News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


It's interesting to observe Putin when he discusses Yeltsin.

He instinctively straightens up, and adopts a different tone of voice. For a moment - like a really quick glimpse - you can see Putin the employee again, talking about his boss.

"Boris Nikolayevich always used to say..."; "In cases like these, Boris Nikolayevich would never hesitate...", "We all know Boris Nikolayevich was a special person, but just how special - very few know...".

Just very curious, the special piety Putin still has for the memory of a person that many people think nearly killed Russia.

Every possible politician in Russia has said some bad thing about Yeltsin - except for Putin.

Maybe he thinks that if he doesn't say anything bad about Yeltsin, we won't say anything bad about him?

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


Dokładnie tak!

Yeltsin understood he could not protect the wider oligarchate, but he extracted a promise not to touch the immediate family. That is, daughter Tatyana and son-in-law Valentin, granddaughter Polina and her husband the oligarch Oleg Deripaska, and then the family "treasurer" Roman Abramovich.

Even as Putin was destroying Khodorkovsky, Gusinsky, Berezovsky, and others - he never touched "The Family".

Despite "The Family" representing everything Putin hated and what he built his public image in opposition to... he still showed up to the funeral. He has still not closed the Yeltsin Presidential Center, even though all it does is pour dirt on Putin.

In some sense, Putin is a very, very decent man. He knows how to keep his word and respect arrangements.

Thanks to him, Yeltsin did not have to witness his family go to jail or be scattered abroad in the last years of his life. He died as the first president of Russia, with all the honors and dignity possible.

Of course Putin burned to the ground his legacy, and is building a totally different Russia than Yeltsin envisioned - but Yeltsin never asked him to make any promises about that. In fact, it was Yeltsin who hand picked him. He must have saw in him what Russia needed.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


Quite nice. A strange sound. Sounds very familiar and close to the heart - on the one hand - but then some unorthodox/unrussian element plays and causes some dissonance.

What is this? To what rubric does it belong? Is this from the East of Poland?

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


Putin is like some caterpillar/butterfly in terms of how many times he metamorphosed.

There's Chechen War Putin - who doesn't sleep, but only thinks of killing Islamists. Always surrounded by military men, and holding midnight meetings of the Security Council.

Then there was Euro-Atlanticist Putin. Who addresses German parliaments in fluent German, is the darling of Davos, and best friend of George Bush. The guy that Gerhardt Schroeder fell in love with, and that Sarcozy and Berlusconi adored.

There's paranoid and conspiratorial Putin, that sees in every Navalny and Nemtsov a traitor - despite earlier being on good personal terms with at least one of them. This Putin, pushes away liberal friends with whom he's been acquainted for more than 30 years - like Alexis Kudrin and German Gref. Instead he surrounds himself with old buddies from the KGB.

Now we have the Tsar Putin era. He's now floating on some plane, impossible for normal mortals to comprehend. He doesn't care about economics, trade, or other such boring things. No - now Putin only thinks and acts like a world historical force. Everything else, other people have to manage.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]

The real fight between liberals and conservatives happens within the Kremlin. That is, within the cabinet of ministers. It's an old Russian tradition.

The Tsar oversees the squabbles between the two camps, and when it starts getting out of hand - steps in to mediate.

The liberals traditionally come from the economic bloc. They control the Ministry of Finance, Central Bank, Ministry of Economic Development, Audit Chamber, and so on.

They are friends of foreign investment, hate sanctions, and believe Russia cannot hope to catch up in living standards without Western technology and access to Western markets.

The conservatives come from the intelligence community, law enforcement, the military, and sometimes the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

These guys have never earned an honest dollar in their lives, and have instead lived entirely on the government budget. They don't understand fancy words like "investment climate", "ease of doing business", or "macroeconomic stability". They understand that Russia is a great and powerful country, but it's not being treated as such. They see the liberals as an annoying hurdle on the way to "mobilizing the spirits of the Russian nation".

Depending on his mood, one day Putin may be a liberal, and then another day he may be a conservative. It depends on what's happening.

If the West is enforcing sanctions, and the business community is running around like headless chickens - then Putin puts on his "business friendly" hat and comes out to tell everyone that "I'm not crazy! Don't worry! I know what you are worried about, and I won't allow it!"

If there are instead problems at the front, then Putin will make a very serious face, and say very stern things about having to crackdown on immigration (even though he knows this is the worst fear of the business community).

