Worlds apart

The girl

When I joined the New Factory she was already there. I passed her by each day several times while walking past the reception desk on our floor. She looked twenty and I thought she was a weekend-mode student working as an assistant to earn money for her university tuition fee.

Normally the occupation of a receptionist is treated as temporary. Usually students take up such mundane jobs to earn a livelihood, sometimes to fill their CVs and then they move on to more ambitious positions. This is not the case here.

She is quite sociable. Easily hits it off with everyone, yet her come-and-go attitude does not help her build true friendships. With time it turns out she is 45 days younger than me, yet since I was born in December and she in January the next year, she finished her studies a year later (in 2012). As a child she was an actress, in her career she had some impressive roles in films and TV series. If you tap her name into google, you will find her more-or-less up-to-date photos and learn in 2012 she graduated from the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Warsaw University (full-time studies). Tens of fans are wonder what she’s doing.

The job with a New Factory is the first one she has held on to for more than one year and the first one in which she has a regular job contract, involving all rights, privileges and pension contributions, rather than a junk contract. Actually she only cares about the type of contract for only one reason: with a regular labour-code-governed contract she is entitled to 20 days of paid holidays a year. Until now when she felt like going somewhere, she’d quit her job and upon return looked out for a new one. None of her jobs was anyhow related to what she had studied, comparing to what her studies should have prepared her for, all her previous jobs (and the current one) seemed actually well below her competencies.

She likes the job with the New Factory. It involves meeting lots of people and chatting to them, keeping them company during lunches, making a morning coffee to a management board member. She appreciates the fact her job involves no strain and no stress. Office workers around her have hectic days, face pressures, get irate easily. She doesn’t understand their quandaries and is glad her job is so carefree, despite the fact she earns just a fraction of what her stressed-out workmates get paid. Her salary is just enough to meet her basic needs: cosmetics, clothes, weekend clubbing, holidays; a very decent pocket money. Her parents with who she lives seem to put up with her lifestyle and her grandpa whose car she uses (and once a month she leaves the vehicle, grandpa fills it up and then she picks it up with full tank of petrol) also seems to be quite tolerant.

While we lunched last week, she told me to look at her and asked what I thought she should be doing in life. After turning down several ideas she had come up with, I suggested she should search for a job in which she could make use of the knowledge accumulated during five years of law studies. She nodded her head, pulled a face, nearly burst into tears and said it would need to involve some strain.

She backs PO. She believes PiS is backward and would bring nothing good for Poland. She tells Mrs Szydło should return to the sack (Szydło wróć do worka, a pun stemming from a Polish idiom, when reversed meaning bad things should come out of light).

The neighbours

They have lived in NI since ever, their parents as well. They were on this land years before building houses on this suburb became all-the-rage in the 1990s. They sold little of the land they had had, since the family was big and a sizeable plot was needed to put up houses for all the children.

The neighbour is the local, his wife comes from eastern Poland. They met the time he was breeding foxes in late 1970s. They got married and prospered well until 1989 when exports of fox furs to the former Soviet Union came to a halt and consequently their business went bust. In the new reality they engaged in some trade with the former Soviet Republics, yet as they were shuttling between NI and the borders, four children they had at the time began to be brought up on the street. Then they switched to local trade and opened a stall on the former biggest bazaar of the CEE, where today the National Stadium is. Golden times have gone by and for more than a decade the neighbour and his wife have been jobless. They do not need to. Their properties are large enough to sublet rooms for construction workers (20 PLN per person a day, yet in black economy) and officially let a larger hall for a company (here already a registered business, generating a recurring stream of income of a few thousand per month).

Their older son (32) is a successful graduate of a technical university. While he was approaching graduation, his professors had a high opinion of him and recommended him for a few positions which could give him prospects of brilliant career. Eventually he has not taken up any of those jobs. I have no idea, whether potential employers have rejected his candidacy or whether he turned down all those jobs, because they would have interfered with his academic career, namely the doctoral studies he began eight years ago and in the meantime suspended for a year; his PhD is still pending.

Their younger son (29) according his parents’ ambition was meant to firstly finish studies and then to find a job with a town hall. Unfortunately, so far there was no job offered to him there, while the family’s ambitions are put on hold, the son takes up temporary jobs on construction sites (he indeed is a dab hand).

Two daughters (27 and 25) have finished studies and work as shop assistants in one of clothing retail chains’ shops, most probably also on junk contracts. The youngest daughter (14) keeps learning and watches her parents and older siblings staying at home or dabbing in dead-end job. What are the chances she pursues a career ambitious people want to make?

Despite the fact the family consists of seven people they easily make ends meet. They have a variety of sources of income: rent from their corporate tenant, some cash from construction crews renting rooms, the neighbour’s sickness benefits, the older son’s assistant salary, the younger son’s wages from construction sites, the daughters’ salaries from the retailer. Except for the office rent proceeds, these are most probably peanuts, yet add up to a sum which allows the family to meet their basic meets. Fair enough.

The neighbour and his family hankers after PRL, yet votes for PiS, despite not being totally fond of all points of the party’s agenda. Yet PiS passes muster, it will restore law and order in Poland, take away the wealth from the elites to give it to ordinary people and put behind bars all thieves and cons who currently run the country.

In the descriptions above I did my utmost to include only facts and avoid expressing any opinions on how other people choose to live. Yet there must be a reason why I have decided to post the two stories. Every time I read in a newspaper or in the Internet about my peers as a “lost generation” (stracone pokolenie) I wonder whether it is the system or the people (the ever-lasting question) that should be blamed for the failures of many of the youngsters…

Next weekend I’m off, next post in two weeks.

Company cars

My job, though my position should be categorised as middle-office rather that front-office, involves more or less frequent meetings with clients and site visits at clients’ premises. Also not all clients have their offices / facilities in major cities which can boast about decent rail links with Warsaw. The less convenient to reach a client’s location is and the more numerous a group of the New Factory’s representatives is, the more reasonable and economical it is to travel by (company) car.

In my position I am not and will never be eligible to have a company car at my own disposal, but I am entitled to drive any company car while taking a business trip. I also don’t have access to corporate mailbox in my company smartphone, hence my front-office colleagues happen to ask to drive if they are busy responding to e-mails or need to be in touch with clients, or simply if the trip is so tiresome that it is wise someone else takes over the steering wheel. For this reasons over the recent weeks I had a chance to compare some vehicles against one another and to my 12-year-old, yet still holding up well, Megane.

