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Comment by Claude_Shannon | Hacker News Reader

I have no hope anymore. It won't get better.

If people want 500 zł monthly and are willing to sell themselves and the country for that - let them...

That's nice in theory but when you are personally dragged down right along with them then that it becomes a very practical problem.

Many Poles already left, many still will. It's a never ending brain drain since 2004.

where do you go to? Brexit Britain or MAGA Murica? Running away is not a good, long term solution.

It's not so much running away as much as it is wanting to create a better life for yourself and your family. There are many more options than the UK or the USA, Polish immigrants can be found all over Europe.

most commonly now - Germany, if you're able to - Canada, if you don't have valuable skills - Netherlands.

That being said... if you have a good job, like in IT, you're better off remaining in Poland. You just have to grit your teeth.

the only Polish citizen I know, went to England for work as a young man, worked hard for giant companies, got remote work and started his family in Poland. I have no updates but I thought he had a very decent house now in Poland, and was doing well with remote C++ work.

It has a big impact on the EU as well when an EU country start flouting the EU laws.

Apparently not, because the EU doesn't seem to be up for enforcing them.

I think they want to, but they seem to doubt the tools they have for enforcement. I suspect some of the COVID funds will be held back.

Edit: Actually they have already frozen 35 bn Euro. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/22/brussels-launc...

What happens when the whole western world is on that?

Well, look at it this way: how bad it must have been for those people to prefer the 500zł instead?

I'd say that's what the previous government missed completely: that the old state of affairs simply didn't work for many people.

It still doesn't work as all those social programs are unsustainable from fiscal viewpoint.

It's all financed by debt and inflation.

Not true. In fact, those programs are only barely more expensive than "podatek liniowy", which got introduced decades ago and which is essentially a subsidy for the wealthy for being wealthy.

Care to explain the reason behind currently skyrocketing inflation and PLN devaluation then?

https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/inflation-rate. Also, while it's kind of hard to say for sure how Poland is doing, and while there definitely are some things that the current government is horrible at, it would be quite a stretch to say it's the "500+" program's fault. Especially given that "podatek liniowy" still exists.

Poland is able to keep its unemployment somewhat down, by keeping the zloty weak relative to the euro, and therefore helping Polish exports. And before anyone says "Poland has a lot of unemployment" compare it to other weak Eastern European countries on the euro. Poland could end inflation if it wanted higher unemployment, but for now it accepts the higher inflation and weaker zloty so as to help exports and so limit how bad unemployment might get.

I'm not sure why this is getting downvoted. If you believe there is no link between the currency, inflation and employment then you're engaging in a well known economic fallacy. See "The Doctrine of Immaculate Transfer":

https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/the-doctrine-of...

"The fallacy comes in when you say, “Well, given that it’s all about spending imbalances, exchange rate policy has nothing to do with it.” This is what John Williamson of the Institute for International Economics once dubbed the Doctrine of Immaculate Transfer. (Uh-oh, Erick Erickson’s gonna come after me …) It’s a popular fallacy, especially at the WSJ, although I’m not sure if it rises to zombie status."

I can’t downvote yet, but you can indeed lower unemployment without rampant inflation or devaluations.

That's true, there are 2 main approaches, but they both have real costs, and neither is obviously better than the other. In the face of a severe economic shock, such as the global financial crisis of 2008 or the pandemic of 2020, you would expect to see unemployment increase. The two approaches to reduce that unemployment are:

1. Keynesian stimulus. The government could stimulate demand, either by increasing the purchases where it is the final consumer (military, education spending) or it could give money to citizens so they can spend more. It's important that the increase in spending is not initially offset by tax increases, so this means the government has to take on debt.

2. Devalue the currency so as to help exports. This way you avoid taking on debt, instead you rely on increased money from exports to stimulate the economy. But here, instead of debt, you pay for the stimulus via inflation, as imported goods are now more expensive.

Keep in mind "increase exports" is relative to what your main trading partners are able to consume. The EU is the main trading partner for Poland. When the EU is in a deep recession, Poland's exports can be expected to fall, so "increasing exports" might only keep them at their previous rate (the rate that existed before the crisis).

Whatever you do, there is some cost. Either you take on debt or you take on inflation. There is no way out of the crisis that is completely free.

You are right, but unemployment in Poland has been very low for at least a decade now, while the inflation is a recent thing.

The crisis is also recent. The Covid-19 pandemic arrived in Europe in early 2020. Please see the other comment that I just wrote in this thread. Poland has 2 paths out of the crisis, it can take on debt or it can take on inflation (or it can mix the two). But there is no free way out of the crisis. Whatever strategy it decides on will have some consequence that will take a few years to unwind. And that is mostly true of all nations, of course, though Poland's situation is somewhat unique, in that it is in the EU but has its own currency, which has tended to make devaluation an easy option for it.

