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jakozaur

The story is longer: Poland was the first country to make a remarkable peaceful transition from a bankrupt, failed Soviet satellite state. The shock therapy, plus NATO and EU aspirations, paved the way.

It is a story of a country that made a lot of the right decisions along the way. Managed to keep consistent high growth, not a pony trick or boom/bust mode.

Poland should be a role model for many other countries.

Recommend a book: https://www.amazon.com/Europes-Growth-Champion-Insights-Econ...

And Noah's blog post: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-polandmalaysia-model

anikan_vader

>> Poland was the first country to make a remarkable peaceful transition from a bankrupt, failed Soviet satellite state.

In what sense? Czechia is richer per capita. Almost all of the former Soviet satellite states in eastern Europe have had largely peaceful (since 1991) sustained economic growth. The exceptions are exactly those countries which continue to have Russian troops occupying portions, namely Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova.

jakozaur

Poland's first partly free election was on 4 June 1989, preceded by the roundtable negotiations.

The protests in Czechoslovakia came later, called the Velvet Revolution, from 17 to 28 November 1989. In June 1990, Czechoslovakia held its first democratic elections, a year after Poland.

Poland paved the way for the whole of central and eastern Europe. The Round Table produced the negotiated-exit template that Hungary built on in its own talks that summer, and that Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and the Baltics drew on as their regimes fell within months.

And it did so from the deepest macroeconomic crisis of any of the satellite states: hyperinflation running into the hundreds of percent by late 1989, an unresolved sovereign default from 1981, and chronic shortages.

Since then Poland has converged fastest of any of them. From a low base it has climbed to the upper-middle of central and eastern Europe by GDP per capita PPP, overtaken Hungary, and is now closing on Czechia and Slovenia.

somenameforme

I'm curious what this means in real terms from the perspective of a Pole.

GDP/capita is often a relatively useless metric in modern times. For instance Ireland has one of the highest GDP/capitas in the world -- around 50% higher than the US. But that's because of economic games with their working as a tax haven to enable corporations to avoid paying taxes to their home countries. It doesn't translate to anything for the average Irishman.

scyzoryk_xyz

As a Polish millenial the perspective is a rollercoaster. In one way the transformation of absolutely everything over and over and over is mind blowing in a positive way. OTOH we're also all paranoid running on what feels like a never ending hamster wheel of inflation, raises and mortgages. And then Gen-Z's feel straight get up locked out of everything.

We visit western European countries and it's like WTF it's cheaper here?

The multi-generational spread is wild - my boss remembers being raised in 80's scarcity culture verging on 2-3rd world hunger. But our entry level employees are running around demanding everyone to be up to date with everything they see and hear in these little glowing rectangles. It's like two separate progressions have been superimposed on top of each other.

dhosek

Just as a quick note, the “second world” would have been the Eastern Bloc countries, so by definition, living in Poland in the 80s would have been 2nd-world conditions.

disgruntledphd2

Thank you! Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who remembers this. For example, Ireland was a third world country because (theoretically) we were non aligned.

trhway

>We visit western European countries and it's like WTF it's cheaper here?

Warsaw is the only place in Europe where a casual search out of curiosity brought 15-20K euro/month developer positions.

mjtk

Vibecession at country scale. Seems like growth feels like instability for many citizens.

daliusd

Same story in Lithuania

pseudohadamard

The Baltic states are a pretty odd mix, Estonia could be any western European country while Latvia next door still feels in places like the Red Army has only just pulled out. It was quite a jolt going from one to the other.

Mind you since we'd started from Russia both of them looked pretty good in comparison, that place was dire.

sam_lowry_

Also economic inequality is quite differently shaped across ages

People over 60 are poor, 40..60 are a mixed bag, 20..40 are struggling to keep up.

rayiner

> GDP/capita is often a relatively useless metric in modern times.

"Often" is the wrong modifier. GDP/capita aligns very closely with material standard of living for the median person. If you look at the GDP/capita growth in India and China since 1990, or South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, since 1950, that reflects very real increases in material standards for ordinary people.

There's two, relatively well-understood situations where GDP/capita isn't reflective:

1) Countries where the economy is dominated by resource extraction or tourism 2) Tax havens

But it's pretty easy to tell whether one of these exceptions applies. It doesn't in the case of Poland, which has a broad, diversified economy with a high level of industrial production.

somenameforme

In the past GDP/capita used to track pretty strongly with most of all desirable metrics. So then it became the goal, and it started becoming heavily detached from those metrics - Goodhart's Law in action. For instance since 1979 in the US (first date this was measured by the Fed) real median wages are up about 14% [1] while real GDP/capita is up 118%.

And those values are even more detached than the inequity there makes clear, because for about 90% of that time wages were completely flat (and even declining) while GDP/capita kept booming up up and away. So the connection between the two has become very weak while in the past it was quite strongly connected. And that's just one random example - pick most of all those desirable metrics and it's a similar story. GDP just doesn't track with them so well anymore at all.

And when you try to compare between countries GDP becomes completely farcical as the ability to produce a zillion dollars of services doesn't translate, or even have much to do with, the ability to produce a zillion dollars of things.

[1] - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

standeven

Isn’t GDP pretty easy to boost with deregulation and government overspending, at least in the short term? Neither of which benefits the people.

bobthepanda

You can’t really keep that up over 35 years though, which is what Poland has achieved.

philwelch

Deregulation does benefit the people, at least if it's done in ways that lead to sustained economic growth.

mejutoco

> GDP/capita aligns very closely with material standard of living for the median person

GDP is an average, not a median, so it might align with the average person, not the median. The average/mean can hide many things (see Anscombe s quartet) which is one of the problems with GDP IMO.

rayiner

It depends what you’re using the data for. If you’re comparing across countries, or looking at a developing country over time, it’s a relatively small factor. The ratio between the average and the median isn’t that big even in the U.S. (about 1.3). Meanwhile, Poland’s GDP per capita has tripled since 2005: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location....

mejutoco

> The ratio between the average and the median isn’t that big even in the U.S. (about 1.3)

Being off by 30% might not matter for some usages, but it is not a small amount. It seems the median is more accurate to report and we agree.

dhosek

I don’t know that there is any way to calculate a median value of GDP/capita. You can look at income distributions and find a median income and compare that to a mean income, which could allow an estimation, but beyond that, GDP is an intrinsically composite number which cannot be easily (at all?) broken down to individual contributions. I assume income is what the parent commenter is basing the median-mean comparison on, but it’s kind of out of nowhere with no explanation.

rayiner

For purposes of comparing countries to each other and the same country over time, it’s not 30% off. The average skews higher than the median everywhere, so it’ll be 1.3/1.x.

If you have reported median incomes that are calculated the same way across countries and over time, that would be better. But many countries don’t reliably track that data, and the ones that do calculate it in completely different ways.

mejutoco

That all sounds reasonable. My concern was with your quote

> GDP/capita aligns very closely with material standard of living for the median person

GDP per capita is an average. This means it does not align with the _median_ person, but with the average. I believe this is factual and undeniable. No doubt it is interesting too to try to find other metrics for different usages as well.

> For purposes of comparing countries to each other and the same country over time, it’s not 30% off

You said the ratio for the same country between gdp mediand and average is 1.30. That means it is 30% off. Again, we can keep moving the goalposts and I could agree, but for the quoted statements i believe the above is true.

rayiner

> GDP per capita is an average. This means it does not align with the _median_ person, but with the average. I believe this is factual and undeniable.

That’s why I used the word “align” instead of the word “is.” If the ratio of mean to median is 1.3, if the mean doubles, the median also will double—the movement of the two values will be “aligned” even if one is offset from the other.

That means when you’re talking about the economic growth of a country, Poland in this case, the mean is a reasonable proxy for the median unless there has been a massive change in the ratio of the median to the mean.

mejutoco

From Cambridge dictionary:

> align: to be the same or similar, or to agree with each other; to make two things do this

But I get it, you are using it as correlation.

Still, if gdp per capita average is 130 and median is 100 (ratio is 1.3) there is a 30% difference. This is exactly why, even if they correlate they are not very similar aka they "do not agree with each other" as per the definition above. With your definition they "align".good enough for me. It aligns even better (more closely) to the median.

Ygg2

When economy goes K shaped (only ultra rich or ultra poor with no in-between) GDP is good preidictor of how the ultra rich are fairing.

