Have PO (Platforma) operatives in Poland fallen into a panic?

This is very good news. I suspect common sense will prevail. People remember how bad the short-lived PiS flapper regime was and Kukiz was a flash in the pan.

Common sense evaporated in May. How do we know it won't be the same in Sept? Some schmuck will tell them what they want to hear and voila, get all the votes.

It will indeed prevail when voters sweep away the oldboy crook and scam club and bring some decent Polish patriots to power. The Platfusy have had 8 years to make a mess of things and they certainly have done a good job: health service in ruins, scandals aplenty, unkept proimises, rampant bureaucracy, deisgner-drug scandal, etc., etc. Who needs it!?

Indeed, though that was mid-term and the president, though a good man, didn't display much charisma.


They're in power already, as opposed to the nationalistic pseudo patriots on the other side.


Yes, these need legalising and taxing along with other drugs.

This morning I was reading (French paper for expats) exactly the opposite, according to which PiS is to win.

Although 98% of the people I meet (through work) are pro PO, I personally believe that PiS corresponds better to Poland. Most Poles are poor, conservative, religious...

After electing a PiS president, it's logical that a few months later, a PiS parliament is elected.

So scammers and crooks are your political ideal?

Legalise drugs? Maybe also hitman agencies. People are gonna kill their cheating hubbies, mothers-in-law and crooked business partners anyway so why not have it done professionally and give the govt its tax cut? Business is business, innit?

No, I don't support PiS, thanks.


Yes, as Czech and Portugal have done very successfully. Legal or not, people buy them so why create opportunities to organised crime? Coming from a country that was so disastrously affected by prohibition, I'm sure you'll agree.

Anyway, you've advocated drug use often enough on here so obviously you do agree.

I'm not an economist, but I do not favour policies that make a narrow elite richer while ordinary people suffer nad have to scramble and skimp to make ends meet.

I think you need to attribute quite a lot to Komorowski's apathy towards the election - almost every single neutral observer agrees that Komorowski lost the election by simply not trying hard enough.


Except those policies need to be funded, and there's simply no money to fund them. Basing your entire manifesto on collecting 52 billion extra yearly in taxes is insanity, and will only lead to the working classes being taxed more to fund electoral promises.

Quite possible. Trouble seems ot be brewing in Kukizland. Squabbling has erupted among the backers of Polish dark-hose Paweł Kukiz, whose unprecedented 20% support in May's presidential election unsettled the country's political stage. The local activists and aldermen of various cities and towns, who were to be his principal power base, complain that he has turned away from them. Instead, strange fringe groups such such as the nationalist Ruch Narodowy (National Movement) and New Right-Wing Congress, whose popular support hovers around 1%, have jumped on the Kukiz bandwagon. Rock musician Kukiz says he was used by the mayor of the SW city of Lubin to facilitate his own cronies' access to parliament. Meanwhile, Kukiz's support in some opinion polls has fallen to half of what he won in the presidential contest.

Can you make sense of Kukiz's strategy, Polonius?

At one point, Kukiz was even threatening PiS - and the two combined had a chance (not a big chance, but still a chance) of getting 2/3rds needed to change the constitution. Yet he's gone into meltdown.


Yep, he seems to have completely ignored the fact that it was a very organic movement, and people were willing to back him because it was something different.


This is a huge mystery to me. He started embracing a lot of very fringe ideas and associating with people that were too dodgy for PiS, such as the owner of the Ciechan brewery. It was almost as if he was willing to work with anyone that had obtained any fame whatsoever - even though those people were hugely unpopular among PO and PiS voters alike. Then there was talk of how he would give everyone vast amounts of cash - yet it didn't make any sense and even PiS voters were thoroughly confused as to where he'd get the money from.


This is rather the problem that Kukiz had and has. He can't get anywhere near the Sejm without solid support in local structures, and he would be more or less hostage to their own demands. People such as the ex-President of Poznań Grobelny started to talk about how they would work with Kukiz to get into the Sejm - so it's obvious that he simply doesn't have the political brain to put together proper structures.

Compare this to Petru, who went around the country setting up local committees. I saw yesterday that they've announced leaders for each voivodeship, and those people will go and put together the electoral committees from interested locals. That's what Kukiz should have done - but he seems to have spent the last month doing strange things that don't really make much sense.

He's not a politican and initially that was his main forte, a grass-roots candidate not part of the sytem. But he also no strategist and seems to be groping the dark.


