…Take the moment and make it perfect

Shortly before I set off for a quick sightseeing trip I lived through 15-minutes-long episode I could not get off my mind for the past two weeks.

15 June 2016, Wednesday.

A workmate who had decided to attend the same conference I did turned up around 9:00 a.m. As his decision had been kind of belated (or to put it coarsely, he had not been far-sighted), he had not managed to find a room in a hotel where the conference was held. He was planning to leave before evening to return to Warsaw around dusk, yet when it turned out my single room was in fact a double room with two single beds, I decided to give in to his entreating and put him up overnight, illegally. Because we had one room entry card, we had no choice but to go to most places together. As I spoke on the phone to another colleague, he advised jocosely we hang around separately, since I would be scaring off his prospective clients and he would be scaring off all women interested in me…

16 June 2016, Thursday

Early morning. The workmate is kind of languorous and indecisive; two traits I cannot put up with when they are exhibited by fellow males. I delicately urge him to leave the room before 7:30 a.m.. He insists on eating a breakfast in the hotel restaurant, while I keep telling him just like in almost each and every hotel, the restaurant crew would ask him about room number and thus his free-riding would come to the light, not the course of event we both would wish for. I walk downstairs to consume my duly paid breakfast and leave him packing his stuff in my room. While I finish eating, I see him strutting about outside the hotel. Then I notice a missed phone call from him. We work together on day-to-day basis, so I overcome my irritation and walk off outside to shake his hand and wish him a good journey… He marches to his company car, while I take delight in breathing in fresh warm morning air. The past twenty two and half hours proved lack of company is better than any company…

I briskly stride towards the hotel making a plan to visit the swimming pool (went there once yesterday, but since it has been paid for, why not use it?) and in my state of sheer bliss I fail to notice a young woman crouching over an open suitcase. She begins a conversation:

Woman: Excuse me sir, does sir know how to call a taxi to the train station in Town?

Me: At the moment unfortunately not, but I am just finding it out (grabbing the smartphone from my pocket and looking for a number to order a taxi cab from Town).

Woman: The taxi driver was bound to pick me up at 7:30 while my train to Warsaw departs at 8:03…

Me: I am afraid you have some twenty minutes left and waiting for a taxi is kind of risky. If you are to make it to the station, I will give you a lift. I will just fetch the car keys and documents from my room and off we go…

While I was nearly running back with stuff necessary to fire up the car, my thought was that the taxi driver has pitched up in the meantime and I my fit of help was gratuitous…

Woman, still squatting over the open suitcase: I thought sir was joking and ran away. Sir is very nice.

From the next ten minutes I remember that:

- we kept talking (or heads off) during the entire journey and definitely were on the same wavelength from the very moment we got into the car, however I cannot recall well subject matters of our chat,

- I felt addressing each other Pani / Pan was absurdly unnatural since with newly met people on social occasions I am on name’s terms from the very beginning,

- I had to ask her to find a route to the train station on her mobile phone (with hindsight I have learnt my new company swanky smartphone has an up-to-the-mark navigation),

- she was somewhat frightened by my style of driving, while I was slightly fast and furious behind the wheel,

- when for a moment we talked about football (Poland was due to play with Germany later that day), I missed an opportunity to sound out whether she has a husband or boyfriend (by asking a casual question whether her husband or boyfriend is a football fan),

- when I parked next to the station she asked me for a business card and since I had left them in the hotel. I told her my name and private phone number and held back from asking her about hers, since my thought was that in such situation asking her for phone number would be a step too far. In my awkward reasoning I had showed immediate initiative and resourcefulness and if she wanted to pay back as she was promising when getting off the car, she would make the next step, if not, imposing myself was a bad idea.

Some four or five days later I realised I did not know her name, where she worked and given my poor memory for faces, I would not recognise her if we met again. But this was the second time (let’s pass over the first one in silence) over three months when I met a woman for the first time and for the second time some kind of chemistry (and spontaneity) was in the air that instantly shortened the distance between us from the word go. Come to think of it. So often two people deliberately date and both struggle to keep up a conversation while out of the blue you can run across somebody accidentally and talk with them (if time permits, for hours) effortlessly.

22 June 2016, Wednesday

I get a text message from my team-mate. She writes a courier has delivered a parcel for me, undersigned “with thanks from Company XYZ”. Kind of confused I google the name of the sender and learn Company XYZ was one the partners of last week’s conference. Whether the bundle’s arrival is an implication of the pleasant adventure, or just a follow-up to a cordial exchange of business cards will remain a mystery until 4 July when I return to work.

