alt Hacker NewsPoland is now among the 20 largest economies
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- Educated population
- Access to the EU market
- Cheap labour
- 250 billion in EU subsidies
As an American that’s lived in Poland for the last decade:
- it was kind of inevitable once Poland stopped being oppressed by its neighbors. The USSR, Nazi Germany, the German Empire / Prussia, Austria, Imperial Russia, etc. have basically been dividing the country since the 1780s. Without these restrictions, Poland is a natural leader in its region purely on population alone.
- A general lack of ideological “mind viruses” that seem to plague the western world. Most Poles are pretty straightforward, common sense people. They might have opinions you don’t agree with but it’s not a country of extremists in any direction.
- the general openness to American culture and (over)work ethics. I think Poland probably looks more to America than it does any EU country, although this of course isn’t simple, especially lately. But in general it’s a pretty hardworking, business-open culture. My impression is that it’s much easier to operate a business here than say, Germany, Italy, or France.
- Something I need to read more about, but IIRC Poland dealt with its oligarch problems in a different way than Russia or Ukraine did post-USSR and so doesn’t really have this issue.
POLAND MENTION!!!!!
Poland would've probably been my top relocation priority if it weren't for the atrocious air quality
It certainly helps to be neighbor with an economically strong but demographically weak and overly beaurocratic country that hungers for eager, competent workers.
what a coincidence, I just bought a Bosch washing machine and it was made in Poland.
Can anyone tell me what impact their whole government dying at once in a plane crash had on this?
Would they probably be doing better or worse if those people had stayed in power? Was that a significant factor in this?
They've done well for themselves for sure . 20 years ago, Poland was sending seasonal workers to the UK to pick tomatoes. Brexit largely won because of anti Eastern Europe immigration
They're scared shirtless of communism and statism, have recent enough memory of why, and went full sail on classical liberal economics. It worked.
It turns out it's not that hard to grow an economy once countries all around you stop trying to kill your culture, exterminate your population and steal your lands.
Not at all surprising. If you look at the history of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth it was very similar to the dynamism of the Holy Roman Empire in what we now think of as the German speaking lands. Except you combine that with some even more modern ideas including minimal centralization of power and you realize there was a real renaissance era there. Kosciusko contributing greatly to the American Revolution is a wonderful example of this.
Of course being sandwiched between two extremely powerful regional hegemons did not serve Poland well. It's wonderful that it is now able to pick up the pieces. The poles no more than anyone the terrible realities that we must continue to be willing to fight for
> “I get asked often if I’m missing something by coming back to Poland, and, to be honest, I feel it’s the other way around,” Kowalska said. “We are ahead of the United States in so many areas.”
Poland is the best example of using the best capabilities of access to EU funds and the large EU economy. Its sucess case should be rubbed up the noses of the arrogant UK establishment and its Eton driven Brexit disaster.
gog.com is in poland
Worst healthcare among developed countries, which every ranking of healthcare systems confirms. Average people receive 19th century level of coverage and care for 21st century price. The only people on employment contract are public sector and some of the outsourcing and nearshoring, industries which are moving out of the country. Milllennials are 40 years old now and every reform which had been made, made sure they didn't have enough income neither housing to have children. Polish miracle is over, deservedly.
Polish people are some of the most pragmatic, straight-forward, hardworking and intelligent people on the planet in my opinion.
They have all the fundamental human-capital strengths of economies like Germany. It's really no surprise they're doing so well.
Sensible smart people working hard will get a lot done over time.
For what it's worth Poland is the only place I've ever visited where felt I could easily see myself living there. It doesn't surprise me that a lot of Poles are moving back.
> Kowalska works at the Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center, which is developing the first artificial intelligence factory in Poland and integrating it with a quantum computer, one of 10 on the continent financed by a European Union program.
I don't think quantum computing currently is able to help in the AI industry, I don't think this is having any impact.
WIG20 is essentially 5 banks, 3 energy providers, clothing, small shops + Allegro + CD Projekt Red. I don't think any of this has major world impact.
They are trained for high earning jobs while willing to take a lot less. That has to help. Ukraine was on the same path.
> ... While most enterprises were nationalized, authorities gave permission to small-scale private workshops like his to operate
Fun story: the city of Nowy Sącz (80,000 habitants) has a very high percentage of millionaires compared to other cities. One of the reasons was that as the city is in a mountainous region hence not well communicated, the communist authorities were less strict there and allowed for private businesses to grow. As the communism ended, the region basically had a head-start compared to the rest of the country.
updating my anecdotal views on Poland has been one of my biggest changes over the last few years
I think they're doing everything right and for their people
Have yet to visit. but even by just 2018 or 2019 I only would have jokes and a confused face if someone was telling me they had chosen a job or life in Warsaw as opposed to a bustling city in a Western European country. Now, I think I get it. Modern and cosmopolitan veneer, safety, opportunity, educated population, nationalist pride that isn't delusional, a sensical immigration policy being enforced before enforcing it becomes a human rights problem. I like it.