So far I have counted five cars I had had the opportunity to try out.

1. Open Corsa D, 1.0 litre. The general impression is that what proves sufficient in city driving does not have to be up to the mark for longer trips and especially in motorway driving. The tiny engine allows the car to reach the speed of 100 kmph in 18 seconds if only the driver seat is occupied. If three of four people are on board (don’t even try squeezing five adults into this vehicle!), it takes a lot of time and revving up the engine to 5-6k to reach the target speed of let’s say 120 kmph at which you don’t feel safe anyway.

2. Volkswagen Passat B7, 1.4 litre, 150 hp. Actually a very decent car, offering respectable combination of dynamics, fuel efficiency and comfort for the driver and passengers. Turbo-charged engine is more than enough to speed up the car perkily and offers decent elasticity (from the passenger seat I observed another person pushing the accelerator pedal to the floor at the speed of 45 kmph and on fifth gear and the car obediently picked up speed without lurching or whining, yet I felt sorry for the engine being a victim of such horrific driving technique). Maybe the only drawback is not a very intuitive dashboard, but there’s no accounting for taste, as the saying goes. A nice car, but why the hell should one fork out some 100,000 PLN to get a brand-new one (currently it’s impossible, since VW has rolled out Passat B8), for a private purchase, a waste of money.

3. Opel Insignia (before 2013 face-lift), 1.6 litre, 182 hp. Since Renault Laguna is hardly ever purchased as fleet car, the notorious title of the queen of the trailers (królowa lawet) has been given over to Opel’s D segment car. Reliability of Opel cars produced over the recent decade has received a lot of bad publicity and opinions I heard from friends, parents’ friends and from Opel’s users from the Employer and the New Factory only confirm it. The one I drove did not break down on the road, but was so neglected that driving required a lot of caution. I drove it in June but the car was still on winter tyres. As it turned out, since the car was due for replacement in July (last Wednesday it indeed change hands, I feel sorry for the hapless new owner), the fleet manager decided it would have cost too much to buy a new set of summer tyres (old ones went astray). Condition of brakes also left a lot to be desired. Actually my key impression is that it’s not difficult to find a car with lower mileage than my Megane’s and much younger than my Megane, whose condition is inferior to my Megane. The new owner probably thought he had chased a bargain by buying a six-year old Insignia with mere 70,000 kilometres on the clock (odometer not rolled back). In fact the car had oil changed only twice and the first user drove mostly short distances and though the engine was not warmed up, her feet pressed the accelerator pedal heavily. I’m glad I won’t have to sit behind the wheel of that car any more, yet on the basis of it I can’t form an unbiased opinion on it.

4. Toyota Corolla, 1.6 litre, 132 hp. This car is used by a guy who drives very well and cares after the car a lot and has taken effort to run it in properly. Compared to turbocharged engines the impression should not be extraordinarily good, yet it is. The well-maintained vehicles runs smoothly, gearbox is precise, engine is nearly silent and dynamics between 2k and 3k revolutions is more than decent and better than in my Megane. Toyota, like many Japanese carmakers, holds back from embracing downsized, turbocharged petrol-fuelled engine and claims it will beat European competitors by offering superior reliability. I can say nothing of it, yet the engine has one drawback – fuel consumption is some 0.5 litre per 100 km higher than in my Megane (8.8 litres per 100 kilometres in trip consisting of 50% city, 50% motorway).

5. Mazda 6, 2.0 litre, 140 hp. Not a part of corporate fleet, yet given for a test drive for some reason by Mazda distributor in Poland. Mazda’s two-litre Skyactiv technology engine, a pride and joy of the carmaker and wonderful alternative to all-the-rage downsized engines, after a 200-kilometre trip turned out to be just a no-frill motor. The car looks well (albeit chunkily) and such limousine could make a good part of remuneration package for a senior manager in a pre-retirement age. When revolutions are low, the car runs smoothly and silently, yet to squeeze dynamics out of it, you need to rev it up above 4k and the engine is then unbearably loud. My impressions from driving can be distorted by the fact the car had tens of drivers before me and has not been run in properly. Key drawbacks I would list are: gear lever whose precision leaves a lot to be desired, low elasticity of the engine (if at the speed of 20 kmph you downshift to second gear, the engine chokes) and high fuel consumption, typical for old-times 2.0 litres engines (nearly 10 litres per 100 kilometres in motorway driving at steady speed of 140 – 150 kmph).

And recently I also took my father’s Megane III 1.4 litre, 130 hp for a longer run. The car is well-maintained, after 4 years of sparing usage has only 23,000 kilometres mileage (including five several-hundred-kilometre trips) and is well run-in and must say is no worse than any of the cars I reviewed above.

So what really matters?

Size? Compact car is more than enough for any purpose, yet for people travelling long distances and on motorway, B-segment cars are not the most recommendable.

Engine? Maybe you have noticed none of the cars had a diesel engine. I also prefer petrol-fuelled ones, especially those turbocharged which offer really decent dynamics and low fuel consumption. Diesels, although consume even less fuel, are more expensive to maintain (more defects possible and repairs are more costly), plus in winter they can be the pain in the arse.

But what really matters the most is how the car is driven and cared for. Most post-fleet cars are used by people who care little because it’s not their own vehicle and it will be replaced after a specified period or mileage. Buying such car, unless you know who and how used it, is a purchase of a pig in a poke. Usually buying a used car due to negative selection (why my Megane’s not for sale?) involves high risk of unpleasant surprises, therefore I keep my car going reliable and in two or three years, I will replace it with a brand-new one.

It’s the economy, stupid

Thorough economic debate is a phenomenon so seldom witnessed in the public discourse in Poland that any reason seems justified to spark it off. Recently the widespread discussion has been triggered by Mrs Beata Szydło, candidate for the prime minister if PiS wins the autumn parliamentary election, who unfolded key points of her party’s economic agenda. As it often happens ahead of the election, politicians tend to be open-handed in their promises, but this time the generosity might have gone too far, since both politicians and economic pundits have taken the trouble to quantify the promises and check whether the figures hold water…

Politicians of PiS claim their ideas are absolutely feasible and the spending spree they propose will be matched by new sources of budget revenues. Their opponents from the Civic Platform and most experts point out the calculations of PiS are flawed and reckless inclination to throw about money would head Poland towards where Greece is now. Let’s have a look then on how much happiness the Lawful and the Just wish to give Poles if they get hold of power.

