prior to leaving. They wont be able to agree on this. So its a non starter. If Poland walks away on its own terms it will be hit with sanctions and shakes hands with Ukraine. Its simply suicidal and there are no benefits for Poland in this.

News / Do you believe that western Europe (ie EU) won`t punish Poland if Poland try to go out of EU? [44]

Sorry a change in constitution requires 2/3 of parliament voting for it, something that will be required to join the euro. Prior to that, talk was that the people of Poland who need to vote on it via a referendum and then it would go to parliament if the referendum achieved a 75% vote. This second part was just discussion but the first part is set in stone. And I presume leaving EU would demand similar approach.

News / Do you believe that western Europe (ie EU) won`t punish Poland if Poland try to go out of EU? [44]

There is no mandate for any member leaving either the euro or the EU. In Polands case accepting the euro would require a change in the constitution and 75% referendum vote (its highly unlikely that 75% of voting Poles would vote for such). Id suggest similar would be required to allow the government at the time to address the situation in Brussels. But even so, there is nothing in the EU framework to cover this. There is also the financial aspect to consider and neither side would be able to agree on numbers. A pipe dream for communists nothing more.

Law / Poland's Zloty 43% undervalued [30]

Before the new govrnment EUR/PLN was in a range 4.0-4.35 roughly. You could happily trade that or make deals based on that. Now its pushing towards 4.50 and weve yet to see bond investors depart, so its possible we see towards 4.7/4.75. Id be surprised if it moves above 5 as Id expect most to see through the 4 years of this government and start to put money to work at some cheap levels. Property in Poland is quite depressed on an international level, although many Poles still struggle to get a mortgage.

News / Do you believe that western Europe (ie EU) won`t punish Poland if Poland try to go out of EU? [44]

When the EU was drawn up there were no set rules for a member leaving the union. They are not going to kick anyone out or let them leave as it will set a precedent. In fact Poland has agreed to join the euro but it has signed to an exact date, this was the condition on joining the EU. Because the UK joined much earlier and was seen as a more important partner, Thatcher was able to avoid the euro clause and also managed to get a right to veto. Poland was late joining so wasnt able to make demands.

Russian and Ukraine exports have fallen throught the floor for Poland given sanctions and war, so its much more dependant on Europe and in particular Germany, a fair bit of manufacturing produce goes over there and it needs a strong Germany to keep that up.

News / Demonstrations in Poland in defence of democracy. [2554]

2005-2008 was the boom period after Poland joined the EU. Money and investment were flooding in and driving growth. The years that followed saw huge contractions in world growth and recessions almost everywhere but not in Poland. You could say PO kept Poland out of recession or you could say the EU money which was flowing in to projects such as infrastructure helped to avoid GDP contraction and instead make Poland the only country in the EU to avoid recession (building roads and bridges counts to GDP). This more than anything underlines the importance of EU funding and why Poland needs to maintain this flow as much as possible. What happens in Poland is largely influenced by what is happening in the global economy. When there is concern, people reduce exposure to riskier investments such as Poland. There is nothing that can be done about that apart from striving to be more integrated economically with Europe and thus reducing the countrys risk rating.

News / PiS to impose blanket retail tax in Poland [291]

China hasnt managed that but of course peddling falsities and propaganda is what dictatorships and communism is about.
Chinas growth has been artificially controlled by the rulers and now its blowing up in their face and will likely drag the rest of the global economy down with it.

News / Demonstrations in Poland in defence of democracy. [2554]


I dont think youll find my foreigners at such demos. Unless maybe teachers or students.
As for plotting to destabilise Poland, I think even Szydlo said that people had a right to demonstrate as it shows democracy is in place. In any case, the government has started to destabilise the country all by itself. These days money talks and if you are taking you have to walk the line, at least officially if not privately.

News / PiS to impose blanket retail tax in Poland [291]

Liberarius, the UK US and Europe have undertaken in QE programs over the past few years to the tune of a few trillions to try to prop up the economy by keeping interest rates ultra low to allow people to borrow invest and expand, without fear of interest rates going up too soon in the future. Essentially the banks got to borrow very cheaply and were supposed to lend this money to those that needed/wanted to borrow. Of course much of this money got leveraged and invested in the financial markets and created bubbles in some areas. The problem faced now as interest rates have started to rise in the US is will those huge leveraged positions bring down the banks again. Since 2008 the too big too fail argument isnt as apparent today, but there will be a lot of pain in some areas of the financial community.

