Trains are cheaper, better run and more comfortable. Highways are better than German. Even gas stations. I often find myself waiting to cross the border so I can get to the loo in the first Orlen on the Polish side.
And don't let me start on housing and taxes.
Polish economy even benefitted from the Russo-Ukrainian war:
1. 36 mln-strong Poland welcomed 1mln of mostly well-educated, hardworking Ukrainians.
2. Its military expenses are now double what the US spends in relative terms, giving a non-negligible boost to civil economy.
Gosh, it's been a few years I dress exclusively in Helikon-Tex, instead of Patagonia )
Ok this may have been the best sales pitch for Helikon-Tex :)
Not wrong, but I think that when you're growing and building things tend to be "easy(-ier)" than later on when you're maintaining. When you don't have anything it's easy to say "We need X.", but it's harder to justify to folks "We need to maintain X."—there's not as much ribbon cutting for maintenance projects:
If there's no highway bridge over some chasm, building the bridge can be obvious. When there's a bridge already there spending (tens/hundreds of) millions to rehabilitate or rebuild it will get more pushback.
China had little infrastructure and has built a whole bunch (e.g., high speed rail) over the last few decades: I'll be curious to see how things are in fifty or so years when they have to rebuild things.
As for the migration policies, I think you are pointing in the right direction but the reality is more subtle.
Old European countries consider work to be a privilege, Poles, having lived in the Warsaw Pact country, still perceive work to be an obligation.
A refugee arriving in Germany can't start working and lives off welfare while his case is settled, which may take years.
A similar refugee arriving in Poland has to find a job both to survive and to obtain legal residency.
This has the downside of driving down wages but the upside of creating even more jobs.
Amazon, Lidl, Zalando and many other labor-intensive businesses set shops just across the border for a reason.
A bit unrelated but US citizens decided that healthcare doesn’t really matter to them much but going everywhere with a nice car does - so it depends what the priorities are
Edit: so if I vote for John Smith and then I find out he voted against this healthcare issue I care about; I will for sure not vote for him again, instead for a candidate that keeps their promises.
At least that’s how it works in my country, all the votes in congress are public, you can even listen in to most of their sittings.
For example, I travel between two countries with similar lifestyles and consistently notice lower quality of goods in the country with the lesser-valued currency. It’s subtle enough that you might not notice: Smaller quantities, not quite as good as, fully assembled versus some assembly, etc. Modern industry has gotten really good at masking these changes, and local consumers just don’t know that it can be better.
I lived like a king in Warsaw (renting a small apartment in the historical centre, eating out often) spending about 1/20th of my income.
These days I work for peanuts for my friend back from kindergarten and am enjoying it tremendously!