U.S. role in Poland is shrinking

Obama is hardly a "radical leftist" ?!

Maybe to republicans I suppose.

Where was the insult? That the US decided not to buy the car, but spent the money anyway?


Mortgages are only sold as bonds? Without securitization, how are lenders staying liquid? (just wondering here)


I wouldn't demonize the product as much as the seller. There is nothing inherently wrong with swap contracts or CDOs in general. If the underlying securities of a CDO are in order, there isn't a problem. I do think that by attempting to spread risk in that manner, you start having to trust a whole new group of people to provide you with an assessment on the underlying assets which kind of negates any gain you have from securitization.


Absolutely.

The insult wasn't in a decision but in a date that USA choosen to made it public. It was 70 anniversary of Russian invasion on Poland. Quite a sensitive date. Why did they choose to make internal ferment in Poland by choosing that date? I don't believe that their foreign department is so stupid, so I have to assume they on purpose tried to play with polish internal matters. So they sined twice: unsensitive date and much worse, meddling in that way in Polish internal affairs. Thinking about it now I come to conclusion it was element of negotiation strategy. The deal wasn't close yet then and by choosing that date they increased internal pressure on Polish gov. and weakened Polish gov. position in negotiations (there was of course big lament in Poland that "Americans are leaving us and it is gov. fault because gov. dared to be a little tougher in dealings with USA, oh stupid gov. sign whatever USA want you to sign")...


It is the old way in Poland, banks lends and keeps loan on their book mostly. As it use to be in States twenty years ago.

"How are they stay liquid?" For the most part amount of deposits in Poland exceeded loans, but balance was changed during boom years of 04-07' via fx loans from parent banks to Polish subsidiary banks (that is why there was a lot of stress regarding falling zloty in 2008). It is dynamic of course and I'm not sure how is this balance today and have no time to look for it. I'm sure there are proper data somewhere on NBP portal.

Some nice table from 2008:



loan to deposit ratio = 101,4% so almost balanced back then.


My intent wasn't to demonize product as a concept (though naked swaps are discredited in my eyes as a pure evil) but to point to the fact that in general Poland has no exposure to the USA financial market in a way some western countries have, ergo another link puts Poland down in US priorieties. Of course there is a link through USD and US bonds, but which country hasn't that...

Keep in mind that the information was leaked, and that was nothing more than an official response to the leak....and Obama had said earlier that he would push for the best technology to counter the threat, which was short to medium range missiles. Poland now has a system that can actually protect it from attack vs interceptor missiles which provided nothing but a liability. Most people interestingly enough believe that there is no missile defense system anymore, out of the media, out of the public eye. Interesting how that works.


Wait, Polish banks can only loan what they have on deposits? Is that what the chart is saying?

Well, however you put it but he's not a great president.

Maybe to Europeans "I suppose" :-)

Sure he is.

Ha ha!

Not to me mate - I think he's a total fake who doesn't have a clue what he's doing.

What does that make the top 3 Polish parties? Maoists?

Ok, let assume that it was unfortunate coincidence and leave it...
Again I agree that outcome of this Shield deal is good because this shield wasn't for Poland but Poland suppose to be a shield.


That I do not know, and it is long after coffee break so I cann't ask my wise friend who knows to the bone Polish banking law ;) But regardless of what banks in Poland can by the law they apparently do not lend more that they have deposits.

On the other hand if you look closer at this table you will see the astonishing exceptions of the rule with GE Money Bank as a star (a small subsidiary of USA GE Money bank). They had stunning ratio of 57333,3%... So it can indirectly prove that banks in Poland can lend more than they have deposits, they just do not do that. Thanks God that GE Money has it own problems and this kind of lending culture didn't spread here....

Well most all of Europe is notoriously more Libby than the US. Over there even their so-called "conservatives" are pretty Lib by our standards. That's why that place is such a mess.


The stated intent of the shield was to protect Europe from Iran. But folks most assume it was also to protect Poland and others from Russia. So Poland would have benefited from it. This is precisely why Russia opposed it so.

LOL - of course - US standards, how could I forget - the only ones that matter.

Thanks for doing the legwork. I just can't even for a minute believe that Polish banks only loan what they have in deposits. Anyway, will do a bit of reading.


The stated intent of the shield was to protect The US from long range Iranian missiles. Russia opposed it for a number of reasons, political and military. The Political reasons is that it considered unilateral ABM installations to be a reversal of the arms reduction treaties. Militarily, it would have meant an advanced radar base very close to Russian territory. They could care less about the missiles themselves.

Thanks, at least we're agreeing to something, lol

Like I said...

You said that it had some kind of benefit to Europe, and Poland in particular. It didn't.

Just about any social and economic statistic you pull out on that 'mess over there' as you refer to it, consisting of Nordic countries, Benelux, Switzerland and Germany shows these countries to be way ahead of USA.

Just tell me something, when you say "mate", is it the same like when we say "you guys"?
I mean, does it work for both genders?

Sure it did. My generalization of the shield was both accurate and sufficient. You're just parsing and hair splitting, as you often do.


We could also talk about Greece and France now... Euro is notoriously Lib to the point of being a runaway nannying socialist welfare state.

Kind of, but it's probably more like "man" as it can almost be a type of exclamation in its own right, like" Awww mate" for example, if you are impressed by a favour someone has done - or if you've just realised that you've missed your favourite movie.


Sort of, but it's less common for women.

To be honest, I don't even know why I said it as it's very much a British expression and I'm not British. Must be developing a strange new web persona!


Here we go again - what do you mean notoriously? By whose standards apart from the US and e.g. Islamic states?

Not hair splitting at all. The EKV wouldn't have been able to intercept missiles targeting CEE. That's not parsing and hair splitting, that's a fact. A public fact at that, the NMD program was never sold as being able to protect Europe, because it's incapable of it.

Well, I have to say that you definitely haven't lived in the US because we have all kinds of help for people in need here. The problem is that many of them don't know where to get this help.

I lived in Germany (my granny still does) too and I can assure you that in some ways a needy person gets even more help here than in Germany. In the US (depends on state) a needy gets some cash, food stamps and food from all kinds of charity organizations. They also take care of your power and water bill. I know it because I'm currently driving my 73 yrs old neighbor to exactly this kind of places so I'm not fantasizing here.

As far as economy, everyone is in trouble right now, not just us.
Besides, statistics don't always show the real situation in a country. Just look at the median income in Poland, it is way lower in reality than on paper.


I only asked because I'm a female :-)

With the further destruction of the dollar, this is just going to continue.