Looking back at the situation, there is no clear reason why I cannot get it off my head. The woman might be a happy wife and mother to two small lovely children. The woman might also in a long-lasting not formalised relationship. If I knew that, I would have simply come to terms with it, put giving her a lift on a list of good deeds I have made in life and give it a rest once and for all.

Twists and turns of life are frequently driven by coincidences. As the old saying goes, luck is an opportunity not missed. In this case, I hold it against myself I have not seized the opportunity. I can neither give up nor move on…

Or alternatively, if she knows how to get in touch with me and (rather) has not done it (cannot determine it, until I open the parcel) it is high time I gave over…

Ogrodzieniec, castle

When I began travelling in business some five years ago I had a sense of excitement prospect of getting about brings out in people. With time it turned out most trips taken as part of my duties are kind of tiresome and involve more hassle than pleasure. And frequent sightseeing which I thought would be the order of the day, turned out to be impossible to pursue, due to tight agenda of the day, tiredness and priority of travel companies to return home possibly quickly.

An ideal business trip if I am do take a detour to draw some pleasure from visiting new places most often needs to meet three conditions:

1) actual destination should be a place hard to reach by train, so that using the private car is justified – this gives flexibility and saves time when moving about (does not apply to main cities, such as Poznan, Wroclaw, Gdansk, Krakow),

2) the agenda should give some headroom for spare time for leisure,

3) I take the trip on my own, or have companions who at least don’t mind such sightseeing.

The three conditions are all met on average twice a year, sadly…

Last Thursday I took such detour when return from a conference. Conditions 1 and 3 were met, however necessity to catch up with work accumulated during the previous day of the conference left me hurrying to make my way to Warsaw. Despite this I ventured to Zamek Ogrodzieniec, one of the magnificent sights in Jura Krakowsko-Częstochowska, one of Poland’s still underrated pearls. I turned up there at nine o’clock, but the ticket office was… closed despite being scheduled to be opened at that hour. I hang around for a quarter, took delight in the beauty of the place, picked up a few phone calls with workmates urging me to handle the stuff I was meant to deal with, thus had my impatience stirred and eventually I marched back to the car. A shame to admit it ended up like this. Looking forward to visiting those regions again.

Since tomorrow I’m setting off for holidays, to take some rest and think some things over, the next posting will be due in early July. Over the coming days I will be keeping my fingers crossed for the Remain option and if my hopes are dashed, will turn my smartphone on to watch the rollercoaster… Take care!

Swiss Francs, no easy way out

One of pre-election campaign promises made by president Duda and the bevy of politicians he hails from was a bail-out for FX mortgage borrowers ensnared into toxic loan agreements and trapped in their unsellable properties for years to come.

In January 2016, exactly a year after the Swiss currency had been freed to float, Mr Duda’s office laid out a proposal of converting CHF mortgages into PLN at a “fair rate”, different for each debtor and reflecting benefits received by debtors on account of favourable CHF/PLN rates before September 2008 and lower interest rates in CHF (for broader explanation in plain language click here and scroll down to the third paragraph from the bottom). The proposal has been assessed as hazardous for the Polish banking system and… shelved. Five month on, the sketch of the solution has not developed into a draft law ready for legislative process… Which is reassuring, since if Mr Duda’s experts are mindful of dire consequences of banks going under or loss of trust among foreign investors, they have held back from pursuing it and set out to reshape the proposal…

On Tuesday the “CHF task force” held a fifty-one minutes long conference, during which they attempted to outline the major conclusions of their work on the bail-out scheme until now. I will be nasty, but I will exercise my right to speak it out… This was one of the most ludicrous conferences I have ever seen in life. I have got accustomed to listening to politicians who speak a lot and say nothing. This time self-styled economic experts have told a story of guys who met up several times to sip coffee, munch biscuits and waffle on quandaries of benighted individuals who wanted to chase their dreams too much…

OK, the malice cap has been reached, time to move on to what audience have been spared, namely details…

The participation in the bail-out will be voluntary, what in practice means some better-off borrowers might not decide to get rid of their Swiss Franc burden, in practice they will continue to bet on depreciation of CHF in years to come. I personally know people who accumulate savings and hope one day they pay off their whole mortgage with one shot at favourable CHF/PLN rate.

The bail-out package consists of several measures distressed debtors could choose between, however I still cannot make out whether they are mutually exclusive or not.