In the end, he usually does neither thing, and just lets things flow by inertia.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


He almost certainly will be from Putin's camp - on this you can put money.

Nothing less would satisfy all the various influence groups existing in Russia - except for perhaps the liberal opposition and the communists.

Everyone made enormous fortunes during Putin's reign. There must be guarantees, that there will not be attempts to reverse these events. Putin maintained his promise to the Yeltsin family to not touch them, even though he very much wanted to. In the same way, whoever will replace Putin will have to promise to honor the status quo - otherwise they will not be allowed anywhere near the steering wheel.

You have to calm the oligarchs. You have to give comfort to the intelligence and law enforcement "nobility". You have to reassure the various regional princelings like Kadyrov. You have to garner the support of the governors, and powerful mayors.

Beyond that, you have the presidents of the former republics - who also feel they have a voice in who leads Russia. Strongmen in places like Tajikistan and Turkmenistan rely massively on Russian political cover. They must be reassured that whoever takes the throne in Russia, will not disturb previous understandings and allow them to continue to plunder their countries and build dynastic monarchies.

Nearly all these people were formed during the last 25 years. Anybody who remembers well the Yeltsin years is approaching retirement. So everybody is a product of the Putin system, and everybody owes Putin something.

Whoever replaces him, will emerge from within the system, and will protect the system from any attempts to destabilize it.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


De Gaulle famously said that "the graveyards are full of irreplaceable men."

Tusk has played a trick on your brain.

If somebody asked me (nobody is asking me), I would say that Sikorski would make a potentially good president, but a poor prime minister.

He's respected internationally, is experienced in foreign policy, is polished and erudite and as such creates a positive impression of Poland abroad. Good qualities for the presidency. At the same time, he's arrogant, married to an American Jew, feels more comfortable as a think tank panel member than talking to farmers... and as such probably not a "President of all Poles".

For the role of prime minister you need an able technocrat. Somebody who can navigate the Sejm and Brussels equally. Someone who can command the respect of his Council of Ministers, many of whom are large political personalities in their own right. He has to be skilled at coalition building, and capable at pushing through his policies. This is not Sikorski. Tusk certainly fills this role almost perfectly, and that's probably why you say he's indispensable. But he's a political corpse.

This is why, when choosing from the centre-left, I think the obvious choice is Trzaskowski. Yes, he lost the presidential elections twice - and as such may be fundamentally cursed... However, he's manager of the largest city in the country - showing he's able to navigate complex bureaucracies without them imploding. He may not be particularly charismatic (as evidenced by his presidential losses), but neither was Szydlo or Morawiecki.

Tusk can go behind the curtains, and parallel Kaczynski, and stop being an anchor on his party's electoral prospects.

Off-Topic / Stock Market Talk and Trading - part 2 [743]

After seven minutes of thinking, I am ready to provide my next six stock picks:

1) Gamestop
2) Nikola Corporation
3) Peloton
4) WeWork (if it's still trading over the counter)
5) AMC Entertainment
6) Lucid Motors

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


Johnny does not know how to spell the word "biased", and you expect him to understand what the difference is between sarcasm and lies?

Some advice for you - if you want Johnny to understand you, try to use simple language and don't cover more than a single subject at once. If you work with him, at his own pace, you'll be surprised at the results you can get.

Off-Topic / Stock Market Talk and Trading - part 2 [743]


I'm young. I can do crazy stuff like go "balls deep" on six of the same stocks, and wait until a new Pope is elected.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


Did you ever expect that you would be in full agreement with Johnny Reb on the subject of the welfare state?

He's been so excited these past two days about Nawrocki's election, as if he himself is in line to receive the 500 PLN.

I think Johnny must also love how PiS has stacked the courts full of political judges.

Off-Topic / Stock Market Talk and Trading - part 2 [743]


I prepared for him a highly diversified portfolio. By highly diversified - I mean it consists exclusively of American oil companies.

If Russia's oil buyers get sanctioned, and Iran is nuked - CMS will be making money hand over fist.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


Fine, I'll stop, brother. But just know... if freedom had a flavor, it'd be kielbasa. And if liberty had a face, it'd be the loving visage of Nawrocki - with a rosary in one hand and a state pension in the other.

Ride free, my friend, ride strong.

Off-Topic / Stock Market Talk and Trading - part 2 [743]


What're you gonna do with it now?