Beata Szydło. PiS candidate for prime minister, has unveiled the plans of her party ( Law and Justice) which they intend to implement after winning Octovber's general election. Among the largest projects is the increase in social benefits for families with two or more children - these families are to receive 500 złotys ($130) per child . Moreover, PiS want to increase the tax-free allowance and reduce the retirement age and VAT. Those measures are expected to cost over $10 billion. She also wants to tax banks which enjoy too many privileges.

The one and only righteous and morally better than the rest wishing to make Poland the greatest European open air museum - this is PiS (or let's be honest **** is more appropriate)...

But where is the money coming from, Polonius?

Taxing banks will also hurt PKO and (soon) PZU. Is that a good idea, and do you think they'll agree to extra taxation? PKO in particular is used by the most vulnerable in society - if they get taxed, they'll be forced to pass the costs onto the consumer.

Social benefits is a dreadful idea. Look at the UK, Greece and other countries with huge welfare bills - it just doesn't work. Far better to implement a Swiss or American style system in which people can enjoy considerable deductions on their tax bill, so that it always pays to work. Allowing mortgage payments to be tax deductible to a certain amount would also work and would provide people with a reason to save/buy property.


Ouch. Who will pay for it?

The problem is that Szydło is talking about raising an extra 52 billion through tax collection. It's a staggering number, and she's made a huge mistake by going there - PO will destroy her on economics with such expectations.

It would be far better for PiS to promise something achievable, such as a guaranteed yearly rise in the tax free amount, or a pledge to reduce VAT once the deficit goes below 40% (for instance). These sort of things are vote winners - people can see that they are rewarded for working hard.

The banks' profit margin can be decreased by legislation. The banker fatcats have it too good and enjoy too many privileges not available to others. They literally get away with murder. They are not some sacred cow. Here is where the EU should come in and make sure banks have similar conditions throughout the bloc. Where there's a will theres a way!

But you do realise that PZU and PKO are essentially controlled by the government and the government receives considerable amounts of cash in dividends from their shareholding? PZU in recent days has made it very very clear that they intend to create a big bank in Poland - and that they intend to buy up several smaller banks in order to do so.

Decreasing the profit margins of PKO and PZU means that they won't be able to compete as much abroad, meaning that Poland loses out. PZU in particular has been an absolute monster in recent times - and it also holds considerable amounts of Polish governmental debt.

TAX THE BANKS! sounds great. TAX THE POLISH STATE OWNED BANK! sounds a bit daft, don't you think?

I know there's the whole thing about banks becoming Polish owned - well, within a couple of years, it's highly likely that the three biggest banks will be PKO, Pekao and PZU.

Yet everywhere else, increasing lifespan and years of healthy life means the retirement age is increasing.

How would she pay for any of that?


So back to Socialism then...


It's irrelevant who owns them, especially since most banks have tradable stocks that anyone can buy and this is right. But a government taxing a bank it owns (and indeed operating banking in the first place) is a jump back to the PiS flappers' glory days of communism.

So they will spend more while getting less in income. Forget about the voodoo economics from your country, that is simply fairyland economics!


I know; isn't it superb!


Really? Do feel very free to go into detail about that; I'd love to hear how banks will be prevented from simply passing the cost of that tax straight on to their customers.


It's even more stupid than communism: at least communism was trying to make things better, all a tax on a bank that the Polish state owns is designed to do is to sound good to stupid people. Expecting banks to just say 'So you want us to pay more tax but not charge our customers any more than we do now? Fair enough, we're happy to make less money' is as moronic as expecting supermarkets to simply accept lower profits rather than passing higher costs straight on to their customers.

My suspicion is that we'd see something comparable to New Labour's way of doing things (and arguably, the Tory way too) - cut headline taxes, but then simply whack on extra tax on everything else instead. An extra 20-30gr of fuel taxes would be a nice start, as would ramping capital gains taxes up to 40%.

I won't even comment on how impossible to enforce that would be.

But some simple social analysis might help you understand why that can't happen.

You are saying that Pani BS will make a law that limits how much profit a bank can make? Let us imagine that was possible and enforceable (which is isn't).

Now imagine bank owners reacting as follows: we will not only reduce our profits, but we will make them ZERO. Every taxable Groszy we earn will be donated to charity, let's say your favorite institution, the Church.

Is there any law that says they can't do that? No there isn't.

