A lunatic behind the wheel

In the eve of the third anniversary of the invasion to Ukraine, my hopes Donald Trump would act reasonably are dashed. The warfare, marked with attrition on both sides, might within a few months come to an end. Sadly, the peace agreement’s shape might be far from expectations of the civilised world.

The idiocy the US president displays on every step does not cease to amaze, or rather disturb me. How dumb must a man be to say he trusts the russian dictator? How short-sighted must a man be not to predict a ceasefire will buy time to putin’s war machine to build capacity for a broader campaign against NATO? How narcistic must a man be to want to bring the war to an end at any price, just to prove his powerfulness? How brazen must a man be to claim Ukraine has sparked off that war and could have finished it and accuse it of breaching a never nailed down deal?

In his transactional politics, Ukraine has a role of an object, not as a subject, it best summarises endeavours to reach a peace agreement without the invaded country being involved. The US president and his cronies are not interested in protecting NATO or in shielding foundations of the civilised world, such as a country’s right to stand up for its independence and integrity. This guy craves for rights to dig up rare resources beneath the Ukrainian soil. At the end of the day, such approach is still lesser evil than coercing Ukraine to give away occupied areas to russia, as it involves defending territories where rare metals are deposited against the russian army.

Europe in these circumstances appears powerless and sluggish. The EU leaders have belatedly realised they have made a mistake by relying on the behind-the-ocean ally as a guarantor of stability in Europe. Most countries in our region have run out of weapons shipped to Ukraine, have not rebuild their military capacities and now stick to expressing their deep concerns about how the peace is to be restored. The new US administration, no matter how critical we might be towards its policies, does not lack decisiveness and determination to resolve this conflict. Voters around the world are somewhat sick of indecisiveness and powerlessness politicians display; in several countries we see the outcomes of such shift.

Between us – Ukraine has still way to go before it becomes a mature democracy, especially in terms of cracking down on corruption and rule of oligarchs. From the perspective of Poland it needs to get to grips with its history (Wolyn genocide during WW2) But at the moment is is above all a country fighting for its independence and territories belonging to it based on international treaties. For the last 3 years Ukraine kept the russian army away from NATO’s borders. Biden’s administration’s tactics was to wear russia down and deplete its resources sustainably, so that it emerges frail after the war ends. Trump’s policies will help Russia to grow stronger in long term.

If prominent politicians call Ukraine’s president a dictator or claim aid from the Western world was partly seized by oligarchs, they speak one voice with the tsar of russia. This tsar, or his successors, will not stick to any peace agreements in a horizon of more than 3 years. The war will be suspended to let russia rebuild its military power and launch another “special operation” without making mistakes leading to a prolonged warfare in Ukraine.

As an economist I wonder how the imminent suspension of warfare impacts the Polish economy. Along with other analysts, I remain uncertain of impact on the stock market, labour market and housing market. Much depends on migration – depending on the shape of peace agreement, Ukrainians might want to return to their homeland, but a new wave might flee the country. Also, we might sadly expect a normalisation of trade relations with Russia, which is already priced in by the rallying stock market in Warsaw (I slowly begin to dispose of stock-market investment fund units purchased in late 2022 and early 2023).

A mastery in OLX

Of note – Politics, Economy, Society turns sixteen tomorrow. This means I have run a blog for a whopping 43% of my lifetime and 83% of my adult life.

But by the time I formally became adult, if I wanted to get rid of some useless stuff, firstly I needed to place free-of-charge ad in yellow pages of local Gazeta Wyborcza, then stuff could be disposed of via Allegro.pl portal, most likely by putting them out to auction. I recall well an event, around May 2011, when a guy came with his father to pick up some tools and they have virtually cleaned up my parents’ garage and paid PLN 1,100 for items we considered useless.

In the meantime, online selling has evolved and in terms of non-clothing stuff has been nearly monopolised by OLX. I began to use it in 2018 to sell for a song pieces of equipment left by the vendor of my newly purchased flat. I raised around PLN 1,000 back then, which had a tiny, yet a contribution to the refurbishment budget.

Since then I occasionally used OLX to find new possessors for stuff I no longer needed and was elated to extend their lives, especially as I was growing fond of the circular economy. A major revolution came some time ago, when OLX launched cheap deliveries via parcel lockers. The only drawback of solution is that you need to keep count of sale transactions finalised over one calendar year, not to exceed 30 sold items (or the equivalent of EUR 2,000), so that OLX does not file a report of your dabbling in trading to a tax office.

