Poland highest inflation in 20 years

That's not true Jon - eventually farmers will stop large scale farming, and just go back to having enough eggs meat and whatever to feed their own family and a few city cousins.

That is exactly what happened in Cuba. There is a great film on Netflix - it is called Cuba and the cameraman I think where a US cameraman visits Cuban friends every 10 years from the 70s up until the present day.

Farming commercially is very hard work - early mornings, late nights, no holidays etc. and if there's no profit in it then people are rather going to sit smoking and drinking. Happened in the PGRs and can happen again

I know people hove done well with that and a retiree who bitterly regrets putting their lump sum into gilts.

I very nearly bought bitcoin when it was so new it was almost valueless. A couple of hundred quid in it back then and I could probably buy Garfield Weston out now.


They'd have to have a degree of choice in the matter. With a nation's food supply, a nation is entitled to call the shots about how productive land is used or walked away from. That worked pretty well in the U.K. pre-single-market. In Cuba, Poland, Ch8na perhaps not so much due to the way they did it. Our U.K. farmers were certainly richer then than since like doctors 'forced' into the NHS, we drowned out their objections with very welcome cash.

That's actually a good point. Worth saying though that farms in the U.K. are larger than those in Poland (enclosure acts and post-war rationalisation plus geography/topography) and many are private farms that are closer in size to a PGR than most farms in PL. In the U.K. a three or five hectare farm wouldn't be considered a farm. It would be a smallholding (I grew up on one) with little or no state input except in times of war or crisis and sadly no subsidies/incentives either.

Which a retail investor should never try to do anyway. The system is completely rigged towards the market makers, and large institutions when it comes to making a fast buck. Normies that make a quick buck are lucky exceptions.


Gold is the worst for that. A compact store of wealth, that is completely untraceable and for all intents and purposes practically irrecoverable.


Another good thing. Avoid all the "Forex" sites like the plague. These are essentially criminal operations, parting good people with their money. Guys with PhDs that work at hedge funds, haven't a clue about where currencies will move - but just make educated guesses. Your chances against them are hopeless.

Of all things mentioned, bonds are probably the safest bet. Gilts are kind of a complicated story, I would rather look at US Treasuries.

That being said, if you did well on your real estate investments, why not just continue with that? If you don't have the means at this moment to buy something interesting outright, you could still invest into REITs. Real estate investment trusts own income producing properties, and as a shareholder you're paid your little share of the rent, as well as earn from the appreciation of the underlying asset. But be careful with REITs - study them carefully, and if unsure ask me - I'll tell you if it's trash.

Which is why farmers use spades and deep holes ;-)


Absolutely. The more an investment scheme advertises, the worse it is. Crypto ones too (even especially); so many are essentially Ponzi schemes and their websites are fiction.

Your point about retail investing is spot on. About REITs, I did buy into something similar and it actually did rather well.

One thing that helped my family through the high inflation years of the 70s was, oddly enough, antiques and art. Back in the 50s and 60s you could buy a Dresden vase for a few shillings on a market stall and a decade or so later sell it for hundreds. Now, 6 decades later, they fetch thousands. Plus, you had the pleasure of looking at it while you had it. That boat has largely sailed now though.

This. If you know what to buy, definitely the best hedge against inflation. It's not like you have to be alone in figuring this out either - there are mature industries around these things, and plenty of professionals prepared to advise. Just for fun, go to the next Sotheby's or Christie's show next to where you are . You'll be surprised that many items are going for $10, $20K and not millions and millions. You don't even have to buy the items outright, but can again enter fractionally with other investors (but then you can't hang it up at home, instead it gets locked in a vault somewhere in the alps).

I may sound like some trash Forbes writer, but "art" really is the inflation hedge of the rich. Along with trophy properties.

But do buy something that has at least some promise. Don't go blowing hundreds of quid on antiques in your local shop. There are websites for this type of stuff, as there is for everything. I think Masterworks.com is one, and artelier.com another. There are a few of these startups popping up every year that are trying to "democratize" art investment.

The trick is to go to small town shipping auctions in the countryside and sell in the capital. Or was. Antiques have become the national hobby in some ways and it's much harder to do nowadays. With antiques, short term it's a lot about where you buy and where you sell.

A few years ago I bought an eighteenth century map on eBay for just short of 100 quid. It was the first known printed map of a particular country that's about to become oil rich. There were fewer than 200 printed and I notice that there are a couple on sale now for several times what I paid.

If you get it right, it's great against inflation. Especially if you don't get too attached to the stuff and are happy to sell it on.

If I had the time, energy and money, I'd be looking at the best of the PRL-era furniture and the few luxury goods produced in 1950s Poland. You used to see things like that at Banacha market though sadly not now.

Well yes, but again - do you know what to look for? Some porcelain cup from China might seem priceless to you, but an appraiser will later tell you that it's an imitation made in Japanese-occupied Formosa brought back by someone's grandad from Malaysia.