For everyone else a roulette wheel is a better measurement.

rayiner

No economy is K shaped. The vast majority of US income (78%) is earned by people outside the top 1%. It was as high as 90% during the bad economy of the 1970s. Since 1975, real GDP per capita has increased by a factor of 2.8. So the proletariat have 12 percentage points less of a number that’s 2.8 times bigger.

Ygg2

Sure there are. US economy is K shaped. You either become rich or end up poor.

It's economy geared for the rich. Where poor only exist to give rich a confidence boost.

rayiner

You: "US economy is K shaped. You either become rich or end up poor."

Reality: "The vast majority of US income (78%) is earned by people outside the top 1%."

Ygg2

Your data is wrong. Highest quantile earns +50%

https://www.statista.com/statistics/203247/shares-of-househo...

But Rich also account for majority of consumed goods purchased.

Also why did Travel, Entertainment and Food services suffered during post COVID recovery?

Why are McDonald's and other fast food joints that upped their price enjoyed a surge in value, when supply and demand tells otherwise.

https://youtu.be/b1sKlSJ0Czk

felixg3

Within a short time, especially since the EU accession, the development of Poland is just remarkable. I have personally spent a lot of time there and I think the quality of life, safety, access to healthcare, is excellent. Sure, it’s not perfect, but - I know, capital city bias, but I can’t think of a better place. Macro data, as imperfect as they are, reveal a dramatic trajectory in Life expectancy, HDI, while the gini-coefficient remained relatively stable.

pipes

I'm Irish. Well northern Irish. The Republic Ireland seems a lot richer than when I was growing up in n. Ireland. Ireland is the second biggest exporter of software in the world now. I'm pretty certain the tax paid by both corporations and their well paid staff definitely translate to something for the average Irish man. Even if he thinks it doesn't.

kazinator

The protests in Czechoslovakia came earlier, in 1968! The Soviets rolled in the tanks in response.

Poland had a mass solidarity movement rise up in 1980. The USSR didn't decide to send in the military then; they were lucky.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_reaction_to_the_Polish_...

There was a lot of unrest in Poland, and general strikes. Martial law was imposed.

If you were an immigrant from Czechslovakia in a refugee camp in Austria at around that time, you'd be learning to speak Polish.

cromka

So 1990 Eastern Europe freed itself thanks to... 1968 Czechoslovakia?

kazinator

Of course not (but we can't say it didn't matter, either).

keiferski

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_Pozna%C5%84_protests

legulere

Even earlier in Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_uprising_of_1953

Here in Germany they very often talk about the importance of what happened in Poland for the reunification

card_zero

I'm enjoying the way this dispute reflects on the USSR. We were the first to try to escape! No, we were the first, years before that! No, you're both wrong, it was us!

kazinator

Nope; I longed to escape long before you dreamed of it!

eduction

Self glorifying nonsense. Gorbachev ALLOWED Poland to not get crushed. You think Poles were any braver in 1989 than the Chinese people who laid down their lives in Tiananmen? You think your solidarity was in any way superior to what they did, what the Hungarians and Czechs did decades earlier? You succeeded due to good timing and because Gorby was your ultimate overlord rather than Deng Xiaopong. Poles should go thank him.

Stephen Kotkin says this much better than I ever could. https://youtu.be/0tXvLJXkFFg?t=295&si=26yINqxrcSdOUxCv

alkyon

In chronological sense.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989

Round Table agreement, which paved the way to the partially free elections in 1989 won by the opposition, preceded similar events in other countries by several months including Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia and the Fall of Berlin Wall.

vkou

Ukraine didn't have Russian troops occupying anything but the leased Crimean bases before the war started (and I do count the start of the war as being immediately after Euromaidan)... Yet in 2013, it was the second poorest country in Europe. (Ahead of Moldova, which has been occupied for decades, but significantly behind Belarus and Bulgaria)

wiseowise

> Ukraine didn't have Russian troops occupying anything but the leased Crimean bases before the war started

Do you seriously believe Russians would leave Crimea if Ukrainians didn’t renew the lease?

vkou

Whether they were going to leave or not if it wasn't renewed decades down the road isn't particularly relevant to why Ukraine's economy was in the pits. It's not like those sailors were 'foraging' the countryside for their upkeep.

"It's much like Russia but with no oil or gas" was the better explanation for why it wasn't doing well. It's also why Belarus isn't topping the development indexes.

brnt

They didn't need troops till Maidan. They had the government already.

drysine

Orange revolution in 2004 changed the Ukrainian government.

Eldt

And how long does weeding out corruption take?

drysine

I think 35 years since the Ukraine declared its independence is long enough time to stop blaming Russia for any problem in Ukraine. It just doesn't fly

distances

De-russification didn't really start until the Orange Revolution, though. It's a long and painful process for Ukraine as reducing corruption requires shedding all the Russian influence. Before that, a lot of the problems genuinely are because of Russia.

All states escaping the Russian curse improve speedily once they join the EU, and I expect the same to happen in Ukraine.

vkou

Belarus developed much faster than Ukraine in the decade between the Orange revolution and the start of the war. It's per-capita GDP quadrupled (to a much higher end result) in that time, while Ukraine's only doubled.

Yet, Belarus is politically 100% a Russian province.

How exactly does your theory explain that gap?

distances

Russian propaganda is really running out of steam if Belarus of all countries is now the success case. What's next, statistics of how happy the North Koreans are?

drysine

And this how one deflects an argument grounded in economic facts.

drysine

>if Belarus of all countries is now the success case

That's how easy it is to be a success case when compared to the independent Ukraine. Even landlocked Belarus with no natural resources is doing better.

distances

Yes yes, sure. Just be Putin's puppet dictator and you'll get free oil. There's nothing worth discussing here.

drysine

Funny story, except Azerbaijan, which has its own oil of premium quality is doing worse than Belarus[0]. Still better than the Ukraine, but anyone is doing better than the Ukraine.

[0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locat...

Sabinus

Belarus was rewarded for loyalty. Ukraine was unstable, oligarchic, and increasingly punished for partial exit.

Belarus in 2004-2014 is a subsidised client. Ukraine after 2004 Orange Revolution is a contested borderland. They are different mechanisms inside the same imperial political system.

Russian dominance can produce short term client-state rents (Russia sells very cheap crude to Belarus, Belarus sells world price refined products to world market), but it tends to trap countries in dependency, weak modernization, and political subordination. When a country tries to leave the orbit, the coercive part of the system appears. Ukraine had it's gas price dramatically increased, then supply interrupted, among other pressure.

drysine

So when Russia sells oil for low price - it's rewarding for loyalty, when Russian sells gas for normal price - it's punishment.

What the price of hydrocarbons should be to make you happy?

>then supply interrupted

You might have consumed too much of Western and Ukrainian propaganda, if you re-translate it in 2026, long after Ukrainian lies have been exposed.

"The conflict began when Russia claimed that Ukraine was not paying for gas and was diverting gas bound from Russia to the European Union from pipelines that crossed the country. Ukrainian officials at first denied the last accusation, but later Naftogaz admitted it used some gas intended for other European countries for domestic needs. The dispute peaked on January 1, 2006 when Russia cut off supply.[" [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005%E2%80%932006_Russia%E2%80...

vkou

You may be onto something with respect to how hegemons and empires operate.

drysine

Or maybe it's how customs unions work - when you inside, you benefit from free trade with other members, when you outside - you don't.

drysine

>De-russification

Oh, please, please elaborate on that. How do you link corruption to ethnicity and language?

mmooss

The OP shows the per capita GDP growth of the former Soviet bloc states since 1990. Poland is #1 at 252%, Romania #2 at 148%; Czechia is last at 72%.

tasuki

> Czechia is richer per capita.

Are you sure about that? I'm Czech but have lived in Poland for 8 years and visit regularly. Poland used to be way poorer than Czechia, but these days it looks the other way around. I think the stats are either lagging behind or computed wrong. Note I regularly visit both the cities and the countryside in both Czechia and Poland.

Btw, the article has a "GDP per capita growth in post-communist countries" table, with Poland at the top and Czechia at the bottom.

aussiegreenie

>Czechia is richer per capita

This is a very bad measure of anything, especially wealth.