One interesting measure which could theoretically be implemented with another one is the obligations to lenders (banks) to refund the borrowers the overpaid currency spreads. I came, I saw, I did not understand at all. This concept leaves more questions than answers. Firstly, what would constitute an overpaid spread? Banks naturally earn on difference between rate at which they buy and sell foreign currencies, whereas the problem with the CHF mortgages was that spreads were far higher than reasonable (bid-ask spread often above 6%)… So would lawmakers define a reasonable spread banks had been entitled to charge, or would they set National Bank of Poland rate as benchmark? Secondly, would banks give this money to borrowers’ hands or would they obligatorily prepay mortgage loans? Thirdly, would the refund include penalty interest accrued for period between it had been unduly charged and the day of refund? Fourthly, would the measure cover also instalments paid after August 2011 (enacted swiftly the PO-PSL government in reaction to soaring Swiss Franc) when the anti-spread law (amendments to the banking law) came into force?

Fifthly, facing the truth, the banks were not prohibited by the law to rip off borrowers, so would reversing it be interpreted as violation of the precept that law is not retroactive?

The concept of the “fair rate” has been revisited in the presentation. The expert spoke of four variants of the fair rate, however decided to share only two of them with the audience. One draws on the algorithm presented in January 2016, the other would additionally take into account current well-being of a borrower, with debt-to-income ratio (percentage of after-tax income spent on instalments) a key criterion. The very concept of what is “fair” and for who gives ample room for disputes and will most likely by one of moot points if works on the bail-out scheme move on.

Another measure, whose legal feasibility is questionable, is the option for a borrower to extinguish their mortgage debt by renouncing ownership of the mortgaged property. In Poland mortgage debt has recourse nature, i.e. a debtor is liable for it with all their present and future assets. Such scheme again casts doubts whether law does not work retroactively (a bank when it was granting mortgages, relied in creditworthiness assessment on claim on debtors’ assets and income). Incidentally, introduction of pure non-recourse mortgage lending under which a lender could recover from collateral only, could civilise Polish mortgage lending, but at the expense of higher cost of such debt, being the compensation for lenders for relinquishing the recourse to debtors.

The professors mentioned in passing 30 billion PLN as the total cost of their proposal (which one exactly?). No one still knows how their arrived at that figure, but to be honest, to my best knowledge none of the figures presented by any participant of the CHF debate has been backed by substantive calculations or estimations holding water.

The experts (I pull a grumpy cat’s face when I write this word, as Poland’s current ruling elites lack backing of competent experts) also claimed the effects of the bail-out would be spread over around 30 years, yet failed to explain how such spreading over time be brought into line with International Financial Reporting Standards which proscribe to recognise a loss in full amount in the period an entity learns it is going to incur the loss. One of the task force members murmured something about SPVs and securitisation as tools for spreading the cost over time. A word of explanation here… SPVs are used by banks to remove loans from their balance sheets. Some assets (pools of CHF mortgage loans) are swapped for other assets – cash. Hence a bank has its problem solved immediately, provided it sells portfolios of loans to SPVs at face value. If it sells dicey loans at discount, it recognise a loss (or pre-sale write-down) immediately. At this stage the story is not over. An SPV which buys dicey loans from banks must pay cash for it. Cash is an asset which must be funded with equity or liabilities. Who would then provide equity or liabilities? Whoever it would be, they would be exposed to sizeable haircut in their investment, as SPVs would absorb the losses on loan conversions into PLN…

The Tuesday’s proposal has been slated by nearly everyone. Economists criticised it for lack of details (during the conference the task force experts were struggling to answer most questions asked by the audience). Disgruntled debtors, who put faith in Mr Duda’s promises, also do not perceive the unveiled concept of the bail-out package as a step forward.

I suppose PiSites and Mr Duda know well only time may solve the problem of CHF loans and therefore they play on time. Month by month outstanding debt declines as borrowers make repayments and so the scale of the problem diminishes. They fully realise if they run out of money, voters will knock them out of power (if voting regulations are not tampered with), so their spending spree fortunately has halted after 500 PLN child allowance programme kicked off. I bet works on the draft law will drag on for months and by the end of this year the legal framework will not be passed.

Escape room

This sort of collective entertainment has become popular in Poland pretty recently. I have first heard of it in the summer 2015 and back then there were quite a few such facilities in Warsaw; since then several new escape rooms have sprung up and you need to book a room several days in advance if you want to go there on most popular time slots (Thursday / Friday evenings or during weekends).

The very concept is well-explained in the dedicated wikipedia article (funnily enough, there is no Polish version as of today). It is essentially a battle of wits with the forces that lock you up, so participants need to use their brains to crack several logical puzzles to break out of the locked room. Usually the game has a specific theme around which puzzles revolve. Players need to get to grips with the brainteasers within an allotted time. They win if they manage to find a key to the door before this time runs out.

