Life / Grass is always greener? Poland experience. [69]

Monitor, thanks for your great feedback and comments. thats good information.


I can saturate a 20Mbit downstream 24 hours a day. And in the USA and Canada you have a xfer cap of about 400GB to 600GB per month. Its pretty easy when you have ~ 20 workstations and servers doing things like receiving multiple HD video streams from broadcast locations of show(podcast) guests being managed by a TriCaster and then rebroadcast back up as 3 different bit rate streams to a reflector is one example. This is in addition to clients uploading massive video files to my local fileserver located on my end of the connection for processing and transcoding, all while other servers are sending out render jobs to a server farm and then receiving back the rendered data. Meanwhile you have other people doing normal things. Web, Netflix, RDP, HD skype, etc. This kind of bandwidth is not available in the USA or Canada unless you live in one of Google's projects centers. Do "most" people need it, of course not. But anyone wanting to seriously build a business on the internet or that will facilitate them working remotely for companies paying in $$ via the internet your bandwidth makes more possible the more you have.

Life / Grass is always greener? Poland experience. [69]

cant agree with you at all about housing build quality. its far superior in Poland then to USA and Canada and the UK for that matter. "everything else"? well.. life.. ie. tickets to a movie, parking, taxis, public transport, housekeepers, gardeners, carpenters to build shelves, etc.

if your meat stinks after one day , it is not processed. In the USA your sandwich meats will last for months unrefrigerated they are so plastic. Food is definitely 1/3 the cost. You just have not experienced it. Average lunch in Vancouver at a very average sandwich shop will be 48 ZLT.

Why do I keep on going on about Gigabit internet access? Probably because it is the single biggest GOLDEN COW staring every Polski in the face. Its like a farmer 600 years ago staring at a traktor that runs on solar energy saying "I have a cow and a wagon, what do i need this for?"

Life / Grass is always greener? Poland experience. [69]


no i came here asking for people to poke holes in my ideas and criticize my pros and cons. Your attitude speaks volumes about yourself but says nothing about Poland.

Life / Grass is always greener? Poland experience. [69]


I provided evidence. where is yours. I am in Vancouver now and live here everyday. not the "north shore".. Vancouver itself. And when I write the 15,781 ZLT check in 2 days for my small space for housing, I will remember how "wrong" I am.


Here is a source that contradicts what you are saying. dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2043004/Lifestyle-better- Poland-UK-Less-crime-violence--cheaper-too.html

More evidence.


You cant on one hand tell me the infrastructure and roads are not done and many years off and then say first mover advantage is over. That doesnt compute. free flow and physical access improvements are part of the requirement for the growth and expansion. It doesnt take an MBA to see that an increase in commerce and services will boom if you could take a truck loaded with goods quickly on a non stop on a good highway from Warsaw to Berlin instead of a two lane suicide lottery. More people would travel between cities, holiday destinations would become a reality. Business like Amazon.PL could become a reality. I could go on for hours. All of this requires the infrastructure, that you admit, and I agree is not done. Suddenly, the Polish air conditioning installer /repairman or a simple roofer can expand his circle of service to be much much larger as he can reasonably drive further away efficiently and reach those new customers with his better service or product.


removing the barrier and complication of currency fluctuation increases commerce and trade.


unified currency provides dilution of country or region specific problems making the eurozone, and in this case Poland more stable financially and attractive to investment by foreigners and companies. more investment = good. just to be clear.


Have you ever been shopping? Have you ever done a transaction with a company in 2 currencies? Have you ever had to negotiate the float? Different currencies are a complication, inhibiter and risk factor in all transactions.


not even close. its just a pause as the result of the global economic crisis and the recession in the rest of Europe.


this is just a cost. and a discretionary one. drive a cheap car if its a problem. Minimum insurance cost for a normal car in Vancouver is around 6,000 ZLT per year. so if your Jeep is worth about $20k USD the cost is the same.


I actually suspect it would be higher. 8 - 14% inflation increase for that growth and advantage would be absorbed and offset by the increased growth. Of course this is not the case if you are sitting on your couch. USA inflation rate is 1.6% and the country is a disaster economically and with jobs. huge debt, etc . inflation rate is only one of many factors in economic health.


therefore you are looking for buying opportunities you can maintain and improve now until that increase takes place right? ;) *wink


seems a shame that you CHOOSE to limit yourself, especially when you can have a gigabit internet connection. Billion dollar companies started with far less.


thank you for those resources! glad your experience has been good.

So far the only real wisdom I see that makes any sense is to be cautious of the administrative differences that may not work on common sense or practical business rules. This however is really only a language barrier issue. Once you learn and understand the rules they want you to operate within, go nuts!

Life / Grass is always greener? Poland experience. [69]


good point, fortunately my daughter speaks fluent polish. spelling however might be a struggle. :)


yes, and it is in USA / CAnada as well and getting worse. However Poland's funding is higher then in UK, and when I have a moment Ill compare it to USA. Im guessing its higher.


yes, and that all means growth, jobs, more areas opening up to provide first mover advantage opportunities to those who see the potential.

