News / Polish Parliamentary Elections 2023 [933]

They are trying to find some sort of balance between their conservative and liberal supporters but failing rather miserably. They alienate their conservative voter base by supporting abortion on demand up to the 12th week of pregnancy and at the same time alienate the economic liberals by trying to outbid PiS in social benefits promises (800+ starting from June, babciowe etc.).

The only reason they stand a good chance of winning is that people are getting tired of the arrogance and nepotism in PiS, as well as of constant conflict with the EU that is costing Poland billions of euro, and want things to change. The exorbitant inflation is not helping PiS either.

News / Polish Parliamentary Elections 2023 [933]

KO is PO plus a couple of smaller parties and P2050 is Hołownia's party (in coalition with PSL).

Apart from that there is PiS, Lewica and Konfederacja. Any other party is nothing more than political plankton.

Off-Topic / Hollywood Films [62]


Hey, marry whom you want and do business with whom you want. It's a free world.

Off-Topic / Hollywood Films [62]


Wow! They must be a really smart nation then. They also have disproportionate number of doctors, lawyers, Nobel prize winners and scientific discoveries. Perhaps imitating them, instead of hating, might be a good idea?

As far as I know, nobody is forcing anyone to spend their lives drinking cheap beer and mindlessly gazing into a TV screen. People should study, work hard, be diligent, disciplined and thrifty, and go into banking, science, medicine, law, engineering or media, if they want. Jews do it, so can everyone else. But I realise that it's easier to sit on the couch and hate - typical for Polish anti-semites as well.

Life / In need of good Polish jokes about Polish culture, people, etc [226]

@Alien
Schmuck is a yiddish origin word for somebody obnoxious, contemptible or/and foolish. People who see Jews all around them are very often just that.

Life / In need of good Polish jokes about Polish culture, people, etc [226]


Oh, you know - whenever people find out that I support Israel in their conflict with palestinian Arabs or when I say something critical about the Church (of which I am a practising member); or when people think that I am doing "too well" in life (you know, the old Polish "na bank ma jakieś układy", "pewnie Żyd" etc.). :)


For a mensch, it doesn't. For schmucks, it sometimes does. Hence my method. :)

Life / In need of good Polish jokes about Polish culture, people, etc [226]


:)

Thank you, Lyzko. I absolutely love it when people suspect me of Jewish roots. When it happens in the real life I neither openly deny nor confirm it but I try to strengthen their suspicion and watch their reaction. Great fun. It is my way of sifting out idiots and checking who's a mensch and who's a schmuck. Works like a charm - I highly recommend it.

Off-Topic / Hollywood Films [62]


Yes, that's exactly my response. Especially that in his very first post he draws from a book by an anti-semite and Holocaust denier, Eustace Mullins. After what happened in Europe during WW2 I have no time for lengthy debates with anti-semitic sickf*cks - I just call a spade a spade.

It is, however, quite interesting how often putinists or Putin sympathisers are also rabid anti-semites. Quite interesting indeed.

Off-Topic / Hollywood Films [62]

What a load of anti-semite, complete and utter nonsense.

I'm not a big fan of Hollywood, but your vonstant, vile, anti-semitic crap is getting tedious, Crno.

Life / In need of good Polish jokes about Polish culture, people, etc [226]


Sure.

It's funny because nobody would call a small boy Zbigniew. They would use a diminutive version (Zbyszek or Zbysiu). Only when they boy grew older would he be called Zbigniew. :)

Life / In need of good Polish jokes about Polish culture, people, etc [226]

That's true. Poles and Jews have more in common than both our nations realise. :)

News / TVP producer fired for allowing rainbow flag on the air... [244]


There's no such thing as "neutrality" when it comes to God. Check out Cornelius van Til, Greg Bahnsen and presuppositional apologetics - brilliant stuff.

Life / In need of good Polish jokes about Polish culture, people, etc [226]

@jon

That's an old Jewish joke originally. You just replaced a Jew with a Pole. :)

News / TVP producer fired for allowing rainbow flag on the air... [244]


Some parts of it are metaphorically true and some literally true, which means that it is in its entirety completely true.

Inspired and inerrant word of God.

thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/the-chicago-statement-on-biblical-inerrancy/

News / TVP producer fired for allowing rainbow flag on the air... [244]


The photos you posted show the inside of a reformed church in Warsaw (Kościół Ewangelicko-Reformowany w RP) but unfortunately not a traditional, puritan one. KER w RP is a liberal church, no different from its equivalents in the West. Luckily they only have about 3000 members and 8 parishes in the entire Poland. A marginal denomination.

If you want real, traditional Calvinists in Poland, take a look at Kościół Ewangelicko-Prezbiteriański or Ewangeliczne Kościoły Reformowane (CREC); you won't find any of this nonsense there. Not to mention the Catholic Church which, despite all the recent scandals, still defends the biblical truth and church tradition.