1)      Raising tax allowance to PLN 8,000 from current PLN 3,091.

- Truth be told, tax allowance in Poland is one of the lowest in Europe and well below the poverty line, plus it has not been increased along with inflation since 2009. But if are to compare ourselves against other European countries, we also need to take notice of the fact tax rates are higher there than in Poland.

- My proposal is then to simplify the tax system and bring in more effective progression by introducing an even higher tax allowance, let’s say PLN 16,000 and introduce a flat personal income tax rate of 32% (the current highest rate). Thus we would achieve effective tax progression, since the tax rate for an individual would be somewhere between 0% and 32% and increase linearly along with earnings.

- Cost of the proposal estimated by me: 24,400,000 * 18% * (PLN 8,000 – PLN 3,091) = PLN 21,560,328,000

- assumptions: 1) number of personal income tax payers: 24,400,000, 2) marginal tax rate: 18%,

- shortcomings of my assumptions: 1) multiplier effects from higher tax income and GDP growth on account of higher consumption are not taken into account, 2) other tax credits, e.g. child allowance also have been neglected.

2) Giving a child benefit for every second and next child of PLN 500 per month.

- My only question here is how to define the second and next children. Calculations are impeded by unclear definition of a child (until what age your offspring is a child and whether this depends on whether they learn or earn?, on the basis of what criteria the children would be counted – what if a woman has three children with three different men, or the other way round, i.e. a man has children with three different women?)

- I find the very concept ludicrous and see nothing else in it but pure giving away money from the public purse rather than encouraging people to have children.

- Cost of the proposal estimated by me: 10,879,729 * 40% * PLN 500 * 12 months = PLN 26,111,349,600

- assumptions: 1) a child is person aged less than 18 (if students are taken into account the cost would shoot up well above 30 billion PLN), 2) population of Poland is 38,580,600, 28.2% of which are not adults, 3) 40% of children would be eligible for the benefit – this is only an educated guess,

- shortcomings of my assumptions: 1) it is not clear, whether parents of students would also be entitled to benefits, 2) it is not clear when a child is “second and next”, 3) it is very hard to determine how many children would be “co-financed” with this benefit, 4) potential taxation of the benefit (or lack of it, of effects of tax deductions associated with it) is unknown, 5) multiplier effects have been neglected as well.

According to my estimations, only the two proposals would cost the budget around 48 billion  PLN yearly (vs. 29 billion PLN yearly according to calculations by PiS). If you look at the number of assumptions I have made and number of shortcomings I have listed, no wonder figures given by experts vary so much. To be fair, unless you reveal your (simplifying) assumptions and maths behind your calculations, you cannot hope to sound credible to me in the public discourse.

I do not dare to come up with a ballpark figure for the shortfall caused by reversing the pension age increase. The deficit in the government budget (which subsidises the social security system) by 2020 would probably not be substantial, yet thereafter (bear in mind in 2019 Poles either kick PiS out of the politics or it will be as entrenched as Mr Orban’s party in Hungary) outcomes of tampering with the pension age would be disastrous (also because tap with EU money will run dry in 2020).

On the other side of the budget, authors of PiS’ economic agenda point at three core funding sources for the merry expenditure programme.

1) The bank tax, to be levied on banks’ assets.

- My comment (disclaimer: I am a banking sector employee and my financial well-being might be jeopardised by the bank tax): such tax should penalise banks and other financial institutions for being involved in operations that do not contribute to well-being of a society, predominantly those which stray from the concept of traditional commercial banking (taking deposits and granting loans). I also wonder what the tax base would be: would those be total assets (including cash, treasury bonds, PPE, etc.), only financial assets, or maybe the tax base would be limited to the loan portfolio and whether there would be any risk weights on assets. Since the banking sector does not enjoy good publicity in Poland (banks have given ample reasons for being held in disregard), the idea of cutting back their mammoth profits with yet another tax should take fancy of many voters. On the other hands, most banks in Poland are controlled by foreign financial groups which have come to terms with the fact banking in Poland is no longer such great gold mine as it used to be. They will pass on the tax onto customers and since they will in unison have to bear the new burden, in unison they will raise fees and commissions for their customers, so in this very particular situation the arguments of PiS that free market and forces of competition will not let banks’ clients feel the impact of the new tax, are a daydream.

- Revenues from the proposal estimated by me: 1,500,000,000,000 * 0.39% = 5,850,000,000 PLN

- Assumptions: 1) total assets of the Polish banking sector: 1.5 trillion PLN (total financial sector’s assets in 2013 of PLN 2.1 trillion * 68% share of banks * 1.05 growth dynamics), 2) tax rate of 0.39% yearly, most often mentioned.

- shortcomings of my assumptions: 1) tax base and scope of entities subject to taxation have not been defined, 2) lower tax rates have been already mentioned by politicians of PiS since they slowly being to realise the bank tax proposal, compounded with relief for CHF-mortgage borrowers, could knock down some of the banks and necessitate a state-funded bail-out for depositors if their foreign owners decide to wash their hands clean of the Polish businesses.

2) Supermarket tax, being a turnover tax levied on retail chains with yearly sales above PLN 1 billion.

- My comments: the big chains of hyper-, supermarkets and discount shops, omnipresent in Poland and by dint of their economies of scale, offering less wealthy Poles an opportunity to buy stuff cheaply, also have become a scapegoat. A frequent argument in the debate on those shops is that taxes they pay are miniscule in relation to their revenues. Indeed, this is true, since most of those chains operate on very thin margins, yet their earnings are high due to scale of activity. For some of those chains, net margin is 1%, i.e. net profit of a company makes up 1% of total sales. Shareholders of such retail chains will have a choice either to increase prices of goods and pass on the tax to clients (more probable) or to wind down their businesses (impracticable). The former option is even more likely to materialise for the same reason as with banks – all big chains will be affected in the same way and therefore will react in the same way.

- Revenues from the proposal estimated by me: 150,000,000,000 * 1% = 1,500,000,000

- Assumptions: 1) total sales revenues of all big retail chains in Poland: 150 billion PLN, 2) tax rate of 1%

- Shortcomings of my assumptions: 1) publicly available data I cite are outdated (and thus biased downward) and may not cover all stores, since many companies decide not to disclose how much they earn (also resulting in downward bias), 2) the tax rate is unknown, but might vary from 0.5% to 2.0% according to some proposals.