BeetleB

Romania?

xdennis

Romania is still occupied by Russia. Unlike with Germany, where the East and West reunited, Romania failed to reunite with Eastern Moldova (Western Moldova is in Romania) because of Russian interference in the 1990s. The Russians invaded Transnistria (which was never Romanian) and expanded a bit west. So the Russians still occupy part of the land that is by right Romanian and still have political influence in R. Moldova. That is slowly being eroded.

arewethereyeta

> Romania is still occupied by Russia? I'm a Romanian and never heard such nonsense. We have nothing to do with what's going on in Eastern Moldova nor with people from that region. We do not consider them Romanians at all. While a lot of them come here and integrate well, as a general feeling in these areas, they are more russians than romanians and I assure you, should it be to a vote, we wouldn't join.

And btw, Romania is not occupied by Russia stop spreading such nonsense.

jgtrosh

To those who do not know about this subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_of_Moldova_and_Rom...

(My external barely informed understanding is that proponents of unification are largely right wing nationalist, pro-Russians call for a unification with Bessarabia while ceding Transsinistria to Russia; Moldovans are largely against union in polls.)

nixon_why69

Why wouldn't the story be that they succeeded despite the shock therapy? Honestly asking, I am not an expert on Polish economy, but I heard bad things.

Maybe all of those hardworking people could have done even better with a different macro strategy?

mrkaluzny

The rapid and successful conversion to market economy was the main reason we are where we are. Human cost was extremely high, crime went up quickly and lots of money was lost. I'd argue this was corrected by joining EU and by adjusting the plan to polish reality.

What made it a success was also the social capital in Poland, a lot of people worked extremely hard to pull it off, but still high unemployment was alleviated only by joining EU and people leaving to find employment elsewhere

goobatrooba

Not to forget tens of billions in EU subsidies. Not trying to diminish the polish efforts, but not every country gets this opportunity of massive, predictable transfers without much conditionality.

I wonder how far Poland would be without the years of PiS corruption.

wrzuteczka

I think you got it backwards.

Over the last 20 years, the SLD govt used to literally sell new legislation for bribes, PO (currently in charge of Poland) literally has right now a guy in their ranks who has likely stolen 100s of millions PLN from a public company, but is the prime minister’s BFF so the prosecutor canceled the investigation. The stuff PiS has done is nothing compared to those.

I actually think that the Anti- Corruption Bureau that PiS founded is one of the core reasons Poland was able to mostly weed out the post-Russian corruption (corruption is unfortunately the main export of Russian culture, every country they invaded ended up extremely corrupt).

rasz

Yes. Piss is holier than holy and didnt run Justice Fund as its own private piggy bank stealing for PIS election campaigns and surveillance software to intercept PO politicians private communications. There is no reason whatsoever for former PIS prosecutor general last 7 months hiding in Hungary together with his co criminal deputy Marcin Romanowski who has been hiding there for almost two years. Former state-owned Oil giant Orlen CEO also spend some time hiding from prosecution in Hungary, what a coincidence.

Did we forget about pushing for illegal mail elections? Using state-owned companies filled with PIS politicians to finance bribes and promoting PIS? $25 billion pumped out straight to PIS coffers.

exitb

Notably, only five years have passed between last Russian solders leaving Poland and the country joining NATO. Quite a speedrun.

cromka

And it was about the only period when Russia was so week it did not meddle internationally. Putin ascended to power in 1999.

aksH21

Solidarność was funded by the West, though you may credit Polish/Eastern European capture of US foreign policy and the Polish Pope, too.

It is true of course that they were the most persistent and brave. I don't think it would have been possible in East Germany for example, which ran a tighter regime until Poland managed the peaceful revolution.

goobatrooba

I'm sure that some people claim that but I would be grateful for evidence that solidarnosc received significant material support from the west.

mmooss

> The story is longer: Poland was the first country to make a remarkable peaceful transition from a bankrupt, failed Soviet satellite state. The shock therapy, plus NATO and EU aspirations, paved the way.

The story is told in much more detail in the OP. What do you feel is missing from it?

chistev

I just bookmarked that book. Thanks

BrandoElFollito

It was mainly thanks to two men who decided to give up their future: the prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki and the minister of finances Leszek Balcerowicz.

Today's politicians look like angry toddlers in a sandbox in comparison.

There ware other great people of course, but these two paid the price.

VimEscapeArtist

I live in Poland. This headline is misleading. Poland didn't build a top-20 economy. Western Europe and the US built their economy in Poland, because the labor is educated and cheap.

There are almost no globally competitive Polish companies. The "growth" is branch offices of German and American corporations taking advantage of engineers who'll work for 40% of Berlin rates. Remove the foreign-owned sector and you're looking at a mid-tier economy running on EU structural funds.

It's a great place to live, genuinely. But calling this "Poland's economy" is like calling a McDonald's franchise "your restaurant"

mejutoco

That is how all economies grow. It is unnecessary to remove credit from Poland. You say labor is educated, for example. Is that also not their merit?

Didnt USA benefit from mostly not being bombed during ww2? Didnt Germany benefit from cheap Russian gas and educated immigrants after 2008 crisis in EU? In the end, we can keep going back looking for pthers to thank but the country did it, and it is fair to say so.

P.S. I also live in Poland, not Polish. I also lived in Berlin, and I dont think the salaries are always so different.

bdelmas

> That is how all economies grow.

No it’s one way but there are many other ways. Look at the US, stating that they grew because China and the EU exported their industries there is simply false. But through technology advancements, market size, market leadership, etc… is closer to how they achieved their economic growth.

HighGoldstein

> P.S. I also live in Poland, not Polish. I also lived in Berlin, and I dont think the salaries are always so different.

Anecdotally this is also my experience. Several countries in eastern Europe have vastly lower taxes, and as a result international companies can pay salaries that are on par with western Europe but still cheaper than an equivalent worker in Germany or France because the cost to the employer is much lower.

nickpsecurity

Is that how the U.S. and U.K. economies grew to be significant? Mostly foreign investment for cheap labor with hardly any innovation or entrepreneurs of their own?

I don't think that's the case for us.

jcmontx

FDI is a legit way of increasing an economy's size and health. The fact that Poland created a safe country for foreign investments is great merit.

mfru

yeah it's great if you want to be dependent on US and German political interests

antonymoose

Is that better than being broke and only slightly more sovereign?

maxglute

Yeah I think this what most miss. FDI is good, great if eventually lead to domestic brand to capture more % of value, like Asian Tigers. I'm not sure if the case in EU, some GDP accounting can grossly conflate actual FDI contribution, i.e. when PRC captured $6 labour for each iphone assembled but it was counting full device cost $100s towards GDP instead of just value add. Same concept as Ireland GDP & corporate tax laundering.

Cursory search shows 1% companies in Poland are foreign enterprises which drive ~40% of output, ~30% of workforce and ~70% of exports. These are companies that will dip if Poland gets too expensive or geopolitics, in the meantime what is Samsung or Hyundai or Huawei of Poland. At end of day, countries need national champions committed to their own midstream industries who end up capturing the rents.

jmalicki

Samsung, Hyundai, or Huawei never happen without starting as FDI or cheap outsourcing.

maxglute

FDI itself is not enough. Modern national champions happen because state protectionism, typically under autocratic industrial policy (Asian Tigers), in combination with FDI. Hyundai was suppose to be Honda, you can throw TSMC in there. There's no sign Poland is going to get national class to world class champions, because democracies more easily captured and EU forbids tier of subsidies and protectionism that enable giants that compete with established incumbents. Is there any strategic Polish company on road to being world class?

On paper countries can build giants without FDI, but can't build giants without industrial policy Poland can't adopt due to EU trap (which basically designed to keep west euro industrial incumbents on top) and (IMO) if Poland ever tries, FDI tap going to stop. Structurally Poland is periphery not core, allowed to prosper but not overtake, which puts ceiling. Exception being defense, but even then stepping on west euro toes.

generic92034

EU trap? How far do you think Poland would have come economically without access to the EU common market and without EU subsidies?

maxglute

Not far, but the EU trap is about the ceiling, it's about how far Poland can potentially go.

generic92034

If there is such a ceiling (clearly, I doubt it, seeing many of the main German industry leaders going down or offshore, so there is plenty space to grow), it is not of the EU's doing. It it about money and the advantages large incumbents have in our version of market capitalism.

maxglute

DE still collects checks from global champions offshoring. Offshoring "fine" as long as money flows back to HQ. Allowing peripheral competitors to take your rent on the other hand less fine. The ceiling is EU's doing - it's EU legislation which does not allow member states to adopt the tier of subsidies/industrial policies to build competitors that can rival EU incumbents. Which can lose out to competitors with greater leverage (i.e. US), but unlikely to Poland. Of course cannot say it's impossible, but we have not seen case in modern economic history where global strategic champions arise without massive subsidies/protectionism, the type EU blocks within bloc to lock in existing hierarchy.

jmalicki

The comments have already mentioned CD Projekt and elevenlabs which I would call world class companies even if not huge scale.

maxglute

> strategic Polish company

Keyword being Strategic, i.e. industrial pillar industries that sustains entire local industrial chains / ecosystem.