News / How could PiS better spend billions instead of 500+ ? [280]

@Paulina

Obviously this is a very important issue, but I don't recall you proposing the child psychiatry reform being financed with the money that is being defrauded or wasted on gazzillions of other things by the government and their cronies. Why is it that you singled out the child benefit as the source for it? Why do you insist that the money be taken away from parents and not from somewhere else?

If you said: "let's take a look at Fundusz Kościelny, countless spółki skarbu państwa, spending of Lasy Państwowe funds, or dodgy fundacje - for example - and finance child psychiatric wards instead", then I would be the first to support such idea. You, however, for some reason insist on the children benefit - the one thing that PiS actually got right - to be used for the purpose. That's strange.

News / How could PiS better spend billions instead of 500+ ? [280]


Yes, I understand. You're still using child psychiatric wards as your excuse to hate on child benefits. Pity.

News / How could PiS better spend billions instead of 500+ ? [280]


What I know would happen, and you know it too but won't admit it cause you're a woman, so biologically unable to admit that you were wrong. :)


Very well. Take a look at my post above again - you would still have nowhere near enough for what you hope to achieve, so that would be completely nonsensical. You would merely be taking money away from lovely people like me and giving it back to Sasins, Czarneks and other Suskis. Brilliant idea! :)

News / How could PiS better spend billions instead of 500+ ? [280]


*yaaaaaaawn*

I have already clearly showed in #226 why your idea of income treshold is unreasonable and explained to you (#234) that comparing social benefits for mostly unemployed people to 500+ doesn't make sense because those social transfers are not governed by the same mechanisms as a common benefit like 500+.

Also, even if you introduced your beloved income treshold and it magically worked, without anything that I described in #226 happening (fat chance!), and you succeeded in taking the child benefit from 5% of the highest earners that wouldn't even mean saving 5% of 40 billion pln (well-off people, as well as the rich, usually have fewer children than low income parents) but probably only about 2-3% adjusted for fewer children, so good luck reforming the children healthcare system or disable persons benefits with 220 million euro (rough equivalent of 1 billion pln that you would save). :)

OK, take it away from 10% of richest people - you still only have 440 million euro. That's peanuts money. To have any chance of succeeding, you would have to take the money away from practically everyone and make sure that the government doesn't steal or waste it (good luck with that lol).

News / How could PiS better spend billions instead of 500+ ? [280]


That's quite charming but I meant serious charity. I asked about the percentage of your net income but obviously I don't want a 100% precise number. Just give us your rough estimate.


The only reason why you think I earn a lot is because, apparently, you don't meet people who really do. I meet them, on a daily basis. And guess what - they take 500+ too. Not because they are "immoral", "unethical" or any other bullsh*t like that, but because it makes sense - they can spend the money in a much more sensible and efficient way than the government. And they give generously to charity as well, both in absolute amounts and percentage-wise.

If you really think that PiS (or any other government) would use the 40 billion to magically heal the children psychiatric care system or increase the świadczenia opiekuńcze for disabled people then you are deluding yourself. It would all just disappear in countless other spółki skarbu państwa, fundacje, fraud state-funded enterprises or - in the best case scenario - it would end in South Korea or USA, as payment for weapons (but those money would be found elsewhere anyway).

Also, you repeatedly ignore the fact that 500+, no matter if it goes to poor or rich people, goes right back into the economy: food (farmers, food industry), clothes, schools and kindergartens (tens of thousands of workplaces all over Poland), services of all kinds (millions of workplaces), so the entire country benefits because of that.

You really are becoming a bitter, nagging hag, more and more each year. Find a decent man, marry him, let him impregnate you, give birth to children and take all the benefits you can to your heart's content. Maybe it will help you. Maybe. But don't use "children psychiatric wards" or disabled children as a comfortable excuse for your bitterness and frustration. It's pathetic.

News / How could PiS better spend billions instead of 500+ ? [280]


:D

I promise that starting from the next month I won't even pay one single penny of it for my daughter's school. It will all go for my son's kindergarten (it won't be enough, but will cover most of it) and I'm sure you agree that in a situation when the state cannot provide enough places for all the children, they should at least partly reimburse the costs that parents have to face.

OK, Paulina - you like to poke your nose into other people's private lives, so now it's my turn: how much money do you give to charity each month? Domy dziecka, children's hospices, Unicef food aid for Africa or anything really. What is the percentage of your net income that you give to charity? Such a moral, upright and honest person like you surely has nothing to be ashamed of in this matter.

Let's hear it.