3) The third and the broadest proposal is to increase the efficiency of tax collection system, curb tax evasion, crack down on illegitimate VAT reclaims. All the ideas are commendable and I wish well anyone who would take up doing so, yet I am sceptical about the effect and also would not dare to estimate the resultant additional budget revenues, nevertheless the figure of 50 billion PLN seems over-optimistic.

Interestingly, none of the critics of the PiS-designed giving-away scheme has noticed a crucial causation, namely the more money citizens have in their pockets, the higher the money supply. Growth in money supply, if not accompanied by proportionate growth in output, results in increased inflation. This in turn, assuming the central bank is independent, leads to higher interest rates with all consequences…

And interestingly, hypocrites from PiS, who allegedly care so much about the poorest, do little to redistribute wealth from those well-off. The proposal to reinstate the third tax bracket has been declined, probably to appease Mr Gowin (who has finally fallen into place and does not bring discredit on PO), yet this decision does not matter much, since those who potentially could be affected by signing the third tax bracket into law do not pay the personal income tax at all. 32% marginal tax rate affects in Poland the upper-middle class, around 2% of all personal income tax payers, those are usually senior managers at corporations, whose positions are too low to make them eligible for a managerial contract. Most of the people who really earn a lot (above 300,000 PLN before tax per year) are not employed under regular job contracts, but are sole proprietors who perform a contract for their employer. Outcomes for the state budget – marginal tax rate is 19% rather than 32%, social security contributions they pay are miniscule (in return they will receive a tiny pension benefit, but with such earnings would who cares?), same as health service system contributions. Taxes might be low for actual entrepreneurs, but the practice of paying corporate income taxes by corporate executives who are not entrepreneurs and do not risk their own money to develop their business ought to be finally put to an end!

My grandfather’s neighbour gives him outdated issues of Fakt, the leading Polish tabloid. Yesterday, while at my grandpa’s I grabbed one such paper and found this article… Maybe what Mr Sienkiewicz (cynically) says is the key to the door:

Przeciętny Kowalski patrzy na te autostrady, estakady, na ten dworzec, na cokolwiek innego… Jego podstawowe pytanie jest: a co ja z tego kurwa mam?! Gdzie jest ten pieniądz u mnie w portfelu? A nie że ma wypierdolonego orlika przed oknami, bo on ma w dupie tego orlika, podobnie ma tę autostradę w dupie! Bo dla niego jest pytanie o efekt rozbudzonych aspiracji, jak się rozbudziło aspiracje, to są pewne konsekwencje. Najpierw są takie aspiracje, aby państwo było bardziej umyte i bardziej przypominało to, co ma na Zachodzie albo co sobie wyobraża. A potem się aspiracje przesuwają do własnego portfela. I jest pytanie, co ja z tego mam.

Yes, Poland has remarkably moved ahead in terms of infrastructure. I travel a lot around the country these days and appreciate the possibility to get to Gdansk or Krakow by train within 3 hours, enjoy driving new motorways and expressways, but the progress has little impact on the standard of living of an average Pole. I follow the “Decrepit Poland” page on facebook. Authors of the page publish several photos a day to give lie to the propaganda story Poland has been ruined and needs to be rebuilt from scratch. Photos show progress, but are selective; round the corner beautiful market square gives way to dilapidated houses and inhabitants of provincial towns now care more how much they can buy in a shop for money they earn than whether the centre of the town has been refurbished.

Recent travels make me also wonder whether I also live in an ivory tower, how much I have in common with ordinary people living in Zgierz where I was on Friday. How much do I have in common with inhabitants of Wałbrzych where I’m heading tomorrow. Origins of PiS recent surge in support and PO’s waning popularity is the former’s ability to at least pretend they are close to ordinary people.

Greece on decline

Today citizens of Greece are about to decide in a referendum whether to agree on conditions of yet another bail-out package and fend off looming full-blown bankruptcy or reject austerity measures that on one hand keep Greeks on their knees, but on the other prevent the country from falling off the edge of chaos. In the previous sentence I have mentioned a full-blown bankruptcy, by which I mean the government would be unable of meeting its basic obligations towards the citizens. If effecting payments of pension benefits and other allowances ceases and the whole public sector would grinds to a halt, Greece will plunge into total chaos. In fact, since a few days Greece is formally insolvent, but in economic terms it has been bankrupt for more than five years, though much work has been put in to cover it up.

Looking back in time, the Greek crisis has been in overdrive since April 2010. To make a good comparison, recall how much time has elapsed since the Smolensk plane crash. For such long period of time Greece functions only thanks to drip of money from creditors.

Two questions which ought to naturally come to mind are:

1) why has the ordeal lasted for half a decade and no one bothered to put Greece out of misery, while creditors of Greece patiently pump in more and more money to the effectively bankrupt country?

2) why over five years, despite generous aid from creditors, Greece has not managed to turn itself around?

You could mention political backdrop of the whole situation, willingness of key actors of the European politics to keep the eurozone together, since letting one country go would give others a free rein to walk away from the common currency. You could mention other reasons, such as fear of knock-on effect, etc., yet the story which deserves to be brought to your attention is about how the Greek debt changed hands. In 2010 and 2011 key creditors of Greece were German and French banks, through which Greek sovereign default would spill over onto the whole financial system of the EU. In the spring of 2012 Greece's bondholders agreed to lose 53.5% of face value of what they had lent to the Greek government (look at this, had Poland been written down 53.5% of its sovereign debt, its debt-to-GDP ratio would have stood well below 30% and Poland would have been one of the least indebted countries in the world). Thus most of the Greece’s debt was relieved and in the meantime transferred from the banking sector to the EBC and to the IMF. Private banks thus had to swallow some losses, yet recovered nearly 50% of what they had recklessly invested in Greek gilts and got rid of the junky securities.

Over five years of keeping head above water only thanks to continuously rolled over lending from international institutions, Greece has not gone ahead with structural reforms that would eradicate all the roots of their misery. Instead, it whiled away. It also has to be underlined austerity measures slowed economic growth in Greece and impaired the country’s ability to service debt. The cure has nearly killed the patient and made (lazy and economically illiterate) Greeks fed up with the fact their lenders have been dictating them what to do. The disgruntlement brought populists to power and after a few months of their rule, stance of Greece in negotiations with creditors has somewhat hardened.