Oh f*ck. Is it a map of Guyana? I would buy that from you. I did some work for a project offshore (remotely from NY). If you really did buy an antique map of Guyana with that in mind - pretty savvy!

This is key.

Generally finite things of relatively low value. When silver prices went up, so many high quality items were just sold as scrap and boiled down. Collectors wept and now things have stabilised, the value of existing craft silver has gone up due to scarcity.


Mauritania, or at least the very short lived English gum trading post there. Finite in number, a niche item, and I think a good thing to hold on to.

A sad story here about inflation in Poland affecting funding of scientific research.

sciencebusiness.net/news/basic-science/poland-funding-fewer-basic-research-grants-high-inflation-hits

Well well well, looks like jon has outed himself, champagne socialist or self hating capitalist which condescending label do you prefer? ;)

Having modest savings earned through work makes someone a 'champagne socialist' does it? That would mean millions of teachers, factory workers, doctors and nurses are swigging champagne.

And the real estate company investment was a grand's worth of shares (a champagne socialist could maybe buy two or three crates of champagne at most with that) in a company that rented out office buildings in Spain. Deliberately making profit from housing lived in by people of average income or below is of course immoral.

You don't have to like capitalism to put your savings in it. Decent people don't like white privilege either though few would be daft enough to turn it down if they get any.

And when inflation here in Poland or elsewhere (caused in part by capitalist exploitation of labour and economic mismanagement by governments who favour the rich) erodes savings, there's nothing wrong with protecting your retirement savings from that.

Hey, jon, did you figure out who should be setting prices?

If it's too difficult, who causes inflation?

Vladmir Putin. Now crawl back in your coffin.

It would reject him as quickly as most people in Poland would reject an interest rate rise as a counter inflationary tactic.

How do they stop it, do they get to vote on an interest rate increase ?
Here in the U.S. the Feds raised the interest rates 17 times in the last two years to cool the economy and never once was I allowed to vote on that.

Do people in Poland really have a say about interest rates ?



I admire how jon ignores Repeat Richard's.(Novi) trolling for the sake of having someone to argue with all day.

They (or slightly over half) voted for a populist party who dislike interest rate rises. In Poland, consumer credit levels are high and rising so interest rates are unpopular across society regardless of how people voted. There have certainly been rises (several in 2021) however the government is unhappy about further ones.


Only at the ballot box.

I suspect there will have to be significant rises however given many people's level of indebtedness, this will be problematic, especially in the run up to an election.

You and other brainiacs can't answer a simple question about the subject embedded in the thread title. Amazing...
Everybody here is an expert until asked. Then they switch to personal insults or "I already answered it" evasive crap.
What a bunch of a-holes...

Is Poland a democracy or not? Poles voted against higher rates and get them anyway?


Do those higher rates come from the moon or Putin? If not, why is the government "unhappy"?
So people are unhappy, the government is unhappy but the rates are still there... Any idea why?

He's certainly a factor in it, given the rise in manufacturing costs and in retail operating costs since r*SSia's illegal and unprovoked invasion of one of Poland's neighbours.

No, he is not.

Inflation is an increase in prices caused by an increase in the money supply. Period. Putin does not control how many zlotys are in circulaton.

Go back to Econ 101 before posting ignorant opinions.

He is, actually.


Go back to charm school and learn some manners.

No, Mr. Econ, he is not because - pay attention now - he does not control the supply of money in Poland. Duh!

Learn some manners and I may engage with you.


The current inflationary trend is not limited to Poland.

Now go away and learn manners and try to keep less of a contrarian. It's boring as things are now.

Putin does not control the supply of money and cannot affect inflation.
What possessed you to think of Putin when the supply of money in Poland is discussed? A reflex? If it's bad, it must be Putin.

Why not ask the person who originally mentioned him?

Or just read this press release from the ECB.

ecb.europa.eu/press/blog/date/2023/html/ecb.blog20230224~3b75362af3.en.html#:~:text=The%20war%20triggered%20a%20massive,of%20Russia's%20invasion%20of%20Ukraine.

You agreed so I am asking you why you agreed with his moronic claim.
He was just trying to be funny since nobody is stupid enough to hang inflation in Poland on Putin's neck.

There he goes again.

I may respond when he learns some civility.


Is the ECB 'stupid' enough for him?

Yes. ECB is just another org in the business of covering the evil of printing money - the activity that only a monopolistic central bank can do.

Prices changing due to supply and demand are NOT inflation since inflation is a "general price increase due to increase in the money supply". The distinction is critical as it exposes the real criminals who steal your wealth while you are asleep by printing. Sheep like you buy this crap and parrot the line that it's the unions, speculators, and everybody else rather than the central bank in cahoots with the swamp.

Now he thinks he knows more than the largest Central Bank in mainland Europe.

It would be funny if he weren't such a bore.