Saline9515

Cd Projekt made around 200M$ revenue last year. It's a small company by world standard.

jmalicki

Small, but exemplary, and given the context of the post and arguments, developing exemplary leading companies is a sign that Poland is developing a deep base beyond mere outsourcing, even if there are a small number and they're not huge yet.

It's like comparing a 6-year-old soccer player to Lionel Messi - you're looking at early signs of development, and the progress to getting there, not saying Poland is already there, but there are positive signs it is on that path.

Saline9515

CD Project is a good video game studio, but is unlikely to become a large company - their revenue has been flat for the last 4 years.

skybrian

Seems like “if Poland gets too expensive” implies more competition for workers from other companies? Then one company pulling out wouldn’t be so bad.

Llamamoe

> It's a great place to live, genuinely. But calling this "Poland's economy" is like calling a McDonald's franchise "your restaurant"

Economically? Yes, if you ignore the fact that we're one of the most overworked populations in the first world and pretty much all low-level jobs(restaurant/call office/etc) have abysmally poor working conditions.

Culturally? Developed cities in Western/Northern Poland and Warsaw, sure. But everywhere else is shades of shitty and if you're LGBT+ a third of the country has legislation against your very existence.

Poland has made a lot of progress but calling it a great place to live is - while not altogether untrue - a statement of privilege more than universal reality.

npodbielski

> But everywhere else is shades of shitty and if you're LGBT+ a third of the country has legislation against your very existence.

Source?

baq

foreign dollars and euros being spent in the country definitely counts as growth no matter how you slice it and regardless whether you like it or not.

dllu

Foreign investment isn't fake growth and money being spent in the country is definitely a good thing. It's how Singapore managed to kickstart its economy in the 1960s. Lee Kuan Yew tried very hard, and succeeded, in getting foreign corporations to set up shop in Singapore. The key is to capture value and move up the chain over time rather than getting stuck as a "cheaper back office".

wahern

Yep, and today the situation is completely reversed. Through acquisition and business development Singapore is the country which owns the brands and invests in other countries. Poland just needs to stick to the formula. It's citizens are building global-class professional, managerial, and business development experience. Soon if not already those employees will start itching to build their own businesses. Poland just needs to maintain a competitive environment, and not let international companies suppress local startups by lobbying for anti-competitive laws and policies that favor the big guys, foreign or domestic. If it wants to give local companies a leg up, do it indirectly by investing in education and research.

tjwebbnorfolk

Of course it counts, and should count. Foreign money enters an economy if that economy is producing something the foreigner wants.

A simple bank transfer into the country does not count as domestic Product.

ycdj

spot on! its growth - economic capital seeking productive human capital

slaw

It is local resources extracted, not foreign spent.

briandw

This is zero sum thinking. The foreign companies benefit and the local Polish people benefit. Wealth is created in the process and everyone benefits. What if those companies never came and never employed Polish people? Would Poland be any better off?

orange_joe

if spotify employs an american and they become more experienced over their tenure were american resources extracted? human capital tends to get better with experience, particularly when dealing with high quality foreign management.

laughing_man

Those foreign companies still have to pay Polish taxes,and Polish wages. All that money gets spent into the local economy.

andrewl-hn

Let’s be honest. If anyone would be building a brand new company in Poland or any other country with the intention of raising capital or IPOing they would still incorporate in the US or a handful of other countries. So any successful Polish company would count as American/ German / Singaporean / etc anyway.

laughing_man

I don't see that it matters where the capital is raised.

CD Projekt is listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Is that an American/German/Singaporean/etc company?

m_ke

see elevenlabs as a prime example

bane

My understanding is that Poland is also seeking smart win-win arrangements with some of these foreign sources. For example, Poland has initiated several big equipment buys from South Korean military suppliers on the condition that most of the manufacturing is done in Poland and that there is technical sharing for future self-sustainment.

It's basically importing expensive R&D for "free" while helping establish a heavy industrial base (which has also proven very fruitful for South Koreans). I'm sure there are other examples like this. You also get a better trained workforce, and then the import of the technical knowledge later where it is slower to digest but with the ability now to turn that knowledge into working production.

th0raway

It's the first step to building the top companies: You first need enough agglomeration of that labor so that, whenever there's a recession, you can scoop up some of that labor for a startup.

And as demand of those cheap engineers go up, salaries rise. It's not just Poland: Go see what happens to engineering salaries in, say, Spain vs Berlin. You find Capgemini opening offices, because the labor is that cheap. New grads making as little as 20k in some regions.

So compared to that, having big tech moving over and paying over local market rates, and expanding enough so salaries end up rising is much better than the alternative: They don't come, there's no money, the engineers emigrate, and the country becomes poorer.

avgDev

What kind of dev salaries are you seeing in Poland?

I have family in Poland, they are from smaller villages and they ALWAYS complain about EU and the economy. I wonder if things are similar in large cities.

kleiba2

> and they ALWAYS complain about EU and the economy

That's funny because Poland became dramatically richer after joining the EU, it allowed them access to one of the richest markets on Earth.

I understand that if you're from a smaller village you might also have missed the enormous infrastructure investments (highways, airports, sewage systems, etc.) that have only been possible because of EU money.

Then there's all the foreign companies that you mentioned whose investments have provided jobs directly and indirectly - as a EU member, Poland has become a lot more attractive for foreign investors.

And arguable, Poland carries a much bigger weight in international policies then it used to.

These points are not to say that there's nothing to criticize about the EU. As a matter of fact, there's not shortage of things to criticize. But it's unfair not to see the enormous gains Poland got since joining.

I would go so far as to argue that Poland is one of the biggest success stories of post-1989 Europe.

scotty79

> I understand that if you're from a smaller village you might also have missed the enormous infrastructure investments (highways, airports, sewage systems, etc.) that have only been possible because of EU money.

That's the key. There wasn't enough done to ensure that everyone can enjoy the benefits. That why at some point populists won the vote and ruled the country for 8 years. They are still kicking. Recently elected president of Poland is from the populist camp. They still have support even though they didn't really hide their kleptocratic tendencies. Fortunately somehow they didn't manage to do significant macroeconomic harm. But they stalled development of renewables for a decade.

alterom

You really ought to call out Nawrocki and PiS by name (populist president/party), for all the non-Europeans out there.

For anyone new to Polish politics, here's an easy mnemonic: PiS = piss.

>Fortunately somehow they didn't manage to do significant macroeconomic harm.

Yay for parliamentary systems with proportional representation.

That's how.

baq

this is Poland for you. everyone complains about everything. perhaps that's the secret to success - there's always something to complain about and one in a hundred (or thousand) people actually does something about it.

Leonard_of_Q

> this is Poland for you. everyone complains about everything

That is western Europe for you, not just Poland. Same in the Netherlands, same in Sweden, same in Belgium, same in Denmark, same in Norway, same in France, same in Germany, etcetera. Descartes claimed that he thought, therefore he was. A more realistic and equally erudite quote would be Queror, ergo sum which translates to I complain, therefore I am.

(also, q.e.d. because I'm complaining about people complaining)

alterom

>That is western Europe for you, not just Poland

Sorry, no, you are missing the point.

The specific anti-EU complaining among the less-educated, older and rural population which benefits a lot from Poland being an EU state is not the same in Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Norway.

It is the same in Hungary and Slovakia though, for a reason.

Today's news brings us the following headline:

"Fugitive former Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro is now in the United States courtesy of a visa from President Donald Trump after fleeing Hungary, local media report."[1]

In case it is not apparent to you, Ziobro was running on the PiS party ticket — the very same party running on the anti-EU sentiment that the people we're discussing have, in all certainty, voted for.

That's in the wake of another PiS-aligned fugitive judge, Tomasz Szmydt, fleeing investigation for espionage to find refuge in... Belarus[2].