The result of today’s referendum is anything but predictable. Greeks are strongly divided regarding the government’s refusal to further accept conditions set by lenders. The more rational part of society fears a scenario of banking sector’s collapse, which would mean loss of savings for those who have it and downfall of public finance system, which would mean public sector employees would not get their salaries and pensioners would not receive their benefits. I have no idea, what the other half think they will achieve by showing the middle finger to creditors and whether they realise how dire the consequences of being cut off from IMF’s and EBC’s money are.

Even assuming Greece is ousted from the Eurozone and all its debts are written off, the problems will not disappear. Greece would not be perceived credible by anyone (maybe except for Russia, which could lend to Greece to extend its sphere of influences), so no one would lend them (a liar) money. Greece would have make ends meet on its own, something the country accustomed to living beyond its means is not capable of. The situation is hence tragic enough that even pressing ‘reset’ button and letting Greece begin from scratch would not help.

Nevertheless, cognisant of consequences of Greece going insolvent, I do not commend of extending the misery of the country. Moreover, I believe far too much money has been injected into Greece, money that will never be recovered, therefore checking out and putting Greece out of misery in a controlled way would be the most reasonable solution.

What is going to happen tomorrow when results of the referendum unfold? If majority of voters back continuation of austerity program, the populist government will lose credibility and should step down. If majority of voters support showing the middle fingers to creditors, we will be watching history in the making.

Any lessons to learn?

Firstly – a common currency does not prove to be a good idea if area where it functions is insufficiently economically uniform (do not confuse with integrated). The benefits of one currency do not make up for lack of flexibility offered by having a domestic currency.

Secondly – letting populists grow into power does not seem to be the way to heal the ailing country…

Decency

Decency, a down-to-earth, yet vague concept; a dimension of human morality, a backbone of civilised society. So understandable, yet enough intricate to give you a hard time in coming up with a comprehensive (decent) definition of it. Oddly enough, on the blog before today I posted seven other posts tagged decency; their content could help bring us closer to what the concept of decency may revolve around:

- watching one’s tongue,

- not shunning responsibility for one’s missteps,

- not duping fellow men,

- paying somebody for work they do for you,

- laying off staff “gently”,

­- workings of rotten financial sector,

- giving back money you have been lent.

The list above contains some odd criteria scattered and picked out from the universe of standards of decency.

So what makes you a decent man?

- They way you treat other people?

- Whether you follow ethical principles, either those universal, or those set by the religious beliefs, e.g. ten commandments?

- Whether you obey the law?

- Whether you sympathise with other people and ask yourself how would you feel, if you were in that skin?

- Whether you simply can look yourself in the eyes in the mirror and admit you have not hurt anyone?

What instils decency in you?

- Parents and immediate relatives over the course of upbringing? Definitely in the formative years a human can be shaped, the older one grows, the harder to eradicate bad habits and seed good ones.

- Or maybe it runs in the genes? Examples of children of evil people adopted by decent families and whose new parents’ effort to bring them up failed bear this out?

- Is it inculcated by other institutions that shape humans, with primary credit here to schooling and the Church?

- Or maybe the so-called “moral spine”, for some less, for some more supple, has some other origins?

Decency is indispensably linked and interlaced with other concepts, such as…

- Conscience, something I would define has a black box which stores a memory of all misdeeds of a human. The misdeeds are to be a burden for a human, one is meant to feel bad after a wrong-doing; conscience’s role is to ensure it?

- Embarrassment, a state of feeling uncomfortably with a situation or one’s own or someone else’s behaviour. Embarrassment reminds us falling out of generally accepted norms in several cases should cause us discomfort and would not help us win respect from other people. Fear of embarrassment might preclude humans from doing things they would be ashamed of.

- So also the shame, a strong feeling, causing not just discomfort, but a strong desire to curl up and die, to erase a situation from one’s own and other people’s memory. Shame works after the fact, is an unpleasant feeling, yet it proves if after with hindsight a human realises they had done something bad, shame might work as a stabiliser of a human psyche.

- Remorse, having it means feeling guilty for one’s misdeeds, wanting to make up for the wrong, atone for it, apologise to those hurt by one’s behaviour.

Virtually all humans are familiar with the concepts attempted to be described above, even if they would struggle to verbalise them. Yet not all humans are equally bestowed with decency, sensitivity of human consciences varies from person to person, different situations evoke feelings of embarrassment or shame, some people don’t even have remorse, no matter what evil they do. The most extreme examples are psychopathic murderers who can be involved in manslaughter without being conscience-stricken, nor feeling remorse and a straightforward child who sincerely shows their emotions. All of us are somewhere in between and as long as we fit into “norm”, whenever we behave indecently, we should feel shame and have remorse, yet intensity of those feelings varies. For some people the burden might be quite heave, for some easily bearable…

Incidentally, a quite peculiar distinctive way of dealing with murky affairs by indecent people is pretending nothing has happened, in situations when in my opinion they should react to a situation which has taken place (e.g. apologise for their misbehaviour, etc.)

End justifies the means. This memorable adage raises the question how far a human can go, how many rules and limits can break to achieve what they want.

A penny drops. While I write a (decent) definition comes to my mind. A decent man never pursues their goals at the expense of other people. Nail hit in the head?

Now I have forgotten what I had intended to cover in the previous paragraph, yet I carry on!

I somehow envy people who don’t care, who see fewer problems, who are more bold, have no inhibitions. But is it true indecent people, on account of not being held back by conscience, etc., have easier lives? Aren’t the indecent disposed to be privileged, i.e. if they do not have to overcome inhibitions and deal with potential remorse, their pursuit of goals is less uphill? If they don’t care whether they hurt (in any facet) other people, if they don’t feel guilty of living off other people’s back, does it make such persons more likely to climb ladders of career faster? If it a coincidence most executives in the corporate world are ruthless beasts?

Finally, is it possible to switch between levels of decency when you switch between social roles you perform. I have asked myself this questions repeatedly when I looked at and listed to my workmates. I suppose they are caring and loving husbands and fathers, so why the hell at the doorstep of the office they turn into callous sons of the bitches? I fully appreciate the principle of separating family and professional lives but does it mean behind the gates to the corporate shitty world different ethical principles apply and you have green light to turn into a swine? Do your colleagues deserve less decency than your family? Your family should be given love and care, while the people you work with should be given decency, a bare minimum that in the workplace is much enough! From birth until death we are humans, all social roles only come and go.