Off-Topic / Stock Market Talk and Trading - part 2 [743]


1) Chevron
2) ExxonMobil
3) Marathon Petroleum
4) ConocoPhillips
5) Occidental Petroluem
6) Cheniere Energy

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


Salty? I am joined in one patriotic orgasm with Johnny!

I tell ya what, Iron, them Polacks are livin' right. Ban the abortion, bless the union, and pay ya to have kids like it's Christmas every month. That ain't socialism, brother... that's Jesusomics. USA! USA! Polska strong!

That's what I love about Poland. They takin' EU money with one hand and slappin' Brussels in the mouth with the other. That's patriotism. That's how we'd do it here in God's Country, if the damn RINOs didn't sell us out!

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


Hell ya, Brother! You sure said it right there - stuck it right in their Jewlovin' liberal cornholes!

Poland is back! Finally a true victory for conservative values, like:

1) Government control of media

2) Full blown welfare state

3) And judges hand selected by the Deep State!

Yeeeeeehaw! Reagan is smiling from Heaven!

God Bless the Government, the Government-run Media, and God Bless the USA!

It's good to have a welfare check lovin Johnny remind these snowflakes what a real conservative is! Give em hell Nawrocki! 5,000 PLN for every Pole!

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


Wow! This is the same language you used to describe Russians...

So maybe half of Poland is populated with orcs?

Poland B, some people say, was the part of Poland that was under Russian control. Coincidence? You decide!

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


Tell me Johnny, what excites you most about Nawrocki's campaign pledges? Why do you think these things will be good for Poland?

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]

@amiga500

If Korvinus wants to tax second-home-owners out of existence - then he is a communist.

Not every person with a lake house is an oligarch.

But beyond that, I suspect he doesn't realize the catch-on effects on the real estate market of such a decision, or how it will wipe out the wealth of the Polish middle class.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


This is what qualifies as an Polish "Conservative".

In America they would burn you at the stake.

This is all you need to know about this "apocalyptic" battle between "right" and "left" in Poland.

They would all be Democrats in America, or traitors in Russia.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


That's not what I said though, is it. I referenced their position on NATO.


What are you talking about? Under PiS, Poland was the largest recipient of EU transfer funds in the entire Union. Furthermore, there is simply no way PiS can be in any way anti-EU, when polls show that 80%+ of Poles support continued EU membership. PiS can be Eurosceptic, but not anti-EU. Kaczynski has some weird formulation he prefers, where he says he wants a "union of sovereign states".


No, really. What is Nawrocki doing in Trump's Oval Office, if he was still just a candidate? Why is Tusk falling over himself to tout Poland as the country that did the most to fulfill Trump's demand on defense spending?


My point was that the difference was nearly always in tone and posture, and not the actual substance. I concluded by saying Poland is neither Hungary nor Sweden. The piece about abortion specifically - said "abortion on demand".

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


Hahaha!

From the point of view of a person that has lived in Russia and in America - the "wild" differences between PiS and PO are truly staggering.

1) Both PiS and PO are resolutely pro-EU. There are no serious personalities discussing a Polexit, or Orban style confrontation with Brussels.

2) Both PiS and PO are among the most pro-NATO parties on the continent. Nobody is questioning Article V, but instead everyone competes with the other based on how good their relations are with Donald Trump. A shift between these two parties represents a total foreign policy nothing burger, as they are both super Atlanticist.

3) Heavy taxation and social spending are bipartisan. Despite being a supposedly "conservative" party, PiS historically spends like a drunken sailor. PO at the same time does not even bother to challenge them, and treats things like 500 and pension expansion as an electoral reality.

4) Cultural policy is more differentiated by posture and tone, rather than actual substance. Yes, PiS has taken a harder line on abortion, judicial reforms, media policy, and LGBT stuff. At the same time - neither party proposes legal abortion on demand like in Western Europe. Both parties are culturally Catholic and neither challenges the role of the Church in society. PO may frame itself as "tolerant" or "liberal," but it clearly rules out radical secularization.

5) As everybody here understands, the real story here is a decades long competition between two very flawed men. At its core, it's not about policies but personalities. Kaczynski versus Tusk. Old resentments over Smolensk, state media, the judiciary, and institutional control.

As I told Kania - nothing will change. This is intra-elite factional war. It's not a class war or ideological struggle. It's about who administers the Brussels money, and not whether to take it or not.

Poland is not turning into Hungary, and neither is it turning into Sweden. Relax Poles!