Naturally, he condemned Poland for being too "pro-Western".

Swedish judges don't do that, while hiding in Belarus.

You don't have PiS in Sweden.

And Trump isn't welcoming fugitive Justice Ministers from Sweden into the US because they can't hide in Hungary anymore..

...because the Hungarian MAGA lost the elections there (in spite of JD Vance flying over to campaign for Orban, Orban giving speeches at CPAC, and Trump explicitly praising him).

Do you realize how off mark your objection to applying "the MAGA moniker" to PiS supporters is?

It's not even metaphorical; they're directly collaborating on a political level.

Have a good one, hope you learned something.

Skol.

[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/ex-poland-justice-minister-z...

[2] https://visegradinsight.eu/judge-hater-penitent-spy-the-stor...

kleiba2

> this is Poland for you. everyone complains about everything

Must be the proximity to Germany...

scotty79

It's quite incredible how close Poland and Germany are culturally. And how unaware both countries are about this.

Leonard_of_Q

Are they really unaware or do they actively deny the cultural connections? Prussia was a thing not that long ago - it is still used as a slang term for Germans in parts of the Netherlands ("de Pruisen" of "die Preußen"). Anyone who had a bit of history or who has looked at an older map sees that Prussia was divided between what is now Germany and Poland. Of course both countries went through a lot of upheaval between then and now but there's still plenty of people alive who will remember living in Prussia.

alterom

>I have family in Poland, they are from smaller villages and they ALWAYS complain about EU and the economy

Ah, the Polish MAGA.

Probably Russian-influenced as well.

Leonard_of_Q

[flagged]

scotty79

No, he's right.

It's not republican vs democrat. It's about people who weren't lucky enough (and word lucky does a lot of work here) to feel the benefits of the progressive policies. People who are easily captured by populist grifters, using simplest scaremongering tactics that russian propaganda happily manufactures and disseminates in the West.

In US it stopped being republicans vs democrats many years ago. They just didn't throw away the old labels.

alterom

Dziękuję bardzo! Ale oni i tak nic nie przeczytają :(

Leonard_of_Q

Två kan spela samma spel, frågan är vem det nu är som läser eller lyssnar och vem inte gör det. Det hjälper inte heller att kalla allt som inte passar åsiktskorridoren som 'extremhöger' eller amerikanska versionen av samma konceptet, inte heller att peka fingret mot påstådda 'fienden' och kalla honom för ryssvänlig.

Also, let's speak English here so everyone understands what we're talking about. Ja nje omje moviez po Polsku (I probably butchered the spelling but you get my drift). Ja nje gawarje pa roesskie either but English I can do pretty well.

alterom

>Två kan spela samma spel, frågan är vem det nu är som läser eller lyssnar och vem inte gör det. Det hjälper inte heller att kalla allt som inte passar åsiktskorridoren som 'extremhöger' eller amerikanska versionen av samma konceptet, inte heller att peka fingret mot påstådda 'fienden' och kalla honom för ryssvänlig.

>Also, let's speak English here so everyone understands what we're talking about. Ja nje omje moviez po Polsku (I probably butchered the spelling but you get my drift). Ja nje gawarje pa roesskie either but English I can do pretty well.

The funny thing here is that if one skips the non-English part of your comment, they don't miss anything of substance that applies to this discussion.

I'm not "playing games", and I've stated the facts in my longer comment. Please respond there if you have opinions, and please quote the parts you're not agreeing with, because here you seem to be arguing with points nobody in this conversation made.

In any case, I'm happy for you in Sweden (I presume), where, unlike the people you're attempting to correct, you are not directly affected by either MAGA in the US or the Polish equivalent.

I'm guessing that nobody ever called you a kurwa when they heard you speak, or threatened to beat you up in public for looking too queer, so you can still have enlightened opinions about American and Polish "conservatives" without ever having to interact with them.

I'm sorry you were triggered by seeing the word "MAGA" to the extent that you felt the need to tell me to stop talking. Sadly, in a discussion about Poland and the anti-EU sentiment there, MAGA is very much relevant.

I accept your non-apology in all the languages you don't speak, and I'm glad that you have a sufficient command of the English language to participate in this discussion.

Nice Swedish too though. Have you been studying it for a while?

Since we are discussing Poland, knowing a bit of Polish to understand the context would have been useful. Unfortunately, the Swedish language plays very little role in the geopolitical situation we're discussing, and won't help you understand either MAGA or PiS supporters.

Speaking of understanding, I'm curious about your basis for understanding American, Polish, and Russian politics, given that you don't appear to have any lived experience, direct exposure, or command of the languages (aside from English, presumably). I surely hope your knowledge of the US politics is sourced from more than Hacker News and media personalities like John Oliver.

In any case, thank you again for trying to say something that another person might find valuable, and I wish you luck in your next attempt.

Skol.

alterom

>Ehhh, because only MAGA complains

No.

Because Russia has specifically invested in propaganda efforts influencing rural voters in Poland to support Polish far-right parties (and PiS), using it to foster anti-EU and anti-Ukraine sentiment.

The Polish farmers blocking the border checkpoints used for delivery of military aid to Ukraine a few years ago as "ptotest" was a mirror image tactic of the Canadian conservative truckers blocking the roads.

Russian investment and collusion with conservative and authoritarian movements worldwide — and MAGA in particular — is well-documented. I welcome you to read Mueller's report.

>Don't politicise where it is not applicable

Don't tell me what to do.

You're out of your depth here to determine what's applicable, and what isn't.

>this has nothing to do with the cat fight between 'democrats' and republicans

It has everything to do with the geopolitics and the war taking place in Ukraine, in which both Poland and the US hold a stake (and are both targeted by Russian influence campaigns on that dimension).

Not the "cat fight". The real war.

Look, I'm a Ukrainian-American who went to Ukraine during the war (spent a month in Kyiv in 2023), and lived in Poland for about a year.

I speak Ukrainian, Russian, and English at native proficiency, and I know enough Polish to be renting an apartment there, owning a car, etc.

Russian disinformation campaigns are my special interest. I can tell you a lot about Surkov's postmodern Firehose-of-Falsehood machinery, Gerasimov's hybrid war doctrine, and how it was instrumental in the 2014 invasion of Ukraine as well as 2016 US election meddling and the rise of MAGA.

I can direct you to RAND and RUSI studies, books and articles by Pomerantsev, Applebaum, Gessen, which will give you a wider look into Russia's hand in the right-wing "conservative" voices across the world and in the EU in particular (Orban in Hungary, Fico in Slovakia, AfD in Germany, and PiS supporters in Poland).

But you really won't learn anything if you insist on projecting your myopic US-centric attitude that purports that MAGA is a dem-vs-not-dem "cat fight".

I'm happy that you get to live in a world where you can avoid "politicizing" politics.

Out in the real world, complaining about the EU while living in a EU country whose economy was lifted from shambles by the EU is inherently a political issue.

And it's not coincidentally similar to MAGA supporters e.g. rallying against Obamacare only to discover that they literally depend on it for survival, and in general, voting against Democrats while benefitting from and depending on the policies that Democrats established.

And it's not coincidental that the Polish anti-EU rural voters are sharing the anti-immigration, "they took our jobs" sentiment with MAGA even as immigration provided an immense boost to both the US and Polish economy.

Ukrainians number in millions in Poland because of the war; MAGA's anti-Mexican sentiment maps 1:1 to anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Poland — specifically because Russian information warfare efforts help fuel both (it's a literal industry in Russia, with infamous St. Petersburg human-staffed "bot farms" being well exposed by now).

I'm not saying that all MAGA is like that, but there is a sufficiently big overlap (and a sufficient amount of evidence) that me saying that those rural anti-EU folks are Polish MAGA has a lot more weight than you are realizing.

As other commenters have pointed out, by the way.

So, if I may: please revert your downvote and learn.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

alterom

To anyone still reading this thread:

Today's news brings us the following headline:

"Fugitive former Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro is now in the United States courtesy of a visa from President Donald Trump after fleeing Hungary, local media report."

Case closed, ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between.

https://www.politico.eu/article/ex-poland-justice-minister-z...