I ventured to such place on Friday evening with my workmates. Such game is said to enhance teamwork skills, yet we went there off our own bat (and paid for it from our own pockets), not being ordered by The New Factory. The facility we visited was located on the third floor of a tenement in the very heart of Warsaw and was a spacious flat redesigned into three escape rooms and an accompanying office. One needs to invest a bit to create this and I estimate the entry costs at some 2 million PLN, assuming a flat is purchased (I cannot imagine a landlord giving tenant a free rein to build an escape room in their property); running costs is what I find harder to estimate. Plus to attract new clients the business-keeper should bring in new themes from time to time… The facility we went had just one significant drawback, namely it lacked air-conditioning, which in the summer season might be a nuisance, when a few persons are locked in a tiny space with area less than 20 square metres.

Most clients of such facilities are companies which send their staff to escape rooms as part of team-building programmes or just to expend integration budgets. The cost is not exorbitant. We had a discount voucher from a workmate who once had been to the same facility, but to a different room and we filled the room with maximum number of participants and ended up with expense per head below 20 PLN, while an average rate you can expect is around 30 – 40 PLN per person, still a sum which will not break the bank.

Though neither enchanted by the game, nor fascinated by it, I will eagerly repeat it in a while and recommend you also try it out with your family, friends, colleagues or whoever you want to enjoy time with.

After the hour of fun and short sit-down at a café I stroll towards the dance school along the crowded streets of the central part of Warsaw. Compared to how it looked like a decade ago, social life in the centre of Warsaw is thriving. Glad to see more and more people lap up the most beautiful part of the year outdoors. In this respects we are catching up with our Western Neighbours who socialise instead of clamming up indoors.

The weekend

The long-awaited four days of all-out logout. Corpo-world left behind, not a thought about what lies ahead on Monday, weather fine. A sin not to make the most of it.

Thursday, Corpus Christi.

Morning starts off with mundane stuff, overdue house-cleaning and ironing. Then drove my mother to the nearby cemetery where my maternal grandparents are buried. Before 10 a.m. duties are marked off, the bike beckons to set off for a ride. Cycling through Las Kabacki I head towards Park Kultury w Powsinie. No droves of people, rather few visitors hang around. I need to bear in mind many people participate in Church processions, many are away from Warsaw, while many sleep off and miss out on the excellent weather. It’s sunny, yet only around +20C, pleasantly warm, yet not hot. I sit back for a while then make my way home along southern edges of the forest. I spend the afternoon in the garden where lots of work needs to be caught up with.

Friday, the day in-between

Business before pleasure as they say. I briskly walk to the swimming pool in Piaseczno, return home, switch on the washing machine and the vacuum cleaner. Two hours later I can go outside, clean the car inside and spend the rest of the day working in the garden, sunbathing, then washing the car. I feel my shoulders are slightly sunburnt. A soothing ointment applied in the evening and tomorrow the pink skin and searing will be gone.

Saturday, it’s downhill now

Feel my spine and muscles have had a decent workout. After another visit to the swimming pool reinvigorates me. Just like yesterday few swimmers in the facility. After a round of household chores… The bike beckons again. It’s already hot, +25C and the sunrays not necessarily treat human skin with care. I ride to Zalesie Dolne, nearby former summer resort, currently still a hangout for scores of locals. It’s late morning, yet the area is far from being densely occupied. Some fishy men stick around. I jump off the bike to take a snap with my mobile and post in on facebook. I realise I have just run out of my data packet for this month so I need to fall back on my company phone to turn on the Wi-fi router and make use of the other phone if I am to show off where I am. The whole operations lasts some two minutes, I turn around to get on my bike… Where’s the bike. No one in sight, not a bike in sight. This came to me as a surprise. Who’d want it? The value of my 12-year-old cheapo bike was close to scrap value… Actually the bigger nuisance than loss of the bike is having to walk back home some seven kilometres in full sunshine, without head covering. Once I get to Piaseczno I consider taking a 709 or 727 bus home, yet knowing I am half-way home and I would need to wait on the terminus till the bus departs, then ride its regular route, I decide to continue on foot. Slightly worn-down, I get home before 1 p.m. Spend the rest of the day loafing about and searching for a new bike.

Sunday, today

What a lovely weather. Wind takes the edge off heat. At 9 a.m. I venture to local Decathlon store. I’m looking for a no-frill, basic, yet up-to-the-mark in terms of quality bike for weekend trips (I estimate I cover between 1,000 and 1,500 kilometres per year). I planned to delay purchase of the new bike until late summer when end-of-season sell-offs begin, but the theft has unexpectedly brought forward my plans. I settle for B’twin Rockrider 340 and buy additional accessories: mud flaps, saddle cover and a prop. The bill is reasonable: slightly below 900 PLN with preparatory works included. I ride off the shop and the impression is comparable to moving from a 12-year-old rickety car to a brand-new car. I took a short ride to Ursynów and back to try out the newly purchased vehicle. It’s a no-frill bike, one cannot deny it, yet everything works smoothly and gently and cycling is less tiresome. The change reminds me one can draw lots of pleasure from riding. I promise to have the bike serviced annually and protect it from the elements of weather and thieves, therefore it will be kept in the garage (and then probably in a storage box).

