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Poland's post-election political scene [4080]
And foreign investment by big, rich well established Western concerns will create situations with which fledgdling Polish companies cannot compete.
That's why the important thing to do is to focus on what Poland can do as opposed to what Poland can't do. Poland can compete in agriculture, it can compete in IT, banking and so on. She can't compete when it comes to supermarkets or courier services - and nor should she try. It doesn't make sense to throw large amount of limited resources to try and dominate every industry, it doesn't work and it deprives Poland of needed foreign capital.
Strong antitrust laws are needed, but the trick is for the important infrastructure to stay in Polish hands while allowing everyone to use it on equal terms. That drives innovation and competition while ensuring that no foreign company abuses it for their own purposes.
The optimum arrangement would be one enabling Polish startup businesses to learn from foreign entrepreneurs.
Absolutely. There are a lot of small things that can be done - for instance, are you familiar with TEDx talks? These kind of things should be supported and funded locally to encourage people to share their knowledge and experiences - but unfortunately, Poland is fixated on 'big ticket' items and the small things are often ignored. But it all goes back to a very unfriendly climate for new businesses and governments since 1989 (well, 1945) being obsessed with protecting the big industry at the expense of small, flexible companies. But it's not just central government to blame - even towns and cities with independent mayors are prone to throwing large amounts of cash at pointless vanity projects. Look at all those stupid Aquaparks that have been built in Poland - the example from Slupsk shows that a huge amount of small entrepreneurs could have been funded for the cost of one vanity project. Which will bring in more money and build Poland more?
What about requiring a Polish majority stake in any company operating in Poland?
The problem with that approach is that the Poles don't really have the cash to invest, and no foreign company is going to put up 70% of the capital in exchange for 49.9% of the votes.
I don't disagree with you Polonius - I think Poland really should focus on small and medium sized businesses and should help them as much as possible. But there's only a finite pot of money - and unfortunately, miners need their high pensions and their unproductive jobs...
Thinking a bit out of the box - Polonius, don't you agree that it makes no sense whatsoever to spend $75/tonne mining Polish coal when it costs $50 in Antwerp to buy? We should be looking for innovative solutions here - and one idea would be to build up industries around the coal mine dealing with innovative solutions with coal. Fund smallish companies to work there, let them use the mine to supply coal to experiment with, and see where it takes you. The workers that want to work will take the funding, and those that don't want to can be unemployed. If nothing comes of it, at least the work experience will help them find jobs elsewhere in mining - and Poland might just produce something that changes the world as a result.
Likewise, it was the same story with the shipyards. We threw so much money at them, when in reality, the trick was to move to building smaller boats that were in demand. Look at these guys en.delphiayachts.eu/ - we should be helping them as much as possible.