News / How could PiS better spend billions instead of 500+ ? [280]


Hey, you can have two children as well - you will then receive exactly the same amount of money for them as I do. Simple as that. :)


Yes, but she likes her job and I want to keep her happy. You know what they say - "happy wife, happy life". :D


No, they are sponsoring 35% of it. Or - if it makes you feel better - they are sponsoring 90% of my son's kindergarten because the state is inept and cannot provide enough places in state-run kindergartens.

In any case, the income threshold for most of the benefits I mentioned (rodzinne, opiekuńcze, pielęgnacyjne etc.) very often doesn't really apply the way it would with 500+ because they go to unemployed people, so the level of offical-income fraud (that I mentioned in my first post) is not that high. With 500+ you can go back to my post #226 and read what exactly would happen.

News / How could PiS better spend billions instead of 500+ ? [280]

...another - incredibly important - reason for the existence of 500+ is to make all the lazy and selfish bezdzietne pasożyty społeczne (I mean not those who can't have children but those who don't want to) foam at the mouth while they spit at the benefit. Merely observing their helpless rage is well worth the 40 billion pln/year. :)

News / How could PiS better spend billions instead of 500+ ? [280]


Of course it did. It was 1.29 children per mother just before introducing 500+, now it's 1.47...


Wrong again. Recently there has been an increase every year...

macrotrends.net/countries/POL/poland/fertility-rate

... not a huge one but still. Without the child benefit money and rising costs of living - thousands of people - especially those with very low and low wages, would never have decided to have children, and we would be back into 1.2 area (or even lower) again.

News / How could PiS better spend billions instead of 500+ ? [280]


Erm... I am simply not discussing other things but 500+ at the moment. Much more money - that could be spent of children healthcare for example - is wasted in other areas than child benefit funds (95% of which goes right back to the economy (goods and services purchased locally in Poland).


Yes, I am quite comfortable financially and yes, I take 500+. I use the money to pay for my daughter's private school and my son's private kindergarten (we were refused the place in a state-run one, repeatedly). The 1000pln/month I receive covers about 35% of the cost. My daughter goes to highschool next year, so 500+ will almost cover my sons kindergarten cost (which, I suppose, is fair as the state is totally inept in this regard and cannot provide enough places in state kindergartens).

News / How could PiS better spend billions instead of 500+ ? [280]

... and it would be exactly the same for every other treshold. If the threshold is 2000pln - would it be fair for people at 2000pln to receive 500/800+, and those who have 2001pln not receiving it? That's why basing child benefits on income is such a raging nonsense.

Poor (really poor) families get a lot of other help and benefits: unemployment benefits, świadczenia rodzinne, opiekuńcze, pielęgnacyjne, dopłaty do czynszu, ulgi w opłatach, lokale socjalne, a lot of lonely mothers receive alimenty for their children from Fundusz Alimentacyjny etc. etc and most of them are based on income.

500+ is not such benefit - it is for every single child of everybody who has children these days (a lot of people choose not too, most often than not out of pure laziness and selfishness) and it is needed, if only to show how important it is for the survival of any country to support parenthood.

News / How could PiS better spend billions instead of 500+ ? [280]


:D LOL!

OK... let's assume that the income treshold for 500+ is 3000pln per family member (just an example for the sake of argument). Do you really think that any Janusz, whose income would be 3100, 3200 or even 4000 p/fm would sit idly and watch his somsiad - whose income is 2999 p/fm - receive "free government money" for his children while his bombelki are deprived of such help? Ha ha ha ha... are you sure you're from Poland? :D

The next think that would happen is that all the Janusze earning even twice the treshold would be in their bosses' offices the next day negotiating the official pay cut big enough to drop below the treshold (of course they would receive the rest in cash "pod stołem"). Bosses would be more than happy, because it would mean lower ZUS, health insurance and pension payments - so while the employee would be getting the same wages (plus the child benefit), the employer would save a lot of money too. The result of that would be that magically 90% of workforce would land below the treshold and the tax income would drop drastically as well as health-care money and pension savings - a complete and utter disaster in the long run. Brilliant plan, Paulina. Really brilliant.

Some people really need that money for their daily expenses, some may go for a holiday or pay with it for a private kindergarten for example etc. but in every case the money is certainly not enough for all the cost of supporting a child - it is merely some help from the state to those who choose to have children in these difficult times and most civilised countries provide such benefits; native children are a rare and valuable little things in Europe these days, when low birth rates mean either dying out of European countries or the necessity of replacing native populations with third world immigrants.

As I said, Kindergeld, as our German friends and neighbours call it, is the best and most commonsensical social benefit ever invented.

News / How could PiS better spend billions instead of 500+ ? [280]

@Paulina

500+ has significantly decreased the level of poverty (especially among children). It's a good social benefit - fair and commonsensical.

News / How could PiS better spend billions instead of 500+ ? [280]

@amiga500

Read my post again, village idiot. I support 500+ and I mentioned it on many occasions. Not everything PiS does is stupid.