Hope you also had an enjoyable weekend. Exercise done, but has the test been passed?

Bachata

The dance group I joined was dissolved in late April due to too low number of students to make running classes cost-effective for the school. As people were dropping off along the way, firstly two groups were merged into one and then, as number of folks eager to continue went down below five couples (from sixteen on the onset), it all went phut.

Truth be told, I did not look out actively for a new class. I owe taking it up to someone else, who induced me to move my arse and sign up for a class in a totally different style, in a totally new place (Warsaw, downtown).

The choice, though as I need to stress not entirely mine, is challenging, as Latin dances are featured with high complexity in terms of body movements. Merely moving around to the rhythm is far from enough. To get it right you need to practice a lot, have a good teacher who knows how to explain what you don’t… feel and you need to have… knack for it.

Bachata is one of those Latin dances geared to make the most of the proximity between partners. If you plan to take it up, you need to realise it and not be perplexed by it. The course I have signed up for is focused at learning to dance universally, not to learn to dance with your partner, therefore participants switch between partners several times during the class. It requires some openness from couples who come over, yet if someone does not accept it, no one coerces them to pop round. As yesterday I was telling my friends about the classes, they came up with comparison to swingers’ parties… Which is an unjustified parallel.

Compared to the previous school, the set-up and style of running classes are worlds apart. In the new place a class begins with a quarter-long warm-up, while the remaining 45 minutes are spent dancing and participants are given more free rein when it comes what exactly they want to practise. On the other hand the drawback is a still big number of people, so before some of them drop off you might not reckon the teacher will come around to assist you every time you struggle to get it right.

The climate of the school smacks of what sometimes is depicted in dance films. Side street in eastern Śródmieście, entrance in a dim gate, stairs down to a basement, tiny interior, steamy inside, smell of human sweat in the air… Ideal conditions for making new friends ;-)

All in all, glad I’ve found one more activity to get the stress out of myself. I have no idea how long I carry on with this, as I am aware of my limitations and dancing Bachata is not a piece of cake.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t lack self-confidence and am not about to give up shortly after the word ‘go’. Growing mature is about realising both one’s strengths and weaknesses. One should make the most of the former, leverage on them and boast about them. But when it comes to the latter, one should strive to overcome them when possible, but if not, know when to stop and back away in dignity. Both partners must draw pleasure from dancing; if one is dissatisfied with the other, the other one should not be indifferent about it. Otherwise it ain’t gonna play ;-)

Longevity, five years later

A natural continuation to my post dated 15 May 2011. My paternal grandfather, my only grandparent still alive, turns 90 the day after tomorrow. He is my first ancestor who will have reached such grand old age. After my grandma’s departure last year, he lives on his own, yet every second day my father or my uncle visit him to help his run the house, or to make it clear, to run his house. This teaches the lesson that “old” marriage model in which a woman is solely responsible for household chores while a man earns a livelihood, leaves a widower helpless after several decades of being served by his wife. Fortunately, today’s marriages are geared to sharing mundane duties and men as a matter of principle are familiar with using washing machine, ironing, cleaning or cooking.

Compared to how he managed five years ago, grandpa is naturally mentally and physically less, yet still moves around on his own, but everything he does, he does very slowly (dressing up takes him twenty minutes, morning toiletry more than half an hour). Mentally, he is definitely less bright, yet in simple terms understand what is going on around. Quite conceivably, in five years I may wish him well on his 95^th birthday, yet mortality statistics look somewhat downbeat for males in his age.

Revising the post from 2011, my grandfather denies most of the twelve longevity-conducive factors I mentioned there. I think he owes his long life to my grandpa who wore trousers for over sixty six years of their marriage, who was always first to look after sons and the house. Maybe leading a carefree life should be tacked on as another driver of longer life length.

And I could hold back from repeating one of the last sentences: look at young yuppies who break their backs to make roaring careers and make lots money and ask yourself, if they'll be able to carry on like this for 40 years. Imagine a man working 60 hours a week for four decades when he retires in his sixties. I was writing it at the early stage of my career, before university graduation and did not know whether and when I would end up in such treadmill. As this is the situation in which I am stuck now (weighing up quitting the New Factory next year if nothing improves), I am more than sure I will not carry on like this for 40 years as long working hours and rapid pace of work involve lots of stress, leave little time and suck out energy, both essential for experiencing pleasures.