One can imagine an alternate universe in which Poland has been lead by progressives for the last 30 years, who make big investments in science research and education so that Poland came up to speed quickly on high-technology industries and so rapidly increased labor productivity. In that alternate universe, the government of Poland would be able to follow a policy of tight money, such that zloty would gain value against the euro. And of course, some of that happened, labor productivity increased. The zloty was 6 to 1 against the USA dollar in 1989 and then got to 2.5 to 1 around 2011 or 2012, before sinking again. One can imagine, in this alternate universe, Poland made such huge investments in science research and education that the zloty eventually got to be 1 to 1 with the USA dollar.

But that isn't what happened. Poland has been governed by center-right and far-right parties who've limited government involvement in the economy and who have avoided big bets on future investment, outside of infrastructure investments. So, as a practical matter, devaluing the currency, and accepting inflation, has been the most convenient way for the Polish government to keep unemployment down.

The 500 PLN extra for kids by itself was not necessarily going to cause skyrocketing inflation. I don't necessarily agree with how it was implemented, but it's true that we had a huge lack of important support for less wealthy.

However, on top of that, you have a lot of simply bad management, and also ridiculous amounts of fraud by ruling party politicians. This means that a lot of money is leaking from the budget in various ways into pockets of people associated with current government, and another (possibly bigger) chunk of money is lost by mismanagement - including things as simple as replacing experienced people with nepotism-pushed ones who then fail to process documents for EU funds.

This year we ended up with huge fines (increasing daily), with direct cause being continued operation of Turów surface mine. What is often missed in discussion is that Czech Republic didn't want it closed or fined - they requested that in exchange for continued operation, Poland funds waterworks necessary to ensure nearby villages & towns on Czech side of border have access to potable water, as the mine caused considerable lowering of water table.

So rampant spending on often idiotic things, which also heavily goes into pockets of party nomenclature (so it doesn't even have the benefit of being "make work") results in considerable lack of funds in the budget...

The social programs could be made to work. They don't because all other areas of government are broken, but they make for good lightning rod for attention, both negative and positive.

There are some social programs that make no sense, like coal mining ones (we're at the point where I'd vote to have current coal miner wages frozen in exchange for closing the mines - i.e. everyone currently working underground would continue to get their last yearly wages till pension for not working at all)

And the budget is crushed by all sorts fraud and mismanagement, with vanity projects funneling money to people connected to Law&Justice party (examples: creating new passage between Vitula Lagoon and Baltic sea; new power generation block in Ostrołęka - currently demolished before it ever got finished; Centralny Port Komunikacyjny - a giant useless airport without reason to exist, and yet nearly no work is being done other than funnelling more and more money to friends; etc. etc.)

The Central Airport makes sense. There are 0 big airports in this part of Europe. It could be used by 60mln people (Slovakia, Belarus, Ukraine etc..). It even makes sense for people in Berlin to use it. (Frankfurt - Moscow. 2000km without a big airport)

Besides, you can close down WAW and use the land to expand the city. You also don't have to expand other airports, which are close to cities and cause massive noise pollutions.

It makes absolutely zero sense as it is just too far away from business and tourist spots.

I reckon you're an avid supporter of PiS?

What does it mean "just too far away". It's gonna be much closer than a lot of airports e.g. London Stansted

I do not support any party

CPK isn't competition to Stansted, ha, it's not even a competition to Heathrow, Gatwick, Frankfurt, Munich or Paris CDG.

The connection graph of airlines is based both on where people are, and what logistical bases they can get, and a) LOT doesn't have long range network capable of driving more traffic than Okęcie can sustain b) no other long-range airline is going to operate long range flights from CPK

The central airport doesn't make sense because there are no airlines that will use it as hub (other than LOT, which can't even overload Okęcie), especially now that Hub&Spoke is reduced in prominence. To just get reasonable amount of people from Poland they'd have to close pretty much all other airports in Poland, which would cripple local travel (some trips I take would go back to >9h, or I'd have to fly to Berlin and take a Taxi).

Berlin is a corner case of national capital that is in aviation terms in the boonies. Frankfurt Auf Mein and Munich are big hubs because that's where Lufthansa has logistical bases. The 2000km distance doesn't do anything, that's a short hop for airliners. That means that Berlin will do profitable important routes direct... which happen to be mostly to airline hubs, with few exceptions.

So there's no reason for people from neighbouring countries to use it, it require artificially breaking other airports in Poland to have even a sliver of reason (easily debunked by anyone with idea of state of polish airports). It's whole existence happened because one man had an unresearched biased idea and the party jumps at his whim.

Can you explain from someone not from Poland, what does 500zł mean? Is it some sort of minimal wage?

Current government introduced 500 PLN a month (about 25% of median net salary) for each kid younger than 18. It was promoted as a solution for demographic problems, but it barely helped, what it did instead is persuade people who don't care about politics to vote PIS. That and reversing the unpopular (but necessary) retirement reforms of previous government made PIS very popular and they used that popularity to unconstitutionally dismantle checks and balances and to take over every independent institution there is.

Basically they did the same as every wannabe authorithatian ever - pay people to love you and take over the country while they still do.

I see. In Russia Putin also introduced some payments for kids this year (or even earlier)

So did Canada and the US... Vote-buying is a common strategy, not something unique to authoritarian governments. Especially with COVID giving a lot of governments carte blanche to run massive deficits, it appears to be easier than ever to implement.

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