News / The dossier of TW "Bolek" - Poland's IPN assisted by police enters the home of the late general Kiszczak [306]

Couldn't agree more. It's heartbreaking to watch Poland tear itself apart over this stuff - instead of treating Wałęsa as a national treasure that the world knows and respects, we're hell bent on finishing the job for the Soviets instead. Putin must be laughing his head off.

News / The dossier of TW "Bolek" - Poland's IPN assisted by police enters the home of the late general Kiszczak [306]

Quite understandable. The SLD had worked quietly and efficiently throughout the centre-right mess of 1991-1993, and unlike other parties (including Mazowiecki's Freedom Union) - they hadn't suffered defections and splits in the party. They took advantage of the in-fighting with the right wing parties to win the 1993 election, and then Kwasniewski simply outworked Wałęsa in 1995.

The Polish right wing's obsession with historical injustices is what causes it to enjoy brief successes followed by everyone remembering exactly why they voted them out last time.

News / The dossier of TW "Bolek" - Poland's IPN assisted by police enters the home of the late general Kiszczak [306]


It's also worth pointing out that the government in question only had what - 133 votes or so? It wasn't as if it was a strong government that was forced out of power - it was a weak government that simply couldn't survive.


Sounds like to me that a broad selection of Polish society was against a weak and unpopular minority government.

The situation was frankly ridiculous then. The two biggest parties (Mazowiecki's Freedom Union and Kwasniewski's SLD) were openly against the government, the Sejm was forcing Olszewski to stay as Prime Minister against his will - all in all, it was a deeply unpopular and weak government.

There's a good article here that sums it all up nicely - countrystudies.us/poland/68.htm


Sound familiar?

Just found this cracking little statement.

books.google.pl/books?id=4NRV6PHi7ogC&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=olszewski+government&source=bl&ots=iLu5J0lUPg&sig=Ls5dGh_cKjEU_n4Bi3aMgT-Tnfw&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=olszewski%20government&f=false


As I've said before, Kaczyński was playing all sorts of games then. He pretends to be a huge supporter of Olszewski's government, but in reality, he wasn't. If he genuinely was supported by Kaczyński, then he wouldn't have left PC (Centre Agreement) after the fall of his government.

News / The dossier of TW "Bolek" - Poland's IPN assisted by police enters the home of the late general Kiszczak [306]

Counting isn't your strong point, is it?


28% + 33% = 61% of Poles don't believe that he was an informer. 38% believe that he was. So 3 out of 5 Poles surveyed don't believe that he was an informer, which shows that the government propaganda simply isn't working.

News / The dossier of TW "Bolek" - Poland's IPN assisted by police enters the home of the late general Kiszczak [306]


So in other words, more than half of Poles don't believe that he was an informer.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

They'll just invent something to attack their political opponents with. Doesn't matter if it's true or not, the PiS method has always been to abuse first and worry later.

The most shameful thing is that Duda was elected claiming to be the President for all the Poles. He's now standing by and watching his political friends attempt to destroy one of the most famous Poles in history. What a disgrace.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

I mean, it's there for all to see. Morawiecki's bold lie about the 8000zł tax free amount not being a "hard commitment", Kaczyński's lie about the "500zł per child not meaning every child" - the truth is that they declared that these 5 things were a priority.

No wonder they're making such a huge fuss about Bolek, because it's the only way to disguise that they've catastrophically failed to keep their promises. Radom voters weren't fooled, though.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


It's absolutely hilarious. I'm looking at wPolityce now, and the last report was saying that the polls have closed in Radom. They've completely covered up the fact that Duda's uncle was beaten heavily by the opposition.

More to the point, there was a huge swing away from the PiS. Why is the right wing media so quiet?

So, today is the 100th day of the government, and just to remind everyone, this is what was posted on Beata Szydło's Facebook wall for the first 100 days of government.



Translation :

500zł per child - didn't happen (only from the 2nd onwards)
Lowering the retirement age - didn't happen
8000zł tax free amount - didn't happen
Free medicine for over 75's - didn't happen
Minimum wage at 12zł/hour - didn't happen

These were allegedly the priorities for the first 100 days. Every single "priority" didn't happen.

No wonder PiS lost so badly in Radom yesterday.