Chciwość - book review

Once I have reviewed here another book by Paweł Reszka, one of his two (only) famous ones, with Daleko od Miłości, a bleak depiction of Donald’s Tusk as prime minister, being the other, unread by me. After a few years without meaningful accomplishments, Mr Reszka hit the audience with a new book on 27 April 2016. Soon after I learnt about the existence of the book and its subject matter, I rushed to order it online, picked it up on Monday, read from cover to cover, jotted down some important stuff and wonder whether I should recommend it as a valuable read. The book is not a “must”, but if you have some spare time, would not hurt to reach out for it, nevertheless, 28 PLN spent on it (could not find it any cheaper in e-bookshops) could have been expended in a more pleasant way ;-)

For the sake of clarity, the book’s focal point are malpractices of financial institutions in their dealings with clients, retail clients.

Although I am employed in the financial sector, I am totally unfamiliar with the world of retail banking illustrated in the book. From what I have heard and read, asserting that work in a bank outlet in Poland is unrewarding is an understatement. Low basic salary, junk contracts, unrealistic targets, mobbing and high staff turnover are the order of the day in that world. Yet for some reason, not the nascent investment banking, not classy corporate banking, but world of small bank outlets scattered too plentifully across Poland is now compared with infamous stories by the Cityboy or The Wolf of Wall Street.

Testimonies of people who used to be a pillar of a system they hate today have left me with mixed feelings. As the author rightly points out, all his interlocutors have not felt guilty of the mis-selling they were involved in. They have all claimed they were a part of an evil system and had no choice but to swim with the tide. Actually their intentions were to earn money, rather than to fool clients. Had indeed they been intent for the latter, they would not have convinced their families and friends to buy products they were distributing, products they genuinely believed were suitable and good for clients.

The very naivety in such reasoning speaks volumes of salespeople’s competencies. It is not a secret staff in retail banking do not need to be graduates of economics. Even if those people possess university degrees, their diplomas are earned in dead-end majors, such as political sciences or sociology. No wonder then they could not understand what they were selling and no wonder nobody cared. They were meant to meet targets, nothing (broader) beyond that.

I was kind of astonished when I read about bonuses of top-performers. When I hear “retail banker in Poland”, I have in mind a poorly-paid (basic salary) mobbed, lousy guy in a doghouse. Majority may fit into such scheme, yet the book gives two figures: one guy thanks to superb “output” earned one month 120 thousand PLN before tax and another guy who in a good year earned 320 thousand PLN before tax. Both numbers are still out of reach for me, let alone an ordinary Pole for who such earnings are outrageous…

While proceeds are on one side, on the other one comes spending. The book goes to show what happens when boors (usually sly guys from provincial Poland) begin to get paid like lords. As they feel the dough flowing in, they usually begin to show off, live beyond their means and cannot even make use of the short-lasting lucky streak to save something. They become a part of the tribe and need to keep up with fellow meatheads, swank about, party wild… Incidentally, descriptions of what bank-sponsored parties look like are far cry from what I am familiar with; same about families broken up on account of sinful lifestyle or because of working overtime habitually – in civilised part of Poland’s financial sector such things happen no more often than among representatives of any other profession…

So if wicked bank(st)ers and wicked banks were earning so well, had a client any chance to make a profit? Two most popular toxic products massively sold to retail customers in Poland were: CHF-denominated or CHF-indexed mortgage loans and unit-linked insurance policies (for no apparent reason known as polisolokaty, a misnomer, since polisolokata was a name for life insurance policy working exactly like bank deposit when such products allowed to circumvent capital gains tax).

The former product was attractive for mortgage borrowers who benefited from lower interest rates in CHF and therefore could take out higher loans. Unlike many claim, banks were indifferent about fluctuations of CHF/PLN (they did not report losses when PLN was appreciating against CHF until July 2008). They earned on spread between bid and ask rate. For example, if CHF/PLN was 2.00, at loan disbursement a bank used CHF/PLN = 1.94 rate, while when first instalment was repaid, though the exchange rate stayed level, the customer repaid it at CHF/PLN = 2.06. So banks were making huge money on spreads while being immune to FX rate variations. Though most clients today are worse-off than their PLN-indebted counterparts on their CHF mortgages, they turned worse off in 2013 when interest rates in PLN went down. By that time, despite PLN depreciation, their to-date instalments were lower than those paid by mortgage debtors with loans in PLN. I personally also know a guy who took out a CHF mortgage in 2004 and converted it to PLN in 2008 and whose debt shrank by nearly PLN 100,000. And be sure the bank which had lent him money earned decently on him as well!