I stare at my face in the mirror. After twenty seven years in this lousy planet I cannot pledge not regret any of my deeds, I cannot pledge I have not hurt anyone, I cannot pledge no one has ever suffered on account of my behaviour, yet as long as my offences are not serious, I hope as long as I recognise my wrongdoing, regret it, strive to make up for it and have remorse, people can tell I’m a decent man.

Crisis?

We were on the other side of Vistula, Warsaw…

Girl: So which level are you taking?

Me: The third one.

Girl: The first attempt?

Me: Yes, and hopefully the last. I come to think regardless of the outcome…

Girl: Will keep my fingers crossed. I wonder why haven’t I got my act together to pursue it…

Me: Because it’s a waste of life…

It was the first time when I (spontaneously) indirectly admitted kind of regretting to sacrifice between 1,000 and 1,200 hours of my life poring over the curriculum and practice exams, while this time could have been spent more productively, I mean enhancing those realms of life which I neglected to study duly. To answer whether it was worth it, I would need to know what would have happened differently, hadn’t I stuck to the self-enforced study regime.

Truth be told, after the candid conversation quoted above which took place two weeks before the exam, I felt I was totally running out of fuel. It wasn’t just about pure laziness or learning fatigue. The crisis involved a question about a profound rationale for what the life had revolved around. Despite losing heart for a moment, I didn’t falter and resolved to drown out questions prompted by one casual talk and do my best to carry the day.

Now it doesn’t take IQ of 150 to hazard a guess love-life-wise there’s been no progress over the recent year…

It never ceases to fuck me up when people tell me what I know, i.e. “find yourself a girl(friend)”. The sentence sounds as if girls were lying on the streets and I were refusing to bow down to pick one up. The key reason why such comments incense me is that I see lots of fantastic girls around, yet they have one (let’s call it this way) drawback in common – they have boyfriends or husbands. I may be wrong, but I don’t blame the fate of bad lack, but perceive it as example of natural selection taking place in the nature. While I was climbing up the education and career ladders, other males have been chasing the most valuable females (not in terms of skin-deep beauty, but in terms of traits, character and other things that are sought and considered when choosing a lifetime companion), now I see single leftovers which broadly fall into three categories:

1) wacky girls scaring most men (including me) off – such as those which I tried to date in 2013 (oddly enough, girl 5 turned out to be really OK and until today we are good friends, while I have even no idea whether the other five girls are still alive),

2) single, far too independent women leading lifestyle totally different than mine, so for parties any relationship is a no-go-area, since both parties realise this would be a perfect mismatch,

3) valuable girls or women, however unsociable, shy, too often to clammed up in their shells to break out of many years of loneliness.

The very last group gives a glimmer of hope, yet approaching the unapproachable requires some determination, patience and care… Hope the hopes have not been dashed.

The question which quite naturally comes up in this reasoning is where to find that girl, if girls don’t lie on the street.

1. Accosting girls which catch a boy’s eye on the street, although some lads dare to do this, is, as I believe, not the advisable suggestion. It takes a lot of courage plus you risk being taken as a pervert or a desperate.

2. Getting to know friends of friends during parties has limited chances of success for two reasons: 1) number of people who are single declines as they age, 2) the people you meet are most often same people you have met via your friends along the way.

3. At work – I’d spare a thought on this one, might come into play only if your duties absolutely do not overlap, i.e. you don’t interact professionally. Otherwise don’t go there (tried out)…

4. Signing up for a language or other course with a purpose not to learn something, but to meet someone – saw some examples of people around 30 doing this and I don’t want to follow that path…

Plus there are many other occasions when you may run across that person out of the blue. One such incidence was the nuptials ceremony I attended three weekends ago. Outside the church I ran across a girl I’d known by sight. I felt like talking to somebody… Three hours later I was driving her home… After the dialogue quoted at the top of this post her telephone rang. Her boyfriend was calling to make sure she was alright, since she’d been supposed to get home some time earlier. Well, par for the course, to good to be single. Of course, some of you would argue this situation was not as straightforward as it should have been and you’d be right. I could also come up with a few comments on the whole situation, but if silence is golden, let it glitter.

I’ve heard advice to wait. Some relationships fall apart and this fact could be viewed as an opportunity. For some reason I see around very few pairs breaking up, so waiting for such miracle looms as dead-end street.

Only life-wise…

With friends I’ve learnt to keep my distance. Overwhelming majority of them are with their partners for a long time, some have got married, some even have offspring. Their privacy deserves respect; what was allowed some time ago no longer applies now. Upshot – loosened friendships, less frequent meetings and on top some ambiguous situations along the way I wish I had avoided…

At work – I’m sick of my closest colleagues being from a different planet. I can’t put up with people who are unsociable and treat fellow people with disdain. Spending 40+ hours per week with guys who you (reciprocally) dislike is unsustainable in the long term, no matter how much you enjoy what you do at your job.

Oddly enough, there is one person who I don’t feel affinity with, yet who has given me food for thought how not to end up. The boss of my boss, woman in her early 40s. Well-travelled, well-read, intelligent, good-looking, single, with no exorbitant expectations and off-putting attitude towards men, which decrease her tiny prospects of finding a partner to near zero. Obsessive working during evenings, weekends and days off are a hideout from emptiness and prospects of solitary old age. A serious warning to me, do anything not to end up like this…

Recently it occurred to me nothing I have is truly mine and there is no place where I actually belong. The missing piece is a sense of stability, a feeling somebody cares, a little confidence if something good happens, it will last longer than a moment. Since I finished studies I lived through several moments of happiness, the only problem they came and went, happiness virtually lacked sustainability. I could reach and grab it, I could make the most it, yet could not hold on to it…

Whoever thinks these are signs of depression, dead wrong you are. Depression is when it seems to you there’s no point in rolling out of bed. In turn I want to get up from bed and have more energy and lust for life, yet I miss making use of it in a way which makes sense, not jumping into the flames out of rush of adrenaline.

Hope the weather turns for the better. With this heat and humid air we had in Warsaw last Sunday and this weekend even a bike ride doesn’t give pleasure. This year my tolerance for heat severely dropped (yesterday and today I broke sweat even when sitting idle).

Next post in two weeks (off to Mazury for the next, for me longer, weekend).

Finish line crossed

Over! Done! Saw the back of it!