Leonard_of_Q

You seem to assume that I'm an American? I'm not, nor do I live in the Americas. You're not an American either but for some reason you seem to have taken over an awful lot of the "democratic" viewpoints. Those viewpoints are quite polarising whether you see this or not and they're largely based around the "democratic" attempt to gain the upper hand in American elections by creating an "us versus them" narrative in which everyone who does not abide to a desired narrative is part of, in collusion with or influenced by "them". You insist I don't tell me what to do when I call out your reference to 'MAGA' in a thread around Poland being a growing economy but in the same post you tell me to 'revert my downvote' (what downvote? I do not vote down, I discuss) and that I should 'learn'. Well, I learn all the time and from your discourse I learned that you seem to have taken a rather polarised position when it comes to American affairs which seems to come straight out of the "democrat" playbook. You also infer that those who do not agree with your position on these subjects must be "influenced by Russian disinformation campaigns". Let me put a few things straight:

- as said I'm not an American

- ...and I do not want the extremely polarised political discourse from the U.S.A. to be exported more than it already is...

- ...so I disagree with the application of the 'MAGA' moniker to the current discourse on the Polish economy...

- ...nor do I see the "democratic" party as the "good" side versus the "bad" republicans or - if you dislike the d/r dichotomy the "non-MAGA" versus "MAGA". The "democrats" accuse the republicans of what they've been doing during the Obama and Biden regimes while the republicans accuse(d) the "democrats" of what they were doing during the Bush and Trump regimes. Pot, meet kettle. The result of all those shenanigans is that the populace got fed up with all the politicking and voted for a candidate who came from outside the political circus: Trump. This did not stop the politicking, it only made it worse so they voted for him again, and again. I suspect they'll keep on voting for candidates like him until they're fed up with the constant turmoil and vote for a "boring" candidate. I say let them, it is their country, we have our own share of problems here.

- With regard to the Russian invasion of Ukraine I'd like to see Putin pushed back over the original borders...

- ...but I also realise that Ukraine had and has its own share of problems with corruption so the country has quite a way to go once Putin (or whoever succeeds him once he happened to fall out of a window in his underground bunker) has been put in his place...

Now let's get back to discussing the Polish "wirtschaftswunder" - there'll be a better Polish term for that - and keep American politics where it belongs, in the U.S.A.

alterom

>You seem to assume that I'm an American?

No. What made you think that? Please cite.

I assumed you aren't. People here wouldn't describe MAGA/Democrat standoff as "cat fight".

>You're not an American either

I am. What made you think that? Please cite.

To repeat: I am Ukrainian-American. I've lived in the US for most of my life, and voted in the past 4 elections.

>but for some reason you seem to have taken over an awful lot of the "democratic" viewpoints.

Pardon me, I have not stated any "democratic viewpoints". Please cite the specific things I said you believe to be "democratic viewpoints".

>Those viewpoints are quite polarising whether you see this or not and they're largely based around the "democratic" attempt to gain the upper hand in American elections by creating an "us versus them" narrative

If you think it's the Democratic Party in the US that capitalizes on the "us versus them" narrative, you have a lot to learn.

> You also infer that those who do not agree with your position on these subjects must be "influenced by Russian disinformation campaigns".

No. What made you think that? Please cite.s

>and I do not want the extremely polarised political discourse from the U.S.A. to be exported

I'm writing from the US, on a US-based website, which you're welcome to not participate in discussions opinions from which you wish to not be "exported" to wherever you are.

Other than that, you really no say in what kind of ideas get "exported" on an open forum.

Please read the rules.

>nor do I see the "democratic" party as the "good"

Irrelevant.

> I disagree with the application of the 'MAGA' moniker to the current discourse on the Polish economy...

You are welcome to continue in your ignorance.

I gave quite a few solid reasons as to why that moniker is applicable; speaking from my experience of living in both Poland and the US, interacting with the conservatives in both countries, being directly affected by the politics in both of them, and being able to speak languages in both countries.

Your entire reasoning as to why you don't think "MAGA" is applicable to the anti-EU rural folks in Poland amounts to "I don't like Dems", which has nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

At this point, I need to ask whether it'd be easier for you if I translated my words to Swedish, because you're not responding to anything I'm actually saying here.

If you feel the need to vocally disagree after reading my comments again, please cite the parts you find contentious, so that we could make sure that what you're hearing is what I'm saying (and avoid oopsies like "you're not American").

Thank you.

postsantum

[flagged]

alterom

>Many americans suffer from this

I'm a Ukrainian-American who's lived in Ukraine, Poland, and the US; have property/bank accounts in all three countries, and speak three languages and Russian.

The "Americans suffering from this" would be people saying what you just did.

Please read my other comment up the thread where I provide more context.

And please don't presume you have any idea on how others view the world.

>The only other point of reference is Hitler and his modern reincarnation - russians

Sure, let's just ignore the Muller's report which documents Russian collusion when discussing MAGA, let's ignore Russian invasion of Ukraine when discussing Poland, and let's ignore Russia's relationship with Orban, Fico, and PiS when discussing the anti-EU sentiment in the EU (particularly among rural voters).

That will surely give us an enlightened, non-US-centric and non-myopic view. /s

postsantum

[flagged]

alterom

>This is so debunked that I consider other opinions held by you as a sign they are wrong as well

"So debunked" by whom exactly?

Please cite which parts of this report[1] you believe are false.

Insofar as this discussion is concerned, I'll defer to the Cato institute, a conservative think tank. Quote:

"Mueller concluded that the Russians did interfere, Trump was aware of the interference, he benefited from and encouraged the interference – e.g., Don, Jr. was eager to get and use information on Hillary Clinton – and he didn’t report the interference to the FBI. "

That's the part pertinent to this discussion. Namely, that Russia did help MAGA in the US grow, and there's documented evidence of that.

Russia's influence on rural Polish conservatives in stoking the anti-Ukrainian and anti-EU sentiment, and their open meddling in the politics of EU countries supporting MAGA-like sentiments in Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland, is similarly well-documented.

I'm sorry that you appear to be triggered by seeing a reference to Muller's report.

The points I'm making still stand though, and I hope you'll find the strength to comprehend them in spite of your reflexes.

Thank you in advance.

[1] https://www.justice.gov/storage/report_volume2.pdf

[2] https://www.cato.org/blog/mueller-report-faqs

badpun

Typical salary for a senior dev is around 20-30k PLN per month, which translates to $65k-$100k per year (gross). Also, a lot of devs do a little bit of tax avoidance that is currently not persecuted, which allows them to pay total taxes below 20% on that amount. So, your take-home pay is $50k-$80k.

thegreatwhale8

This website says Senior Java Developer is 20kPLN-27k PLN (64k USD per year after taxes) (employment contract) and 25k PLN-30k PLN if you agree to lose employee rights.

https://bulldogjob.com/it-report/salaries/java

30k PLN per month on employment contract would be 71k usd per year after taxes

elbear

That's a good salary, better than Romania on average. And if you also have lower prices (at least that's what I heard), even better then.

tasuki

> Typical salary for a senior dev is around 20-30k PLN per month

Typical, yes, though it's possible to earn way more than that. Not that 20-30k PLN per month is bad, the average Polish salary is perhaps around 9k and the median around 7k.

20-30k PLN goes a long way in Poland. Some seven years ago, I was spending around 7k PLN a month, living in the beautiful Warsaw old town, 50 metres from Kolumna Zygmunta, eating out all the time, and generally felt I was living like a king. Good times!

seba_dos1

It does go a long way, but note that 2019's 7k PLN is today's 11k (or 15k if you use the Big Mac index).

avgDev

That is a decent salary! I guess it could be an option for me one day if I get tired of the US.

cromka

These were typical salaries 2+ years ago. Things changes substantially since. New hires earn less across the board, irrespective of experience.

laughing_man

Joining the EU meant giving up some measure of sovereignty, so they're living under a regulatory regime that's probably more extensive than it would be if Poland were independent.

Also, people like to complain.

mlmonkey

How do you think China grew so much after 1990? A lot of FDI, a lot of protectionism. And look where they are today.

moondowner

> Western Europe and the US built their economy in Poland, because the labor is educated and cheap. > There are almost no globally competitive Polish companies.

Same issue in all southern and eastern European countries.

goobatrooba

Grossly incorrect and unfounded. There are no Googles there, but there are plenty of mid tier companies delivering quality products. For a blatant example see e.g. Shelly in Bulgaria. Or depending on how you count South, e.g. Vinci or Eni or car producers in Italy.