The latter product, with mechanics described in the book, could give a chance to earn only if returns on the aggressively invested money were as good as in golden years before 2008. The reason for being bound to lose is the fee structure. With insurance company (ultimate service provider), bank (structuring party) and agent (intermediary) to be paid, fee schedule was high enough to wipe out ordinary profits. If load fee from each and every contribution is 5% and you gave management fee on top, a rough calculation tells you an average return of 6% per year is needed to break even. Today, with risk-free rate of 1.5% such return is achievable only if sizeable risk is taken.

Oddly enough, many bankers who genuinely believed in superiority of CHF-mortgages and unit-linked insurance plans are victims of those instruments.

And oddly enough, I have never been aggressively foisted upon toxic products. Salespeople from banks call me from time to time and ask me politely whether I am interested in a toxic product, I politely but firmly refuse. I do not remember being duped by any salesman in a way described in the book. Maybe they know who they talk to and as a matter of principle do not play such tricks with people from the same industry…

The book also made me recall one event which deserves to be erased from my memory. In October 2008 a friend of mine recommended me as a potentially interested in a job as distributor of the most lousy investment products. Out of curiosity I made an arrangement for an interviewed. I was interviewed by my peer (aged 20 or 21 then; for the first time a guy of my age would address me “pan”) and upon hearing from him as a branch manager and team leader he earned PLN 20,000 and drove Audi A3, I simply finished the meeting. Indeed, the biggest misfortune is when a boor comes into big money suddenly…

For readers less familiar with finance, the book contains a glossary / guide which in simple words explains e.g. what the difference between a CHF-denominated and CHF-indexed loan is, or how a unit-linked insurance works. Laymen then are advised to start their read from the back cover ;-)

The timing of the premiere might bring out suppositions the book is to be harnessed in a political discussion on conversion of FX-mortgages. I doubt this happens. Firstly, no one in the book takes pity on CHF-borrowers, claiming they should pay for their greed and stupidity. Secondly, it reminds who was in favour of sustaining the CHF-lending unrestricted (PiS politicians: Przemysław Gosiewski, Zyta Gilowska and Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz) and who insisted on clamping down on it (banks).

The day before you came

 
Must have left my house at eight, because I always do
My train, I'm certain, left the station just when it was due
I must have read the morning paper going into town
And having gotten through the editorial, no doubt I must have frowned
I must have made my desk around a quarter after nine
With letters to be read, and heaps of papers waiting to be signed
I must have gone to lunch at half past twelve or so
The usual place, the usual bunch
And still on top of this I'm pretty sure it must have rained
The day before you came

I must have lit my seventh cigarette at half past two
And at the time I never even noticed I was blue
I must have kept on dragging through the business of the day
Without really knowing anything, I hid a part of me away
At five I must have left, there's no exception to the rule
A matter of routine, I've done it ever since I finished school
The train back home again
Undoubtedly I must have read the evening paper then
Oh yes, I'm sure my life was well within it's usual frame
The day before you came

Must have opened my front door at eight o'clock or so
And stopped along the way to buy some Chinese food to go
I'm sure I had my dinner watching something on TV
There's not, I think, a single episode of Dallas that I didn't see
I must have gone to bed around a quarter after ten
I need a lot of sleep, and so I like to be in bed by then
I must have read a while
The latest one by Marilyn French or something in that style
It's funny, but I had no sense of living without aim
The day before you came

And turning out the light
I must have yawned and cuddled up for yet another night
And rattling on the roof I must have heard the sound of rain
The day before you came

One of the last singles by ABBA, released in 1982, after the break-up of both marriages making up the band and prior to actual bitter dismemberment of the quartet. Not as widely known as other, easier, more ear-catching songs by ABBA, by many underrated and standing out among earlier works of the band. Unlike most songs from the period when the band enjoyed unfaltering popularity (1976-1981) this one is not energising and does not have features of a catchy tune sung along by people from different walks of life across the globe. It is filled with far bigger dose of melancholy than more famous songs from ABBA’s late-fame period (The Winner Takes It All or One of Us) and though the very lyrics seem depressing, the very title reminds it is never too late for a change, yet how it comes about remains a mystery.

The wikipedia article on the song is remarkably exhaustive and apart from depicting background of the song, includes several interpretation of its lyrics

Cząstki elementarne - book review

The book emerged out of anger; anger at spiritual powerlessness, metaphysical emptiness and omnipresent consumption, at easiness of liberalism and duplicity of religion; and above all at our inability to experience happiness.