As some of you probably remember, yesterday I sat for the Level III exam. I think I did well. Unlike fellow candidates to whom I spoke at the test centre, I found the exam quite easy and approachable. I’m hoping for the best and wait until 11 August 2015, when results are sent out. I somehow cannot imagine myself putting this tremendous effort again.

When signing up for the Level III soon after learning I had passed Level II I resolved to go an extra mile to do it properly and ensure I would get it right. The amount of work one has to do to pass the hardest in my opinion Level III, is so vast that it simply does not pay off to cut corners and risk a failure. I suppose the time spent to prepare for Level III once, yet properly is shorter than time spent to swot up twice, yet without going the extra mile. I somehow envy those candidates for who the first Saturday of June (and weeks preceding it) was a wipe-out for a few years in a row and still they haven’t got ahead. For the sake of clarity, I don’t know whether I pass, yet I feel quite comfortable, yet the fail scenario seems conceivable and stays somewhere at the back of my mind, just in case.

Plus I feel a lot of admiration to folks who have families and have managed to earn a charter while working, running the house, looking after children. For those guys the challenge was much bigger than for me and no wonder in that group the percentage of candidates who give up is higher so hats down to those who hammer it home.

Average age of the candidates who took the exam with me was definitely below 30; probably many of them even if they pass for the time being will not be eligible for the Charter due to too short work experience. Plus it has to be noted number of Level III candidates (I estimate around 200, most of them were retaking the exam – since in Poland asset management industry is not well-developed, many concepts from the Level III curriculum are vague for Poles, so pass rate in Poland is quite likely below average) augurs the number of Charterholders in Poland this year is likely to exceed 500 (currently the Institute’s page shows 460 Charterholders from Poland).

If I am to share post-exam thoughts, I’d reiterate the ones committed to the blog after Level I and Level II and supplement or repeat the following…

1) In Poland the Charter does not give you any specific qualifications, it rather bears testimony of your intelligence (not everyone is capable of passing all three levels, let’s face it) and willpower (it takes a lot of determination and sacrifices to get to the top)

2) The very exam tests not only your knowledge and ability to crack exam questions, but also your physical endurance and planning capabilities or even adroitness (how to take a piss and not drop your calculator to the urinal). I do not know why it is held in early June, but I suppose it has something to do with checking out whether candidates can resist the temptation when the springtime beckons, it has something to do with weather (yesterday not very conducive, day-time high of +27C, despite air-conditioning switched on it was sultry inside the testing room).

Currently I find myself slightly unable to set my mind into the post-exam mode (I had no problems finding myself free after Level I and Level II). The prospect of not having to pore over books fills me with pleasure, yet I am much more tired-out than after Level I (with hindsight, it was a piece of cake) and Level II, when I was bound to set off for holidays (on Tuesday I have to return to work and I’m bracing myself for a head-on collision with the gruelling corpo-reality). Time to pick up the pieces and maybe the life will not be about putting out fires as it has been since late February.

Ul. Mleczarska – pace of construction falters

While up at the top the citizens have voted to change the dweller of the presidential palace, down at the local front, things keep running their course, although recently the speed of works on the closely followed reconstruction of ul. Mleczarska has fallen back… Photo documentation dated 28 May 2015, early evening.

The southern-most section is nearly ready, only a lick of paint to mark out lanes is missing and had it not been for the finishing touches and lack of official usage permit, the section between ul. Syrenki and ul. Sękocińska could have been officially opened. Unofficially, there is even no ban for traffic…

As one moves north, the top layer of tarmac ends, bump, then another one and one more and then it turns out the level crossing with Siekierki coal line tracks has stayed intact. Curbs and heavy concrete slabs lie on the side of the road and most probably await some kind of green light from PGNiG Termika…

Further north newly laid pavement on the eastern side of the street and cycling path on the other side serve as the only evidence of progress. The very road, you just know it is in between, has the very bottom layer of hardened aggregates laid.

To the right – I look east from the intersection of ul. Mleczarska and the new road meant to run towards some new shopping mall envisaged to be erected on the premises of the former Piaseczno bus depot. Again, cart well before the horse, the high curbs will mark the end of this road for months to come. In the distance, intersection of ul. Puławska and ul. Energetyczna and beyond it a large post attracting customers to Outlet Fashion Centre in Piaseczno. The centre, opened 10 years ago has been going downhill for a few years now. Huge “down by even 90%” sales are organised twice a month, and even when price discounts are considerable, car park outside the Fashion House is half empty. Given shoddy quality of most stuff sold there, even after-discount prices seem steep enough to put off brainy consumers.

The roundabout where ul. Mleczarska and ul. Energetyczna cross has taken its shape. Still, a way to go before the piece of infrastructure is finished, not only passable for daredevils who risk suspensions of their cars by venturing there.

To the right – looking into ul. Energetyczna, which will enjoy the status of dual carriageway from the Fashion Centre up to ul. Mleczarska. In the foreground, Student SGH casting a shadow of doubt on the completion deadline of 30 June 2015 (out of reach unless road-building crews pull up their sleeves).

The north-most section remains least advanced. Old lamp posts, which suspend overhead electricity wires, occupy the middle of the new road (and remind where the former Mleczarska ran). Absurdity? Not necessarily, rather another proof of dismal lack of co-ordination. The day before yesterday electricians from the local branch of PGE were switching from old wires to new ones, put underground. The whole operation, which could have been done within an hour in a civilised manner (my father, electrician such works were better co-ordinated even in 1970s), lasted the whole day, including seven hours when locals were deprived of electricity…

And on the northern end of the development, a lion’s share of works is still ahead. I foresee ample traffic disruptions here, but when the works are done, maybe the intersection of ul. Mleczarska, ul. Raszyńska and ul. Krasickiego will not be the scene of prangs...

Also congratulations to waterworks crews. Despite having a map with all installations properly marked, their reckless excavator operator managed to burst a water pipe running beneath ul. Mleczarska. Upshot – interruptions in water supply and necessity to dig up the street to the unplanned extent, since when the pipe was burst, the chaps did not know which valve to use to turn off the water and literally broke down two valves, before reaching the correct one. For the time being the water supply is resumed, but in the coming week waterworks crews will need to mend it and cut off water for the time of repair.