Contrast this with Russian or American elections, where you can get a guy that decides to pull out of NATO and tariff all of America's friends, or a dude that decides it's a good idea to invade Ukraine. And even in these countries... elections don't really change much!

What worries me, as I said before, is the very American 50/50 split and how people are discussing the election.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


That's not what I am saying.

I do argue for a return to a "dictatorship" of experts.

I think America was better when there were only three main channels (ABC, CBS, NBC) - and everyone listened to the same news every evening. Not like it is now, where everybody can go and read only the news which is pleasant to their ears and confirms their biases. I don't believe in any of this "well that's your opinion" and "that's just your truth" bullshit.

I do believe in science, and I think it is what accounts for the tremendous leap in life expectancy and living standards that we've experienced over the past two centuries.

I don't think, as Lenin said, that "any cook could run a country". I'm a big champion of the Deep State, if any such thing exists, as I'm sure they're the only ones keeping the machine together and in one piece.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


China doesn't know how to talk to the rest of the world, because it is fundamentally uncurious about the lives of the rest. America suffers from the same, but still to a lesser extent because of its international makeup.

China doesn't know what it wants from other people - beyond buying its goods.

Contrast that with Russia, that has a long list for how it would like everyone and their mother to live.

--------------------------------

China has an imperial tributary system. If you need something from China, come to Beijing, kowtow before the emperor, enjoy your gifts and f*ck off.

It literally showers Pakistan and Africa with money, and gets squat in return (despite everyone's apocalyptic concerns).

If Russia sent somebody the type of money that China sends, it would have a military base, insist on everyone being sent to Moscow to study, and forbid any kind of interaction with America.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


We don't possess even a fraction of the resources they possess. We don't have Hollywood. We don't have Taylor Swift. Neither do we have Youtube or X.

Whatever China does is always comical. Their ability to read Western and Russian audiences is abysmal. The type of propaganda they put out makes me embarrassed on their behalf.

One of the things that will truly limit China's "superpowerdom" - their inability to speak to other people in a compelling way.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


There were no "politics" in Poland in the "late" 17-hundreds. Just annexations.

What had led Poland to that series of annexations, was precisely the kind of political gridlock which you see now.

Instead of Liberum Veto, you have a PO Prime Minister and PiS President.

One group of magnates, stopping the other group of magnates from achieving anything worth note.

As other states that neighbored Poland centralized and modernized, Poland was busy mediating internal political squabbles. Once they had become overwhelmingly stronger than Poland, the neighbors played its politicians off against each other - and they sold the country to the highest bidder.

Extreme political polarization precedes system collapse.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


Someone?

Geee, I wonder who that someone might be? Hmmmmm....

Is this "someone", somebody that sent their Homeland Security Secretary to stump for Nawrocki at a rally in Jasionka?

Did this "somebody", ensure that the second ever CPAC event in Europe happened in Poland? The first one was in Hungary in 2022, in support of Orban.

Did this mysterious entity send his Vice President to a European security conference, where he read them lectures about their rotten political systems?

Does this "someone", have an ideologue named Steve Bannon, that's now going around saying that Trumpism can only really succeed when it is exported worldwide?

Very concerning things you are reporting, Jon.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]

Americans are also teaching our guys the same tricks.

Paul Manafort, the Trump campaign chief that went to jail for working for Viktor Yanukovych, had also consulted a Russian party on how to win elections the "American way".

Even corrupt-to-the-core Russian and Ukrainian cynics are just amateurs next to the crooks from Washington.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [425]


Because you are still at Stage I or II of the cancer.

In America Republicans and Democrats also used to intermarry, have barbecues together, and even pass bipartisan legislation. It was not shameful, for a Republican Congressman to attend the wedding of his Democrat colleague. Nobody tried to hide the fact that they went to the same fraternity, at the same university.

In America people used to actually have to think before providing an answer to something, rather than picking the ready-made argument from a list of party approved talking points.

The cable news channels and social media ended all that. Now if they see you shaking your Democrat colleague's hand, they'll cancel you on Twitter. If you allowed 1% of nuance into your actions - like disagreeing with Trump on some issue important to your local voters - then the national party will put $25 million dollars behind a campaign to primary you out of existence.

So yes - Americans also used to not hate each other. Now it's like two parallel countries living side by side.

Wait, and give the hate time to grow. You have things like monoethnicism which will act for some time as a break on the hate, but eventually it won't be enough to hold back the demons of American style politics.