The blurb of the book unfailingly hints at the ominous purport of it. Atomised is the second book of the author I have read and I would not have come across it, had it not been for the earlier reading of Uległość, probably the most famous novel of Mr Houellebecq, whose premiere coincided with attacks on Charlie Hebdo editorial office. I read “Submission” to catch up with several folks around who had been familiar with the book and somewhat moved by it. Slightly stirred up, yet not enchanted by the book, I voluntarily reached out for “Atomised”, released at the beginning of the twenty-first century, yet emanating with the same degree of glumness as the more famous work.

Looking at the evolution of Western societies, one can say they drift in the same direction since 1968 and things have not taken turn for a better since early 2000s. The book dwells on side effects of unfettered liberalism and individualism fought over in 1968 and spread blissfully across the lands west of the Iron Curtain. The society which holds dear independence of a single human being, inadvertently slackens off the human being’s relationships with other people. Lifting social norms and abandoning inhibitions in several realms of life, particularly sexual life, has deprived humans of the taste of the forbidden fruit. Whatever is come by without effort is let go without pain… Unrestrained consumption and abundance of goods weaned people off appreciating what they possess. Pursuit of one’s own happiness in isolation from other people led individuals to satisfaction with the they have achieved that cannot be shared with anyone…

The very book and pictures it paints go forward with the plot. It starts off with dejecting depiction of overwhelming nihilism, construed more broadly than just demise of values and authorities. The characters are unable to find sense in anything they do or whatever happens to them. The overpowering inability to draw pleasure from not only ordinary stuff but also the experiences which should be pleasurable arises from being shaped as insatiable by the culture of consumerism, but more importantly from too loose relationships with people. Were they closer and more valuable, finding sense in what people do would be far easier.

Then the novel goes on to turn into pornography several times more scandalising than infamous “Fifty Shades of Grey”. Brushing aside detailed descriptions of bodily entertainments, even if the author wishes to play with his own fantasies, the message put across through licentious scenes is that the very intercourse, especially in profusion and with accidental partners, no matter how exquisite, adds not much more value to a spirit than crass masturbation. Bad news for those seeking relief and pleasure in sexual life devoid of intimacy, as you move on, you begin to realise you go nowhere and lose sight of any contentment.

And as you read on towards the back cover, sadness is given off in such vast amounts that it takes over the reader. The tragic end is inevitable, as characters have taken the path leading to it several years earlier. The only question one should ask, is whether in circumstances imposed on by life and society surrounding them, they had the chance to arrange their lives differently.

The author incisively tears to pieces the attainments of post-1968 Western Societies, yet the blame must not be put on social framework, but on people who could not resist those direful norms and swam with the tide, as such choice was the most convenient. The decay of inter-human relationship is illustrated in the book on its every page. The pathology has its roots in barely non-existent bonds between parents and children. Thus children, not loved and cared for properly in their formative years, are incapable of building healthy relationships with other people as adults. Their contact with parents is lost and they learn about their deaths from strangers, then not shedding a single tear when parents are buried. They find no common ground with their siblings so they talk to one another only when they really need to. They cannot make more than shallow acquaintances, the one based rather on mutual benefits rather than care, devotion and spiritual intimacy. Their marriages are meant to break up, their contacts with children are meant to demise, they are bound to pass away in solitude. With such emotional disability, the society is bound to break down into atoms, each adrift without direction. One can only ask who designed the world in such way and who has power to change it.

Truth be told, I read the book in February, yet the right moment to review it ensued after last week’s not the most joyful note.

Yesterday morning, before setting off to the swimming pool, I signed in to facebook on my phone. The first news item from the feed was a (high-school) friend’s request to lend her a suitcase having dimensions of cabin luggage, as her new online-ordered one has not been delivered in time. My first thought was whether to ask her to come to pick up mine or jump into the car and bring the suitcase to her place some 20 kilometres away. And then a penny dropped!

Why the hell have I rushed to help her? Why do I always care the most? If I posted a similar appeal, would she even read it until the end? If I were in need, would she take the trouble to help me in any way, would she sacrifice her time and energy for me? After all we have not seen for a few years and it is uncertain whether we will meet soon, so why? For the sake of clarity – I have not even got in touch with her.

So what drove my behaviour? I googled the phrase “Why do I always care the most” and the English-language Internet responded to me most probably I suffer from inferiority complex and in such way seek people’s approval. Loads of nonsense! I have come up with two other reasons. Firstly, I take pleasure in helping people, watching they are happier or better off because of my deeds – this is commendable in essence, yet without reciprocity, with time a good-doer loses heart. Secondly, I simply seek company…

For the end, two questions which I have at the back of my head me since last Sunday:

1. Should I turn on my the birthday reminder on facebook?

2. Should I do something about the 10-years-after-graduation reunion or let things drift, because given reaction of former classmates, there is no use in meeting up?