Time to call this wonderful smiling guy who knows the solution to every problem, maybe he will get to grips with the bungling fachowcy…

Weather-wise, May 2015 has been perfect… for studying. So far everything indicates it was the coolest and wettest since memorable May 2010 when the last bigger flood haunted Poland. I’m more than half-way the pre-exam two-week wipe-out. In a week I will have dropped the burden off my neck…

The run-off

The first round of the presidential election, bringing the unexpected victory of Mr Duda, was a rude awakening to Mr Komorowski and his supporters. The properly interpreted wake-up call, or yellow card from voters, somehow has perked up the incumbent president and has not taken wind out of Mr Duda’s sails.

The pace and lustre of the campaign also went up in the fortnight preceding the run-off. Two debates between the candidates were held. I finally returned to earth and watched both. My private impression is that in the first one, hosted by TVP and Polsat, Mr Duda outperformed Mr Komorowski and made a much better impression on the audience, while in the second, hosted by TVN24 (truth be told, biased towards Mr Komorowski), Mr Komorowski proved his superiority over Mr Duda and properly used the chance to underline where differences between him and Mr Duda lie, while the PiS candidate tried to shun answers to most difficult questions.

The last polls, published on Friday (before the silence came) pointed the candidates were running neck in neck (both could boast about support of more than 45% and less than 10% of voters were still hesitating who to vote for. On Thursday evening, right after the second TV debate, I posted on my facebook profile my own forecast of election results, foreseeing Mr Komorowski would win by garnering 51.17% of valid votes, while Mr Duda would get 48.83% of votes… Seems my guess was not that far from the actual results, only candidates' surnames have to be swapped.

The extended (due to a decease in one of the polling stations in Silesian region) silence brings back memories of October 2007, but then some polling stations in Warsaw ran out of ballot papers. Then we had to wait until after midnight to find out the results.

Today’s exit polls result quite clearly point at Mr Duda's victory (53%). The election office (PKW) declares the final result tomorrow before midnight at the latest.

Mr Komorowski worked hard to lose the election, Mr Duda worked even harder to fool Poles, yet crowds of voters (I am hereby taking pride in high turnout of approximately 56%) proved the efforts of both candidates have not been squandered. I turned my back on Mr Komorowski in the first round, but today I backed him. Many people have done so, yet not enough to tip the scales in his favour.

The will of the nation must not be disputed. If official results confirm Mr Duda is a winner, I wish him all the best after taking the office and hope he does not keep the costly promises he has made during the campaign.

Pendolino – first trip

No photos since the camera in Szajsung packed up and I had no room in my briefcase to squeeze there my regular compact camera.

Had some business duties to handle in Gdansk last Tuesday. While looking for alternatives for how to get there I considered: car (by A2 and A1 motorways more than 400 kilometres, i.e. some four-hour drive in each direction would be requisite), airplane (prices of in-country flights have dropped recently, yet getting to the airport in Warsaw and in Gdansk and having to turn up at the airport an hour before take-off are a bit of a nuisance, plus getting corpo-sign-offs for plane travel is an even bigger nuisance. So… a penny drops – let’s go there by train – the new Pendolino service should be in place. I checked the timetable to learn the journey from Warszawa Centralna lasts these days less than three hours! Plus the cost is quite modest!

My train departs from Warsaw at 6:34 a.m. Lots of people around and passengers are from all walks of life. In a carriage my colleague with who I travel and I are accosted by a pissed-off male in his thirties. Not well-dressed, yet silver-mouthed. He boasts about kicking the air and knocking it down, then ask whether we know Johnny and whether he is still alive. Then he walks off. I wonder whether he has a ticket and what the crew has done with him. A woman in her late sixties has a long phone call with her lawyer and discusses with him how to disinherit her son who plans to marry a wrong woman. Why washing dirty linen in public?

The very train passes muster. The smell of modernity lingers, seats are comfortable, plenty of room to stretch out legs for tall people. In second class carriages you get one beverage free of charge. Since displays in carriages do not show current speed of the train, I have no idea how fast the train moves, but passengers do not feel uneasy at speeds exceeding 150 kmph. Punctuality beyond approach – train pulls up to Gdansk Głowny exactly at 9:33 a.m.

Since our destination is mere two miles from the train station and the meeting is scheduled at 10:30, we spare the New Factory a taxi expense and take a walk. Having done what we were supposed we and having two free hours before our Warsaw-bound train departs, we head towards old town. On our way we spot a building resembling Warsaw’s Hala Mirowska and drop in there to Bar Dominikanski eatery. Lunch portions are huge and prices very modest (below 20 PLN for a meal which leaves you full up) – I recommend the eatery for the sake of superb price-to-quality trade-off, although they could do with less grease ;-).

The Warsaw-bound train, whose actual route is from Gdynia to Krakow, arrives on time (2:34 p.m.) and comes to Warsaw also exactly on time (5:30 p.m.). This time we do not come across naughty passengers, yet the train carries mostly the air – does not bode well for improvement is PKP Intercity’s profitability which needs to rely on state subsidies to break even…

In terms of comfort, I have no reservations. Reliability of Pendolino trains will be fully tested by proper Polish winter (heavy snowfalls, temperatures below –20C – as for the latter it was claimed in advance the Italian trains do not withstand such low temperatures). In terms of price per one person it beats flights and car journeys. If two people travel and have no chance to buy tickets more than two weeks before journey date, going by car from Warsaw to Gdansk appears more economical (300 – 350 PLN for petrol and motorway tolls) than by Pendolino (4 times 120 PLN per ticket gives 480 PLN). When going by train you sit back and do not care, or you can spend the three-hour journey reading or working. When going by car you are more flexible, but the journey lasts a bit longer, is more tiresome and statistically far more dangerous. I shall be visiting the same destination a few times a year in the future, so Pendolino will most probably become the preferable means of getting there.

PS. This is not the advertisement of PKP Intercity, nor the eulogy for how things are moving ahead when Bronisław Komorowski is the president. I will be voting for Mr Komorowski, as for the lesser of two evils. Time to reiterate my opinion of him was much higher five years ago and generally his presidency has let me down, though it has been mediocre, yet predictable. Frankly speaking, despite being fundamentally against vision of Poland by PiS, I cannot promise not to change my mind. Mr Komorowski is intent on losing in a run-off. Tonight I will be watching the debate between the two candidates and I can bet Mr Duda beats Mr Komorowski in terms of preparation for discussion and in terms of image. The incumbent president and his henchmen work very hard to help Mr Komorowski move out of Krakowskie Przedmiescie…