Oh, and just for kicks, from Twitter -

News / The dossier of TW "Bolek" - Poland's IPN assisted by police enters the home of the late general Kiszczak [306]


It's just extremely silly. The right wing media seems to have gone absolutely beserk, while the opposition media is very clear that they stand with Wałęsa. It's going to get even worse when he returns to Poland - the hyenas are salivating at the prospect of finally bringing him down, while the opposition is likely to unite around him. His daughter has also spoken of forming a political coalition with the sole intention of taking out PiS. Either way, it's not going to be pleasant.


It's the first I've heard of it. Who was in charge of PAP then, I wonder?

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


Strangely enough, the PiS media are silent about this loss in Radom. I wonder if it'll even be reported tomorrow on TVPiS?


How can you not run across electoral news? I mean - I understand that the PiS media tend not to report anything bad that happens, but still.

News / Poland to return to Catholic tradition? [177]


Important enough to have one of the most important streets in Warsaw named after her, which says it all.



Polish female soldiers in the Polish-Soviet war.

Plenty of women were in the AK and subsequently tortured/killed for their activities. There were others such as Maria Wittek - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Wittek

I'm always reminded of that famous slogan - Za naszą i waszą wolność

News / The dossier of TW "Bolek" - Poland's IPN assisted by police enters the home of the late general Kiszczak [306]


The thing about it is just how predictable it is. PiS have been talking for years about who they perceive to be an enemy, and as such, the united opposition was ready for the attacks on Wałęsa. But just - who do they think they are?

I can just see them salivating over the idea of destroying the image of Wałęsa in the world and rewriting textbooks now.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

You mean honest, decent, Catholic women who did nothing wrong other than marrying the wrong person - or even the right person who turned wrong?

Anyway, enough about single mothers, the most important news of today...


lodz.wyborcza.pl/lodz/1,35136,19659557,wujek-dudy-przegral-wybory-w-radomsku-pokonal-go.html

Despite political patronage, the uncle of Andrzej Duda lost the mayoral election in Radom to the opposition candidate Jarosław Ferenc of the electoral committee "Together for Radom". Unofficial results suggest that Jaroslaw Ferenc obtained 8676 votes while Wieslaw Kaminski of PiS was supported by 4904 voters.

Remember that in the 2014 mayoral election, PO narrowly won with 52.01% of the vote against PiS with 47.99%.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


And I agree with you completely. It's completely irresponsible (and Morawiecki has more or less said it straight) to even think about it - the country doesn't have 40 billion złoty to cover the costs and the banks are never going to accept it without a huge fight. If they lose the fight - the WIG30 will collapse along with the złoty.


You don't get the fact that many Polish men try every trick in the book to avoid paying child maintenance? You don't get the fact that they often hide their income through a family member/new lover so that it appears they have zero assets? You don't get the fact that a woman working in a job such as teaching (so that she can balance it around school hours) might only be earning 2000zł net maximum? You don't get the fact that the husband might have been killed in a car accident, or simply have vanished abroad with no trace? You don't get that the woman and child were subjected to violence for years before she was finally brave enough to escape and that her full time job pays her 1602zł a month and thus disqualifies her from the 500+ programme?

You don't get it because you haven't walked a mile in their shoes.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

A lot of PIS members are genuinely angry about the whole thing - I've been reading articles written anonymously by them, and it's all the same story - how can the government provide cash for rich people while not looking after the working poor? I know people like that too, and it's sheer madness that they'll be able to benefit from government money while a single mother (often through no fault of her own) will be denied any money if her income is above 1601zł/month.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


The whole thing is a mess. Basically, PiS promised in their election a programme that was completely unviable. It was all based on fooling voters that there was enough money in Poland to pay for 4 major promises - 500zł per child, retirement age of 60/65 reinstated, 8000zł tax free allowance, help for Swiss Franc mortgage holders as well as tax cuts (15% CIT, for instance).

Of course, now it turns out that the money simply isn't there. The 500+ programme is relying on a lot of extra debt to finance it, and their claims that there was 50 billion złoty missing in VAT collection appears to have been a huge lie. The government's own Ministry of Finance has been negative about the 500zł programme, yet its been implemented with only the bank tax in place to help pay for it.

Meanwhile, PO have trolled PiS by hammering home the point that they believe in 500zł for every child. PiS have been hit repeatedly with stories in the media of wealthy people claiming the 500zł per child, while the opposition has had a field day pointing out how a single mother with one child will not get the allowance if she works in an even reasonable job. PiS then made the mistake of saying stupid things such as "she should change her family situation" - which came across as cold and insensitive.