Life / Grass is always greener? Poland experience. [69]


these facts are all true in Canada and USA but to a much worse degree. and with a staggering national debt.

And yes, I can always leave after 6 months and call it a test drive. Or I can stay. the test drive might as well be a real drive as there is nothing for me to lose either way except the cost of plane flights and freight shipment of personal goods. my wife is polish, I would have the support of an existing thriving company in Warsaw, and my business already is location independant.

Life / Grass is always greener? Poland experience. [69]

re: polish politics and politicians

I am wayyyy too stupid to know anything about either, but as an outsider looking at the state of the world and my own country. Poland is looking to land on the right side of everything the way I see it. The currency deflation to push back against europe's recession. the political maneuvering to fund infrastructure development, roads, highways, internet with EU funds, and the large investment in education, the delay of joining the euro until stabilization throughout the zone. All look like savvy moves. Even if they are by accident.

Joining the euro should bring more growth, more stability, greater trade, and an increase to property values as investment pours in. Yes, some people may get left behind and lost in the shuffle. However, they were probably going to get left behind anyway. Is it fair, no. but will it be beneficial overall to Poland. yes.. at least I think so.

Life / Grass is always greener? Poland experience. [69]

@thetenminuteman

fair points about navigating bureaucratic intricacies and assuming common sense procedures. However as you mentioned, thats something that becomes the cost of doing business through hiring competent advisors. Im also not per say advocating Poland's investment suitability or investment potential as I can see huge risk in getting the timing right on things like that.

I am however advocating Polands growth potential and high quality of life. Especially as compared to Canada / USA specifically.

My family would be with me in Poland, and my friends are already scattered across the world. As for the comfortable slipper, I guess the cost / quality and craftsmanship of the Polish slippers are looking mighty appealing all factors considered.

Love / English girl moving to Poland with my Polish boyfriend for the first time [69]

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2043004/Lifestyle-better-Poland-UK-Less-crime-violence--cheaper-too.html

Life / Grass is always greener? Poland experience. [69]

this is the kind of horsesh1t answer which becomes so amusing on this forum. why doesnt an intelligent, educated, and experienced person address the points with conversation and facts? Thats what would "save" me money. However, I dont have much use for saving money. I like to earn it instead.

Please tell me what is so great about any other place in the UK, USA, Canada, that isn't outweighed by the opportunities in Poland?

Life / Grass is always greener? Poland experience. [69]


glad to hear.. I liked what I saw while I was there this past summer / fall

Life / Grass is always greener? Poland experience. [69]

1 gigabit p/s $32 per month.. seems like lots of providers to me.
1 gigabit p/s $40 per month

there is a full list of providers on wikipedia.

as for Vancouver, sorry, North Vancouver is "not" Vancouver, and its full of squalor, dilapidated indian housing, and you are trapped by a bridge with insane traffic. the non-indian houses are old, outrageously priced for what you get,and full or rot and insects. anywhere in the surrounding area is well over 1 million for something even remotely liveable. spend a few minutes on a realty site and you will see. In addition, prices for everything else in Vancouver are 5 to 6 times higher then in Warsaw. Please show me a detached house anywhere in Vancouver, or nearby for less than 1.3 million that is anywhere near as nice as this $300,000 USD one in Warsaw.

This phenomenon has even become the subject of a comedy website: crackshackormansion.com.

i am happy to be wrong, but the facts are showing me otherwise which is why I invited this conversation.

Life / Grass is always greener? Poland experience. [69]


wow, ok if you say so. I guess i'll just have to believe you that somehow Poland has masterfully swindled the World Bank. Kudos.


no, you cant. not to the equivalent standard, luxury, and quality. You can barely even buy a shack outside of Vancouver for $1,000,000 USD. In other equivalent cities in the USA the prices are similarly high. San Francisco, Washington DC, Boston, Chicago. Only once you get about 30+ kilometers away do prices start to drop.


what does it matter? either you are a luddite or being ignorant. I guess you can focus on cutting down some trees or digging up some coal since you havent realized that the future for most if not all economies is information technology and the internet.

Life / Grass is always greener? Poland experience. [69]

yes you are making my point for me. Housing in one of the most inexpensive states in the USA is what it costs for a nicer house 15km outside warsaw. you are also confirming that life expectancy in poland is as high as the USA and climbing.

@grubas

a) im looking at world bank / imf economic data. what else should i be referencing?

b) its the World Bank counting, and if there is fraud, you think Poland might hide debt better then the USA? *shakes head*

c) please show me the reference, I dont see this fact anywhere, and want to consider it against the population and land area.

d) fair enough, so at worst its equal to all other nations

e) no, not within 15k of a city center like Warsaw. you cannot. and that is referencing my high end, 700k zlt is about 230l USD, but im sure you knew that.

f) it is, i provided gigabit internet (which you cannot even get in the USA unless you live in Google's Kansas experiment zone) and Ikea's own website prices in each country as my examples. What are your examples?