And not everyone needs to succeed in industrial household names, that e.g. much of southern European economies come from tourism is not a bad thing.

cromka

Shelly is anything but quality and also a niche product, when juxtaposed with car manufacturers you mention.

mejutoco

Why stop there. Make it all Europe and the Marshall plan.we can probably go back to the Roman empire if we try.

Barrin92

I don't think that's a good way to think about the modern economy. Large companies aren't American, German or Polish just because they're founded in one place. The surplus value that a country like Poland adds or that all the producers in the supply chain of Apple or Tesla add are real and contribute to their national economies.

Singapore isn't a "fake rich" country because most of the companies that have settled down there are international businesses, the money is as real as anywhere else, so are the jobs. Always strikes me as a bit atavistic when people talk about companies as if they're owned by a country despite the fact that the value creation and supply chains run through two hundred countries.

Saline9515

Poland has also the lowest fertility rate of the EU. This growth came at a cost and may be short-lived when the cheap workforce dies out with no replacement.

abigail95

saying foreign investment is a bad or invalid growth strategy is wild

are you one of those anti-trade people where the only real ""growth"" doesn't involve foreigners

tty456

It's one thing to say they don't want immigrants taking their jobs. But its a whole other thing to discount foreign investment, giving your people jobs, under your rules...

kazinator

Providing educated labor is a kind of build.

shimman

Yes and we see what happens to countries after doing this, they start developing their own domestic industries and economies. It's not a bad strategy to organically build a robust economy either.

y42

First: if you compare rates (salary, wages,...) you also always must consider rents, cost of living etc.

Second: You can't just pick Berlin for comparison.

Third: Take away foreign owend companies from Berlin, you get a cheap, dirty poor capital.

pepperoni_pizza

Allegro is Polish, large and successful, no?

But I only know of them because they bought some successful small companies in my country and shut them down to reduce competition, for which they are universally hated around here.

pzo

It was founded in Poland and by poles by I think it’s owned whole by foreign capital - hard to call it polish even though still listed on polish stock exchange. Google branch in Warsaw we wouldn’t call it polish either.

Examples of significant shareholders include:

* Permira Advisers LLP (UK) * Cinven Group Ltd. (UK) * BlackRock (US) * Vanguard (US)

tasuki

Czechia? I always have to explain that Allegro is not a bad company per se, just absolutely messed up the attempt at conquering Czechia...

hnarturpl

And due to pay rises we’re becoming less and less competitive.

goobatrooba

There are plenty of polish companies, but like in Germany many are more in the middle of the spectrum, so they might be well known in their sector but not much beyond. I've seen e.g. plenty of polish building materials and furniture across shops on western Europe.

pkilgore

You gotta have "A" to do "B".

This is one way of having "A" that isn't "massive internal natural resources" like USA, China, Russia, Colonialism, or Oil States (I'm sure I missed other kickstarters here).

doctorpangloss

> There are almost no globally competitive Polish companies.

there ought to be, but EU capital is taking bad bets. it would be the easiest early stage play in the world

wswin

It terms of the IT sector there is not much difference to the rest of the Europe. America has dominated the field, China is catching up, especially in global giants category.

grosswait

I don’t live in Poland, but this is like comparing a thriving metro area to Silicon Valley. Just because the metro isn’t coming up with the latest ideas doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its own economy - it’s just different. From my outsider perspective this is very much a positive step for Poland and should be celebrated.

fishingisfun

just like israel. even india is similar

tehjoker

Reading the article it attributed institutional strength to poland, which is great, but it sounds like this was something the west decided not to sabotage. The oligarchs taking over in e.g. Russia was engineered by the clinton administration and Larry Summers as "shock therapy" when the soviet government fell.

ghqptx

> Western Europe and the US built their economy in Poland, because the labor is educated and cheap.

Yes, for the benefit of their stock markets and at the expense of their own populations.

A rising tide lifts all luxury yachts.

steve_adams_86

Years ago I bought some really nice brushless motors and was surprised to see they were made in Poland. I had no idea they were manufacturers of things like that.

Later I bought even nicer motors, meant to provide exceptional control and feedback for tactile/haptic behaviours, and they were from Poland too.

Then I got to work on a robotic arm which contained a bunch of components from Poland. At this point it was clear to me that it wasn’t coincidence.

Finally, I built a drone with my kids and again, the motors are Polish. And they’re excellent.

They went from being a place I would only expect to encounter cultural food items from to a place that entered a high tech supply chain which seems to produce high enough quality components that I see them without seeking them out.

As a Canadian it made me very envious. We should be able to do this. I’ve seen a handful of Canadian motors in my life, and they were all blower motors a long time ago. Our ability to build cutting edge technology seems to be so limited as to be virtually irrelevant in most cases.

delis-thumbs-7e

As A Finn I’d like to see Canada figure out that “oh shit we could be a world superpower with all the smarts and natural resources we have” and start trading culture and goods with Nordic countries. We would rule!

orochimaaru

Most of the AI scientists powering the current AI revolution (or apocalypse) are Canadian.

If your banking system is conservative and you don’t have a venture capital backed risk taking infrastructure - it’s systemic issue. It is the same problem with Europe.

cromka

Ironically, most of early OpenAI engineers and scientists were Polish

gib444

Far north hemisphere, unite? A Canadian-British-Nordic partnership.

pepperoni_pizza

Well, the coming AMOC collapse will at least align the climates.

delis-thumbs-7e

Britain, well… I’ll take Scotland, they’re sensible. But rest of you, we can’t just look what you are doing to yourself. Please Britain, get some help.

gib444

Hm Finland, with the 38th highest suicide rate in the world? Well above the UK, in 117th place. I think you need our help :(

delis-thumbs-7e

I was referring to how you have selected post-2008 government after another to completely tank the economy and destroy key British institutions, but Finland has a goverment that does exactly the same, so we do kinda need help as sell. Maybe we should go to some 12-step-program together.

(PS. Finnish suicide rate has fallen through the 2000’s from 1200 per year to about 750)

Flere-Imsaho

> how you have selected post-2008 government after another to completely tank the economy

Well we had a choice between 2 governments... Who are basically the same. Even if a radical government is elected in a couple of years, the deep state will essentially stop them from stepping outside the line which has already been chosen for us.

What I'm saying is that we, the British people, do not live in a democracy. So don't blame me :)

gib444

> how you have selected post-2008 government after another to completely tank the economy and destroy key British institutions

Yup. Thanks Russia.

tejohnso

Don't forget Russia and USA!

lee

There is a saying I've heard: "Silicon Valley is powered by Waterloo Grads"

The problem with Canadian innovation is that our best and brightest tend to complete their education in Canada, then emigrate to the US. The brain drain is a real issue for us.

One of the "positives" of Trump's hostilities towards Canada is that perhaps this would slow the brain drain for the current generation.

grogenaut

Love waterloo grads. They're 2 years ahead of other college grads. They come to the internship ready to ship. They definitely power stuff.

But Stanford grads all take moonshots.

Which would I rather have? Waterloo, they're great workers. Not sure they've been crushing it long enough to be in charge everywhere, time will tell.

hermitShell

I have to admit, I feel the same envy about industry and economic growth. But there also seem to be many explanations of why Canada continually fails to attract large cap business other than resource extraction. The cost of living / skilled worker wages / tax structure / high levels of regulation means that if you have large cap, you could just build your factory somewhere else and make more money. We've got golden handcuffs in many ways. Still, that 'envy' or ambition is what keeps me coming back to HN, I think it is still possible to start something successful and innovative in this country.

morkalork

There's also a massive and constant brain drain down south

steve_adams_86

Absolutely. For a lot of my career I worked from west coast Canada for US companies in California. After a few years of earning $80k CAD and working as hard as anyone I'd meet at conferences in the USA, I realized I was being an idiot. It was transformative. I only know a couple people personally in software here who work for Canadian companies apart from where I work.

I earned ~2–3x more than I do now working for a Canadian company, doing the best work of my career. I'm so unimportant here, they would readily discard me and laugh if I asked for a raise. This is Canada. But, I like this place, the people, and the work. I think it's important work. I'm at a stage where I prefer that over cash.

I don't think many of my peers feel the same. There's a sense that there's no point in working for Canadian companies if you don't have to. On balance they perform worse, pay less, have less interesting opportunities, and work you as hard as any American counterpart would.

alt219

Some anecdata: in the area I'm from in the northeastern US which has a large number of manufacturing/tool & die companies of all sizes, and with a large Polish diaspora, 80% of the most skilled machinists are Polish (or 2nd or 3rd gen descendants), at least that was the case when I was working with these business between 20-30 years ago. Many of the best engineers at these business are Polish as well.

dismalaf

> We should be able to do this.