But the funniest thing of all is that PiS are now trying to claim that none of these things were actually real commitments.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

Poor Jarosław is starting to suffer from memory loss in his old age.


se.pl/pieniadze/newsy/kaczynski-nigdy-nie-obiecywalismy-500-zl-na-pierwsze-dziecko_781634.html

So - we have the situation that "no-one promised 500zł for the first child" (they did), "there wasn't a hard commitment to lowering the retirement age" (there was) and that it was actually be "very difficult to raise the tax free amount".

PiS have had their 100 days, and not a single promise was kept. I hope you PiS voters choke on your broken promises.

I don't think single child families will forget this in a hurry. Jarosław's bare faced lie is known to be exactly that - a lie.

News / The dossier of TW "Bolek" - Poland's IPN assisted by police enters the home of the late general Kiszczak [306]


Nothing much. The real leader of the government has a grudge going back 25 years against Wałęsa, and so he's trying his latest attempt to discredit him. Nothing new, it's just making Poland look like a laughing stock internationally. The desire for revenge is strong.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


It might already be in the pipeline - there's been a lot of comments in the media about such a system, and it would be a very positive move by the government. Businesses would predictably howl, but there's really no reason in this day and age of mobile data to not have such a system. But finance is not my thing, I'm only interested in tax systems.

In theory, if Poland wanted a very simple taxation environment - it would be pretty trivial for all VAT-registered companies to submit all their VAT-related purchases and sales automatically to the taxman and for the tax office to automatically generate a VAT bill/refund monthly. Anyone purchasing from EU countries could be obliged to input the invoice data within 24 hours of receipt of the goods, which would ensure that the data is up to date.

If you think about when you go to the shop and ask for a Faktura VAT - it's mostly via computer these days. It wouldn't take much programming to require that transactions are sent automatically to the tax office. Any business that's VAT registered can surely afford to pay for any equipment needed, too.

(by the way - I took your words on board about talking to the Ministry of Education - we'll see if anyone listens)

Latest news : murmurings are afoot that PiS are thinking about a 4x4 educational system. 4 years of nursery/kindergarten, 4 years of primary school, 4 years of middle school and 4 years of high school. Essentially, something like this :

3-7 - kindergarten
7-11 - primary school
11-15 - middle school
15-19 - high school

Not a terrible idea, all things considered. There's still the issue of 18-19 year olds being in school, but the rest of it is actually not a bad idea at all. Primary school kids could have the stability of having the integrated programme for 4 years instead of 3, the break at puberty is preserved, and high schools have an extra year. It brings back the 4 year high school, yet allows for the specialisation of schools at each major point of a child's development. The other nice thing is that it limits the age range of schools, so schools can be equipped specifically for each age range.

If this is a real project, then I'm for it.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


Yes, it's a huge problem in the EU, and it's caused by the idiotic way that VAT rates are not harmonised across the EU. The logical thing would be for a single EU VAT rate, set at the average of the current 28 rates. But because member states are idiots, we have the situation that the VAT system is wide open for abuse.

This article explains it, but it's a bit technical - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_trader_fraud

PO started working on this, and PiS should finish the job - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAF-T - which essentially makes the job of the tax office much easier. The estimate I've seen suggests 15-16 billion złoty will be saved when the system comes into full use in 2018. Essentially, it means that businesses have to provide financial data in a set format - that the tax office can then use standardised tools to spot potential frauds. For instance - anyone importing small, high value items (let's say mobile phones) will have to also supply sales invoices. Let's say that in the tax office, an inspector notices that some new company in Lublin started up and bought 2 million złoty worth of mobile phones. The system doesn't find any evidence of sales to customers, but rather the phones were sold to a company in Poznań. The inspector can then check the Poznań company - and if the phones were then sold to someone in Germany, it's highly likely that there's VAT fraud going on.

PO closed a lot of the common frauds, such as steel and electronics. The problem with the new PiS VAT law was that there were several very bad ideas - for instance, businesses would no longer be able to apply for binding rulings on VAT issues. The law also introduced liability for businesses that might have had no idea that they were part of a scam - which was madness.