I also taught my ex-girlfriend to manage heaps of her (why do women tend to accumulate more than men?) useless belongings via OLX and Vinted, thus all in all over the last two years we sold (with delivery or in-person pick-up) around 100 items. We have not managed to recover a lot of money from it, yet financial aspect is not the crucial one. Fostering the concept of the circular economy and letting somebody buy decent stuff at a bargain price is a paramount idea behind putting stuff out on OLX. To nurture it, I have also become a buyer on OLX and have come by many nearly unused items at dirt cheap prices. On the other side were frequently thoughtless buyers, yet I do not feel guilty of my purchases – those people have not thrown their useless belongings to a rubbish bin and might learn from their mistakes not to make next reckless purchases.

Reduce, resell, repair, recycle, renew, reuse, but do not increase the output of new goods! A propos, if you need to have your small white goods repaired quickly and at decent price, I wholeheartedly recommend Serwis AGD Ryszard Rogal in the district of Ursus. They have revived a seemingly dead vacuum cleaner my parents wanted to dispose of us for a mere PLN 60 and within 2 business days.

Having the eighth teeth plucked

With two wisdom teeth already removed from the author's mouth, quality of posting on this blog might slightly decline, but for some time at least the frequency is to remain the same.

I had my upper-right eighth tooth extracted in November 2022 and it went nearly painlessly. The entire procedure lasted less than a minute. After the anaesthetics eased, it ached a bit, but the encounter was far cry from nasty stories of a few days of suffering some patients endure.

I hung back on the decision to have my lower-right wisdom tooth plucked, especially as it was predicted to be a rough ride. I finalised it on Friday, 31 January. I had not worried much ahead of the procedure, but after nearly an hour of sitting on a dentist's chair and being a victim of his attempts to get rid of the pest tooth I begun to regret my decision. Yet with the tooth being tampered with, I was far behind the point of no return. After an hour and twenty minutes of grappling with the tooth, interspersed throughout next injections of anaesthetic my unwanted wisdom companion and me eventually parted.

I recall next moments of being dizzy and feeling unreal. I strolled to a nearby pharmacy to buy prescribed painkillers and felt like throttling an entire queue of pensioners acting as quickly as snails past a race. I came back to my parents' by car, which with hindsight was not particularly reasonable. My reflex when I needed to skim on the brakes did not fail me, but drove as if I was somewhat intoxicated.

Back in family home I applied myself the prescribed painkillers and ice bags and waited for the anaesthetics to let up. The pain was not horrific, but I felt numb. I put it down then to not eating anything else than yoghurt and ice cream for 24 hours or so.

On Sunday I showed signs of returning to life and discovered my painkillers interacted badly with my anti-depression medicines. I switched then to over-the-counter ibuprofen, not as strong as the prescribed drugs, thus giving less relief from the pain.

Over the working week intensity of pain was fluctuating, but sadly it was not on the wane.

Since I was to expect a rough ride, I was advised (Medic**er’s AI post-surgery monitoring tool is a piece of sh*t) to wait patiently until a check-up visit due 7 days past the extraction. On Friday I turned up to the dentist to find out I should have brought the check-up forward. I with a well-developed infection in place, I need to take an antibiotic, apply ointment on a spot where the tooth once was, rinse mouth with sodium and have next check-up on Tuesday. It seems it might take some time before I recover.

Although the tribulations above were anything, but pleasurable, they definitely do not compare to what I had gone through in early autumn 2024 with my lumbar spine. Nevertheless, this is the second health-related experience within half a year which I would not wish on my worst enemy.

Wielka Orkiestra Świątecznej Pomocy - 2025

Contributing to Wielka Orkiestra Świątecznej Pomocy has become an annual tradition. 2 years ago I put out a picture made by me during a wine-fuelled painting workshop and it sold for PLN 810. This year I put out my flagship cakes - a cheesecake (sernik) and an apple cake (szarlotka), they sold for PLN 500. Both biddings were won by my workmates, so last Thursday I delivered what I had baked to auction winners. Twenty minutes later both cakes were already in my workmates' stomachs.

This year I went on a bidding spree myself. I have won: oil and filters change for my Megane before it changes hands, a cycling trip around Ursynów with a guide and with the mayor of Ursynów, a set of four hand-made woollen caps.

The most foolhardy expense made by me was a hearing aid purchased to a 74-year-old man who I am looking after as a Szlachetna Paczka volunteer. I took a risk of charging my credit card with PLN 7,620 and then began looking out for co-founders. The response and generosity of people around, mostly my workmates, was astoundingly superb and I ended up with a three-digit contribution to the purchase.

Year after year, WOŚP collectsmore and more money and receives more and more hatred from right-wing media and electorate. Sadly, approach to this big charity spurt has become a yet another divide line in the Polish society and the very initiative has been strongly politicised. I could moan about imperfections of Szlachetna Paczka, but I can definitely assert it is politically neutral. May it stay so.