Don't read "Gazeta Wyborcza" Polish newspaper -- wPolityce.pl

Creating gigantic unfunded mandates (like the 500 zl child payment) will not do a single thing to help Polish entrepreneurship.

The basic fact of the matter is that Poles would rather work for large international corporations (which often have printed employment policies and fairly transparent promotion policies and paths of promotion) than small family companies which have earned a reputation for screwing over employees and bypassing talented outsiders in favor of promoting meathead son who promptly drives the business into the ground.

Also, the individual stores in a chain have some degree of support from other outlets. I was recently buying shoes (at a Polish chain) and they didn't have the shoes I wanted in the size that fit. A small private store would try to sell me something else. The people in the store just got on the phone and found another outlet that had the shoes I wanted in the right size. They earned more customer loyalty through that than trying to get me to buy something else. And this is not a native innovation but practice learned from the larger international chains.

The more limits you place on employment the less employment there will be. This is an iron law of economics (like gravity in physics) that there is no way around.

Foreign corporations are no more or less 'evil' than Polish corporations. They all exist to maximise shareholder return: that is what companies do.


The way to do that is to reduce the size of the state, which is the exact opposite of what PIS want to do.


Very much so. One also needs to remember that for more than a few of PIS supporters (including some at PF) life was much better under the communist regime.


They'd need to: it's not hard to envisage warehouses being built metres over the Polish-German border which are staffed entirely by Poles and serve solely the Polish market. Amazon already has large warehouses in Poland despite Amazon not even operating in Poland, so there would be no problem at all for warehouses in German, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Lithuania to serve solely customers outside of those countries.

No-one is saying that promoting Polish entreprenership should be the government's sole preoccupation but it should certainly be among their priorities.
Like Merkel said yesty "The 'Made in Germany' label remains a symbol of German quality regardless of the VW affair." A Poland brand signifying high quality at a reasonable price is not something to be ignored.

Poland should evolve away from being mainly a pool of cheap manpower and bargain-basement assembly facilties for foreign-owend and foreign-designed products into the realm of indigenous design and ownership.

But the demographic crisis must also be tackled and the 500 zł allowance is one way of doing that. It can be paid for by taxing banks and large-scale retailers.

Who will respond by passing that tax straight on to their customers. Brilliant.

What about the socalled 500 ZL allowance? What are the conditions to get it? Number, ages of kids, family's income... ? Is it every month or only at birth...?

Nevertheless, as Polish birth rate is dramatically low, authorities need to do something to help families to have (when they do want kids) and to raise kids. Just heard, highest rate in Europe is France with 1.99 (thanks to generous policies since 1945), then Ireland with 1.96, the lowest rate is in Portugal with 1.21 and Poland (they did not give number) it's close to Portugal's.

Of course they do. The thing is that you won't find a rich country in the whole world (except perhaps some tropical island or some town-country) that got rich due to foreign corporations. When the company invests abroad, that's because they want to make a profit of the local cheap labor or domestic market and that by default is not a way for the country to get rich. If you don't understand then you are a hopeless case.


They say everyone will get it but I doubt it, that would cost too much. More likely from the 2nd child on.

Indeed. I could tell a story or two about some very sharp practices by 100% Polish owned businesses. One company that can remain nameless has a 5 year guarantee on their products. Problem is, if you actually read the guarantee, then it's only applicable if their service department thinks that it's caused by their negligence and not the consumer. The manager of the department told me with a smile that they have a set budget for replacing products and that's it - so once they hit their weekly/monthly limits, they simply throw out every single other claim regardless of how valid it is.


And with the not-bad road network that PO left behind (over 1000km is being constructed at the minute!), transport isn't much of an issue as well.

The economic situation in places such as Cesky Tesin is very favourable as well - they need to diversify away from the old coal industry, so I'm sure they'd be more than happy to build warehouses. I can even imagine where - for instance, there's a huge amount of empty land where the old Czech border crossing was (on the S1, next to Cieszyn and the Olza). It's close to the Polish A1, which is connected by dual carriageway/motorway to almost every single Polish city now. Voila.