Personally, I think PiS could do very well by introducing an always-online system. There's no reason why there can't be a permanent data connection between the kasa fiskalna and the tax office - likewise, no reason why companies issuing fatkury can't automatically transmit them to the tax office. It's a lot of work in the beginning, but it would mean that the tax office has all the relevant information instantly. It would be nearly impossible to commit fraud in this case, because systems could be set up to alert inspectors instantly of suspicious behaviour.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


Unfortunately, the real level of abuse seems to be much lower than PiS were talking about. A new VAT system will go into place in the next few months which will reduce fraud dramatically, but the expectation is that around 16 billion will be found. The 50 billion seems to have been a figure made up to justify their promises, nothing more.

News / The dossier of TW "Bolek" - Poland's IPN assisted by police enters the home of the late general Kiszczak [306]


Well, consider that we live in the era of globalisation (for better or worse - it is what it is) - what independent brands are left in Europe now?

Saab is finished, Volvo is owned by the Chinese, Skoda is just Volkswagen with a different shell, Dacia is essentially Renault's low cost brand - there's really no large scale independent production left in Europe.

But in buses, Poland managed to produce Solaris - which is doing ridiculously well. We might not have a domestic car industry, but we have a bloody successful bus industry and the makings of a decent train industry.

News / Poland to return to Catholic tradition? [177]


What about Poles in the UK that tried to impose their racist ideology in a London park not that long ago?

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


I mean that the article explained why PiS have given up trying to find this imaginary hole - it simply isn't there.

The new VAT law was a mess - lawyers looked at it and found that it appeared to have been written by a child. It was full of mistakes and had plenty of provisions that were incompatible with the EU VAT directives. The 200zł fee to change business data also aroused a lot of anger from small businesses. The other problem was that the Urzad Skarbowy simply weren't able to implement a new law like that - these things take a lot of time and planning, and the government couldn't afford to have people using the new law to their benefit due to the legal problems that it contained.

Any plan to solve problems with VAT should attract cross party support. It's an obvious thing that everyone will support, but you can't just rush a law in without discussing it properly and allowing everyone to have their say.

Fantastic article in the Financial Times about Wałęsa - blogs.ft.com/the-world/2016/02/who-in-poland-benefits-from-walesa-allegations/

It explains it nicely - the whole attack on Wałęsa is clearly to try and discredit the opposition to PiS. TVP is being openly used for anti-Wałęsa propaganda, but it seems that PiS have forgotten one thing - this is exactly what the Communists tried to do to him. If Soviet-backed Poland couldn't destroy him, what hope does a bitter man and a bunch of opportunists have?

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

A very nice article here :


polityka.pl/tygodnikpolityka/kraj/1651586,1,nie-ma-pieniedzy-na-przedwyborcze-obietnice-i-pis-dobrze-o-tym-wie.read

The article goes on to explain why the 50 billion 'hole' in VAT simply didn't exist and the government have gone quiet about it. It also explains why Deputy Prime Minister Morawiecki said that 8,000zł tax free isn't going to happen and why even 5,000zł tax free is unlikely to happen.

Later on, it explains why Duda's bill to help Swiss Franc mortgage holders is being ignored because it's financially wreckless and that the NBP + KNF have said that the cost is likely to be around 44 billion - which would completely destabilise the banking system and the złoty, so it's also unlikely to happen.

Finally, the retail tax - PiS are backing off on it, because it's now becoming obvious that the Polish suppliers stand to lose a considerable amount of money because of it. The bank tax has resulted in higher fees and commissions - and banks have completely ignored the threats from the government.

The article ends with -

News / Poland to return to Catholic tradition? [177]


If it was the pillar of the country, why would it be taking a vast amount out of the budget and paying nothing into it?

News / Poland to return to Catholic tradition? [177]


From memory, we're already funding Islamic classes for children.

News / Poland to return to Catholic tradition? [177]


It's a huge amount of cash. 1.3 billion złoty a year to provide religion classes in schools, for example. The money spent there would pay for free school meals for all schoolchildren to ensure that every child receives a hot meal daily.

News / Poland to return to Catholic tradition? [177]

One nice thing that a lot of more sensible priests have done is to demand that simple, inexpensive clothes are used for the first communion. Our religion teacher in school (one of my favourite colleagues) is forever banging it into their heads that it's not about presents or parties, but parents are irresponsible fools.

News / The dossier of TW "Bolek" - Poland's IPN assisted by police enters the home of the late general Kiszczak [306]


Owned by VAG.


Owned by Renault.


They did and tried for years to do just that. Daewoo was the only interested party.