QE was probably the biggest transfer of assets from the taxpayers to the financial industry ever, but its easy to call it a failure now. But you just dont know what could have happened if QE didnt take place. Back when banks were failing everywhere and peoples savings were at risk, the governments had no choice but to bail them out and flood the system with money to try to improve confidence. Apart from giving every citizen a cheque for a thousand dollars, theres not much that could have been done. These days there are more safe guards in place and bigger walls separating investment banking and retail banking, so that area (peoples deposits) should avoid significant problems, but certain industries with highly leverage debt are going to see particular pain if the worst comes to the worst.

News / PiS to impose blanket retail tax in Poland [291]

Most banks didnt charge very much for running accounts, nor ATM fees, until the new government started to threaten bank taxes.
Polonius3 I am interested on your view on Dudas announcement or friday regarding the bailing out of swiss franc loan homeowners who are generally regarded as being better off than the average zloty based loan home owner. I fail to see how they are helping out the average Pole here as it seems they are doing the opposite, as people with zloty based loans and who paid a much higher rate of interest of the so far duration of their loans are getting no help at all and in fact, by the higher margins to be introduced by banks, will be subsidising the swiss franc loan home owners.

News / PiS to impose blanket retail tax in Poland [291]

Some banks have already increased charges and by february will be increasing margins on new and current mortgages. It might means only a 50zl/m increase for most people but it will add 5% to the value of the loan over its life.

As for financing costs, for every 1% move in bond yields it costs 1,000,000zl more in interest on every 1 billion in bonds outstanding. When you consider there are hundreds of billions outstanding, it amounts to a lot. Money that this free spending government cant afford to lose. The bond market has really reacted yet in such a drastic manner, but it has decoupled from germany bonds since october and has been underperforming hungarian bonds (often seen as the anti europe side to CEE). Here is a chart below showing the last 5 months.

stooq.pl/q/?s=10ply.b&d=20160115&c=5m&t=l&a=ln&b=0&r=10huy.b+10dey.b

News / PiS to impose blanket retail tax in Poland [291]

Long term the companies stay and start paying tax (outsourcing isn't a for profit system. They pay wages and make no money to pay tax on).

This is clearly seen in cities/towns that opertare under a stref ekonomiczna, a tax break offered to encourage companies to build factories/warehouses in their region. It provides local work for locals and the companies get favourable conditions to outsource. For towns where there had been nothing going on for years and couldnt compete with the bigger cities, it was a clear shot in the arm. Even if just 3 or 4 companies locate to such a town it means 2 or 3 thousand jobs in a city of 50,000 and that makes a big difference as those wages tend to be spend in the said town.

Law / Poland's Zloty 43% undervalued [30]


well GBP/PLN reached a technical resistance a little above 6 right at the time the markets started to worry about the UK leaving the EU. The vote has to take place by the end of 2017 and currently the market believes it will take place early/late summer this year, so various hedging has taken place by companies not wanting to be exposed to the risk of a fall the the pound. Otherwise the exchange rate would be at highs like euro and dollar vs the zloty. If things continue in the current vein, we could see towards 5 zloty against the euro. The dollar might have problems of its own later in the year but still likely to stay above 4 zloty.

News / PiS to impose blanket retail tax in Poland [291]

Polonius3 you all wanted solidarnosc as opposed to communism, else it wouldnt have happened. And that meant greater ties with Europe. Nobody forced you into it, you made the play yourselves.

News / PiS to impose blanket retail tax in Poland [291]

Tax will be official next week they said. They had ten days which makes it a thursday or friday I believe. They had moved away from 250m2 to turnover but until it happens you never know. The swiss franc deal will see banks have to cough up on average about 1 point move on every loan on their books. So for arguments sake its about 4 now, so they will have to move to 3. Thats on average, some will be less some more. But those banks apparently get a 20% discount on bank tax.

News / PiS to impose blanket retail tax in Poland [291]

Well S&P have just downgraded the zloty to BBB+ and placed the countrys sovereign rating on a negative outlook (from positive). Yes new government blamed.

News / PiS to impose blanket retail tax in Poland [291]

Without foreign investment Poland doesnt exist. Do you understand pension deficit is 250% of GDP. All those huge zus's over the years squandered. Thats what every government should be tackling. ZUS and pension deficit. If they want to do some taxing make the companies assign a larger portion of pay to pensions pot. Its a big step but less controversial than making banks energy companies and just about everyone pay for a coal mining industry that should be closed down.

News / PiS to impose blanket retail tax in Poland [291]

Price controls? Seems like communism to me. At best he is an idealist with zero understanding of how businesses operate.