That would require work. Canadians just want to buy real estate, watch it go up 10x, then sell and retire in Mexico.

steve_adams_86

You're describing something that some Canadians did (and very few still do), but this is not reflective of the vast majority of us. For most Canadians, especially as our economy declines, our extremely expensive homes are more like death sentences for our financial futures. We're not going to profit off of these things—ever—unless decades-long trends rapidly begin to reverse rather than accelerate.

dismalaf

I'm aware of the current economic state.

The point is that capital holders decided doing risky things isn't worth it, so they invested in unproductive low-risk assets, then the government juiced the immigration rate, said assets rose, capital holders are making off like bandits leaving Canadians behind in a stagnant economy holding the proverbial bag...

steve_adams_86

It's those god damned boomers, man

(more so terrible policy-making, which we're still very good at doing poorly today)

dismalaf

Who elects the policy makers?

Fact is, only ~25% of Canadians are net tax payers. The rest work for a government, are unemployed, disabled, retired, or receive more funding from the government than they put in. So yeah, it's the boomers, the government workers, unemployed, disabled, etc...

The status quo is what Canadians want. It's why anyone with ambition (ie. wants to work and/or be an entrepreneur) leaves.

kamranjon

Would you happen to know any of the motor companies by name? I’m often trying to find quality motors and it’s surprisingly difficult.

steve_adams_86

This was the best one I dealt with https://www.mabrobotics.pl/ma-actuators

It's been a while and I can't recall the other big one. I know some engineers from one of them went on to work for Clone Robotics, which seems to be doing interesting stuff with other types of actuators.

mikrl

Rockwell Automation has a facility in Katowice, Silesia which was/is a major centre of coal mining and locomotive manufacturing since the 1800s when it was part of Prussia, and continuing through the Polish Republic, WW2 era and beyond.

The industrial heritage is strong.

cromka

I interviewed there in 2012. Great people and culture, but salary was shite. Kinda regret, though, from all companies I interviewed, they suit my area of interest and experience the most.

znpy

I bought furniture, and i was surprised it came from poland actually. The website was something like a polish ikea.

Btw great furniture, it’s still in my living room many years after, pretty much still pristine.

Claude Code _{12 hooks + MCP + skills}	OpenClaw _{MCP + plugin}	Hermes _{MCP + plugin}	Cursor _{MCP server}	Gemini CLI _{MCP server}	OpenCode _{MCP server}	Codex CLI _{MCP server}	Cline _{MCP server}
Goose _{MCP server}	Kilo Code _{MCP server}	Aider _{REST API}	Claude Desktop _{MCP server}	Windsurf _{MCP server}	Roo Code _{MCP server}	Claude SDK _{AgentSDKProvider}	Any agent _{REST API}

	agentmemory	mem0 (53K ⭐)	Letta / MemGPT (22K ⭐)	Built-in (CLAUDE.md)
Type	Memory engine + MCP server	Memory layer API	Full agent runtime	Static file
Retrieval R@5	95.2%	68.5% (LoCoMo)	83.2% (LoCoMo)	N/A (grep)
Auto-capture	12 hooks (zero manual effort)	Manual `add()` calls	Agent self-edits	Manual editing
Search	BM25 + Vector + Graph (RRF fusion)	Vector + Graph	Vector (archival)	Loads everything into context
Multi-agent	MCP + REST + leases + signals	API (no coordination)	Within Letta runtime only	Per-agent files
Framework lock-in	None (any MCP client)	None	High (must use Letta)	Per-agent format
External deps	None (SQLite + iii-engine)	Qdrant / pgvector	Postgres + vector DB	None
Memory lifecycle	4-tier consolidation + decay + auto-forget	Passive extraction	Agent-managed	Manual pruning
Token efficiency	~1,900 tokens/session ($10/yr)	Varies by integration	Core memory in context	22K+ tokens at 240 obs
Real-time viewer	Yes (port 3113)	Cloud dashboard	Cloud dashboard	No
Self-hosted	Yes (default)	Optional	Optional	Yes

Phase	Goal	Status
1	Bootstrap pipeline — Hello World on Linux x86_64 via PasBuild	Complete ✅
2	Type system — classes, records, ARC, exceptions	Complete ✅
3	Generics + zero-GUID interfaces	Complete ✅
4	OPDF debug info emission	Complete ✅
5	Self-hosting + LLVM + Windows + macOS ARM64	In-Progress
6	LSP + VS Code extension	Planned
7	Migration analyser for FPC/Delphi codebases	Planned

Feature	Reason for removal
`ShortString`, `AnsiString`, `WideString`, `UnicodeString`	Replaced by a single UTF-8 reference-counted `string` type
`with` statement	Source of hard-to-diagnose symbol resolution bugs; breaks static analysis
Old-style `object` types	Use `record` (stack/value) or `class` (heap/reference) instead
COM-style interface GUIDs	Interface dispatch via compile-time vtable; GUIDs are unnecessary complexity
Multiple language modes	One dialect, maintained well, beats five dialects maintained poorly
`assign`, `reset`, `rewrite`, `blockread`	Replaced by a stream-based I/O RTL
`TObject` vs `TInterfacedObject` split	One unified class model under automatic reference counting; `[Weak]` breaks cycles

Existing record	Same canonical command?	Suggested behavior
none	yes	insert `IN_PROGRESS` and execute
`COMPLETED`	yes	replay stored response or documented equivalent
any existing record	no	reject with idempotency conflict
`IN_PROGRESS`, fresh	yes	wait, return `202`, or return `409` + `Retry-After`
`IN_PROGRESS`, stale	yes	recover ownership; do not blindly execute again
`FAILED_REPLAYABLE`	yes	replay stored failure
`FAILED_RETRYABLE`	yes	allow retry according to policy
`UNKNOWN_REQUIRES_RECOVERY`	yes	trigger reconciliation or return pending/recovery status
expired/deleted	unknown	follow documented expiry behavior

Pinboard Popular

Dusk • Restoring light to a classic adventure

the 90 day disclosure policy is dead :: Himanshu Anand :: Threat Notes

TLDR⌗

the old world (rest in peace)⌗

story 1: 10 people, 1 bug, 6 weeks⌗

story 2: 30 minutes from patch to exploit⌗

story 3: the week linux caught fire⌗

act 1: copy fail⌗

act 2: dirty frag⌗

what the industry needs to do (and I am not sugarcoating this)⌗

a note for the blue team⌗

final thoughts⌗

Real signals or artificial stereotypes? - by Adam Kucharski

Adventures with a cultural Copilot

What did it find?

susam/wander: A tiny, decentralised tool you can host with just two files to explore the small web - Codeberg.org

Contents

How It Works

Wandering the Web

Changing Base Console

Install

Customise Your Console

Custom CSS

Custom JS

Customise Ignore List

Customisation Order

Caution

Wander Console Network

Design

Comparisons

Wander vs Kagi Small Web

Wander vs StumbleUpon

Wander vs Webrings

Join the Community

Share Your Console

Join Our IRC Channel

Contributing

Credits

Support

Licence

Think Linear Algebra — Think Linear Algebra

What You’ll Learn

The notebooks

Tech is turning increasingly to religion in a quest to create ethical AI

Challenges lie ahead

Some skepticism emerges

GitHub - rohitg00/agentmemory: Persistent memory for AI coding agents · GitHub

Retrieval Accuracy

Token Savings

Try it in 30 seconds

Session Replay

Upgrade / Maintenance

Claude Code (one block, paste it)

Running local models on an M4 with 24GB memory | jola.dev

Example 1:

Example 2:

Emerich Juettner: The One Dollar Counterfeiter | Amusing Planet

Task Paralysis & AI | g5t.de

About Task Paralysis

About AI

What is it good for?

The Catch

Learn AI Layer by Layer

Introduction

Everything Is Numbers

The Power of Incremental Improvement

Building a Brain

Describing the World with Numbers

From Words to Meanings

Understanding by Predicting

Paying Attention

Where Am I?

One Architecture to Rule Them All

Thinking by Rotating

Why Training Almost Doesn't Work

Only Wake the Specialists You Need

Remembering a Million Words

Running Models Fast

Looking Inside the Mind