Now banks have entirely deprived the government from all tax revenue from banks, and the Church certainly will not pay tax on donations that they receive.

What Pani BS will do then? Tax the Church? Ban banks from donating to Church? Even better, bank owners will react by closing banks all together, throwing away thousands of Polish jobs and handing all the banking business of Poland to foreign banks, and there is nothing Pani BS can do about it.

That is what happens when people get elected on populist propaganda, promising things that are literally impossible to achieve.

Actually all they will do is transfer all of their profits outside Poland (using much the same methods they used when it was legally forbidden to export much in the way of profits) and pay the taxes outside Poland. It's simple enough to do, especially for international banks: they can simply do things such as buy various software licences which are supposedly needed to utilise the same systems as the branches of that capital group all over the world or hire trainers based outside Poland to train staff or move lots of their back-office operations to a shared service centre outside Poland, a myriad of different things.


And which they have no intent of actually making happen.

The EU msut be prevailed upon to enact bloc-wide legislation trimming the banks' profit margin and making them pay their fair share of taxes. Let the EU finally prove it's good for something other than imposing toxic light-bulbs and sanctioning the spread of perversion.

Here is more on Madam Szydło's eocnomic plans!

Poland's central bank should actively boost preferential credit action for small and medium companies, main opposition party Law and Justice's (PiS) candidate for Prime Minister said in an interview published on Thursday.

"For sure, the role of stabiliser of Polish finances is not to be undermined," Beata Szydlo told Dziennik Gazeta Prawna daily, when asked about what role of the central bank her party envisaged.

"But we also see the central bank as an active participant in actions aimed at preferential crediting for small and medium companies, along the lines of LTRO implemented by the European Central Bank and several other European states's central banks."

The comments echoed those made by party economic expert Zbigniew Kuzmiuk earlier this month. PiS is leading opinion polls ahead of parliamentary elections due in October.

Szydlo also said that should PiS form the government, she would seek to put the ministry of development in charge of Poland's economy.
"We want to change the current model, in which the finance minister is the creator of economic policy," she said.
Szydlo also said that she wanted to renegotiate the carbon emission rules imposed on Poland by the European Union as they were hurting Poland's economy.

It's not access to credit that's needed. Polish businesses can get credit relatively easily - the issue is the nearly 40% cost of social insurance. When you consider that it costs something like 2000zl to give someone 1286zl in their hand - you can see why small businesses struggle.

(please note : these rates were exactly the same when PiS was in power, hence we know they won't do anything about it)


How much tax did the banks pay in 2013, Polonius?

Exactly - with the PiS flappers it's nothing but a sorry trail of broken promises, unenforceable laws and Poland disgraced.

Great that Citizen's Platform is surging in the polls.

That just simply is not going to happen. Largely because the EU's economic policy isn't dictated by morons who know so little about finance that they only opened their first bank account while in their sixties and even then only because they were told that their government salary couldn't be paid into their mother's bank account.

Does anybody else remember that PIS government idea of introducing maximum fees that lawyers could charge? I recall that lots of lawyers were very much in favour of it, because that would give them a justified reason to open a company in Cyprus and pay all their tax there (at much lower rates). For some reason PIS quietly dropped that idea.

Care to answer me instead of running around like a headless chicken? Or you got nothing useful?

It's a question of legislation. A problem erupts, then the proper legislative measures must be enacted.
A law can be enacted making it illegal for someone to pay taxes to anyone other than his country of residence, in this case Poland.

It seems you and yoru ilk are always on the side of the wreckers, destabilisers and even criminals who pose a threat to society. You are an apologist for letting banks and corproaitons not pay their fair share of taxes, one of your comrades is an apologist for deisgner drug market and so it goes.

this appears to suggest that po trail pis by 10 points in the polls
wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/wiadomosci/1,114871,18377855,nowy-sondaz-pis-wciaz-na-prowadzeniu-lepsi-od-po-o-10-punktow.html?lokale=local#BoxNewsLink

calling them pis flappers hasn't worked jon, quick think of summink

Every little bit helps with social media. Poles don't understand the allusion but they have a nice one of their own: PiSuarzy

Beware of these polls, unless you know many under-40s with landlines...

Ehm Ehm. I use it mainly for electronic document transfer (fancy name for FAX, you may judge me in random) And yes pollsters call a LOT but I usually tell them to stuff themselves with hay or let the fax machine answer :)

Can you believe some of them are offering a free dinner if you agree to answer the entire survey?