I'd say that it's already happening. I know quite a few people that have gone from working in corporations to owning startups - but these people need stable political environments and not random taxes being imposed to pay for socialist welfare promises.


And squeezing their suppliers to disguise the actual cost to society. That roll that they currently pay 20gr for will now be bought for 19gr and sold for 35gr rather than 34gr. It's a small example, but the profit margin will be maintained and the poorest in society (that don't have children for whatever reason) will be hurt.


Two easy things. Increase the tax free amount for every child (a tax credit of 500zl/month can work) and allow the cost of child care to be deducted against one's tax bill. It encourages people to work, while ensuring that the village idiot doesn't get money for beer.

Jesus Christ on the bike ! That's not what it's all about. Japan/Korea/Germany -> Toyota/Samsung/VW to begin with, you can't build a strong economy on anything else than domestic corporations and all the rich countries became huge fans of free trade, competition and so on once they were already rich, their domestic corporations were strong and they could actually benefit from that free trade and all. Before that, they were much into protectionism and such.

Switzerland?

@Harry: Switzerland has been used for years for laundering dirty money and hiding dictators's and mafia's fortunes. During war, nazis hid their money there. Same goes for Luxembourg which is a big washing machine. Not an example including for Poland ;)

That too but Switzerland has also quite a few (especially for a country of that size) strong "real economy" domestic corporations, like:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novartis
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABB_Group
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schindler_Group
etc.

@Grzegorz: Switzerland may have a few international companies (Nestlé, etc...) but the % of filthy money in their system is significant in their economy. All the dictators, oligarches, mafiosi and crooks of any sort hide their money there. The only thing from Switzerland that I'm fond of is their .... chocolate. The same goes for places like Luxemburg (a laundrymat), Monaco, Cyprus and a few others in Europe.

Good that Poland does not play in same league as above ;)

I like reading the weekly paper "NIE". Highlights are very good journalism, witty language, and it's probably the only newspaper that regularly reports abuses by the Church. In situations like the war in Ukraine, they're critical of both sides.

There are two groups of media in Poland:
1. Gazeta Wyborcza, TVN, Polityka, TokFM, Newsweek Polska ...(influenced by PO and the old goverment)
2. wSieci wPolityce, Gazeta Polska (founded by Karnowscy, SKOKi and PiS), Fronda.pl, Radio Maryja, ABC...

...and there's NIE. If you don't read it directly, you will be reading reprints in other newspapers. Because they reprint it, it's too good to ignore as much as they would like to.

Indeed NIE is in a class all its own. It is the only periodical published in Poland by a Jewish desk-top murderer like Michnik's brother Stefan, a fugitive from jstuice hiding in Sweden. Neither Stefan Michnik nor Jerzy Urban ever pulled a trigger but...

During the trial of Father Popiełuszko's murderers, one of the defendants (Piotrowski if I recall) tesifed that when he saw in Express Wieczorny an article titled "Seanse nienawiści" by Jan Rem (Urban's pen-name) openly attacking Popiełuszko in the most virulent of terms, he felt there was top-level support for his "neutralisation".

Once more Polonius3 shows his unwavering faith in the credibility of the communist government.... Like many PiS supporters, while he dislikes the values he respects the governing style.

Half past two in the morning and you're still ranting about Jews. Sad really.

I'm not even so sure he rejects the values, given that he willingly embraced them for years.


Typical of PiS supporters. They're haunted by Jewish people, for inexplicable reasons.

I also like Angora. It's a newspaper where large portion of articles are reprints. Often from foreign outlets. If you want some distance, want to know how other countries perceive Poland, and have eclectic interests, it's a newspaper for you. And there isn't much politics.

Apart from the constant mockery of Kaczyński, that is.

I like Angora as well, though.

Another obsessed publication for the biased, prejudiced and horse-blinkered who cannot think for themselves?!

Sure Pol, that true enough but if somebody would like to read it - that's his problem.

youtube.com/watch?v=spiVRC7PO1I

2:03 - The world knows about Wyborcza rag in Poland.

Kremlin TV? **** off you should better than that.