Poland made many good decisions in the last 20 years - I do not dispute this.
However had, it also is still a net EU subsidized country:
https://www.statista.com/chart/18794/net-contributors-to-eu-...
In fact, Poland gets the most money. So, before we can evaluate the net worth, this number would have to be deducted, which would instantly make Poland drop more than 5 ranks in that chart if you look at it. Just compare the numbers for yourself, the calculation is trivial to do.
Here is total GDP per country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
(You have to compare the same year of course; my calculation above is for the year 2024. Poland is now ranked higher than in 2024, but the net subsidies still are given in. Those "Poland is now rich" never take that into account.)
I'm Polish.
My mother (early 50s) still remembers clay houses that had two rooms, one for the people, one for the cows and the chickens. She never lived in one, but her grandmother did and she would visit for summer.
She would help her parents stand in line in the evening, waiting for a shipment of pasta or coffee to arrive in their local grocery store in the morning.
My father (similar age) didn't have an in-house bathroom until he got married.
Both of them had black-and-white TVs, where they'd see wonders like microwaves, answering machines or game consoles. Those were things that rich Americans had in movies, not things normal people had in their homes.
If you were well--off enough to go on vacation, you'd probably go to a seaside town, or maybe a village in the mountains. Certainly not abroad. A passport was an extravagance, not easy to get from the communist government.
People who lived in big cities, as opposed to much smaller villages, which were and still are a big thing in Poland, were a bit better off, but not by much.
In the 90s, My parents' village got wired up for telephone. Around that same time, Vietnamese NES clones (here called Pegasus) started popping up on the market. They may have been 15 years behind what the Americans had, but they were available at a price that almost any family could afford.
Shortly after I was born, they got a computer. At that time, computers were still expensive, not something every single family had, but definitely not something unusual for a working / middle class family to purchase. Satellite digital TV soon followed, and then came ADSL internet; because of no flat-rate calls, dial-up never really took off here.
As kids and young teenagers, we looked on iPods and iPhones with envy, those were for the rich, but knock-off mp3 players and cheap Nokia phones were things that many kids had.
Our train company, PKP, was famous for delayed trains and poor service. We used to expand the abbreviation as "Just wait, it'll arrive eventually."
None of this is true any more. Go to any Polish city now, and it's no different from any other European country, maybe except for being a good bit safer. You will see people with iPhones; we're still majority Android, but now that's mostly choice and habit rather than financial necessity. You will see people order food on Uber Eats using their gigabit fiber internet, and then Uber back from a night out. They may not even need to do that; both men and women feel pretty safe on the streets here, even at night. You will see kids playing their favorite games, on their PS5. You will see college students, working on weekends and after classes to make some money, take their boyfriends and girlfriends on trips to Greece, Italy or Spain. By airplane, of course.
That train company? In theory, the reputation is still there, but in practice, the statistics say what they say, we've far surpassed Deutsche Bahn in terms of punctuality.
In the United States, Red/Right leaning States typically receive more federal funding than Blue States. Red States get 'propped up'.
I bet a lot of people here criticizing that EU funding went to Poland are typically Right Leaning, and think they are making a some killer point about socialism, when back home they are also taking in the hand out money.
This is a clear display that we need free trade, sensible economic polices and a common ground of what humans need to thrive. "Sovereignty" is overrated.
For example, for the US to have a chance in the EU, it would first need to fix its YOLO fiscal policy of sustained 5.5% debt/gdp deficits.
We shall see in a few years as US's debt balloons and the average American becomes pseudo-slaves from a few overlords... to see if the EU is really bad as some Americans believe it to be.
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french and german working class tax. and obviously great leadership to use EU and that money well to win. unlike france for instance that got outplayed by germany that itself got outplayed by their dear ally the USA and are now going into energy obsolescence.
So, countries inside a large, free-trading, economic zone, with a diversity of economic standards, tend to do well from central investment and all the many benefits that accrue from said economic zone.
Shocking.
Well done, UK. You really shat the bed and, by the look of it, still are. Diarrhea, possibly.
Prosperity is a curse. People are no longer having children in Poland. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
Ironic.
Nit, but I don't think we're there anymore. We were there briefly around March, when this article was posted.