10 years challenge

Today, 10 years ago (is this quaint form which I heard and read several times in use by native speakers correct – in Polish dziś, dziesięć lat temu sounds at best clumsily?) I posted on the blog for the first time. Few bloggers soldier on for so long, few bloggers do not run out of determination to write. As the Internet is full of #10yearschallenge comparisons, I will not spare the effort to come up with some salient ones, yet without any photo documentation.

In February 2009 I was a 21-year-old student of Warsaw School of Economics. I moved to a different role two years later; today I work at a bank controlled by one of bigger financial groups in Europe (fortunately not repolonised), striving to keep a low profile and remain anonymous.

Despite coming of age, I have not raised my own family yet. In the meantime the family I hail from has gone less populous after deceases of my paternal grandparents.

I set up the blog slightly more than a month after a break-up with a girlfriend. Today, my tenure of being single lasts 7 months (and despite keeping up appearances, it still feels traumatic).

In 2009 and for several years later I lived with my parents, then rented two flats, finally I purchased my own one and after overcoming all tribulations (cards stacked against me several times on the remont front) I should move in to my dwelling in March.

Politics-wise… Ten years ago Poland was under the rule of Platforma Obywatelska, the president was late Lech Kaczyński. Today his twin brother keeps a tight rein on Poland and will refuse to give in. The autumnal election will be the battle for the future of Poland.

Economy-wise… 10 years ago the world was in the doldrums of the economic crisis, with stock markets hitting many years’ low and Polish currency being the weakest in 21st century. Today several developed economies are facing threats of recession, while Poland again resists economic contraction, however for different reasons than a decade ago.

Society-wise… In early 2009 I did not know the word smartphone, which revolutionised not only technology (cell phone, computer, camera, video camera, clock, dictaphone, organiser, radio, mp3 player, calculator, torch, map crammed into a tiny device) but also marked a negative change in interhuman communication – made people stare at their smartphones instead of talking to one another. Sadly…

For the sake of statistics, most often viewed posts of the decade are:

1. Black swan theory, inadvertently published exactly two days before the theoretically unimaginable disaster.

2. Freaks of the dicts – linguistic puzzles were one of my passions around that time. I believe once the remont is over I will need to take the trouble to refresh my English, whose command has definitely seen better days (using it every day at work, yet reading far too little, which has negative impact on vocabulary resources – lose it or use it! Err… oddly enough, I observe the same has happened to my Polish)

3. Oscar and lady in pink – a review of a poignant book, reminds my remont-related quandaries appear miniscule when confronted with an innocent child passing away slowly.

4. Pushed around, ridiculed, degraded – an analysis of part of current ruling party’s electorate. Moherowe berety are no longer a hard-core voters of PiS, yet my to-do-list should contain a study into who the mindset of most avid believers of the first property developer in Poland.

5. The banker’s role from bank employee’s perspective – a response to a post written by a fellow long-distance blogger whose tenure will always be nearly two years longer than mine. Michael, thank you for inspiration and for being the only one from the Polish-English blogosphere, thriving in 2009-2011 and then waning, who has not dropped off.

There was a time when I was planning to give up on blogging on the 10th anniversary. Today, despite headwinds, I am determined to keep it up, however in a while I will need to abandon the predictable formula of one post each Sunday and bring in some element of irregularity.

Toruń, just before turning thirty

Off to Toruń and nearby over the last weekend. The purpose of the trip was to take a break from everyone and everything, from all thoughts and tribulations that could bring us down. If you are to forget about the daily grind, the best recipe is a short foray to a nice destination, as at home your mind-bothering stuff keeps you company.

The very trip, except for the fuel, was a birthday gift, the one which I kind of extorted from my girlfriend, yet the idea was brilliant. On Saturday morning I only knew we were about to head for Torun, but had no idea about the details of our accommodation.

Instead of taking A2 and A1 motorway, I decided to take a shorter and more picturesque route via DK7 and DK10, both not actually congested on Saturday and Sunday. Landscapes of Mazowsze were much more eye-pleasing sights than drab noise barriers fencing the motorway off.

I visited the very city for the first time since June 1998 (counting out one business trip during which I turned up to a warehouse somewhere within the administrative borders), when Toruń was a school trip destination. Finding a place to park a car near old town was a challenge and one of less efficient methods of wasting some twenty minutes, but we took our time. Then we took a walk around the historical part of the city.

To the right, a Christmas tree, lit up by LED diodes. By dint of late-autumnal weather, the place still lacked typical Christmas climate, yet we should have got used to it (last truly wintery Christmas in Poland was in… 2002). The day was dull, grey, short, yet unforgettable.

We strolled further to come across a Christmas fair, a festival with German origins, getting increasingly popular in Poland and staged in most bigger cities in Poland, usually on market squares. Maybe not the best place to do the shopping, but it does not hurt to catch the climate, scents and the scenery.

After eating a lunch and finding the car, my better half programmed the navigation so that it led me to our destination, but somehow showed only directions but not where it guided me exactly. Thus until the last moment I did not know what the destination was. Finally it turned out to be Pałac Romantyczny in Turzno (here snapped on Sunday morning after most of the snow fallen on Saturday evening has melted) – a lovely place, now the object of lovely memories.

For posterity, a short (and duly incomplete) record of my probably bestest birthday ever. The good has come, hope the best is still to come :)

Sick of politics

One down, four to go. Counting down days until the end of his term and wishing him good health.

One of keystone vows of Mr Duda as a candidate was to convert toxic foreign currency mortgage loans to PLN at the rate at which they had been taken out. As the problem is quite intricate, it has been tackled by a dedicated task force several times. The first proposal of loan conversion into PLN at “fair rate” was unveiled in January 2016, another “draft” of set of measures to ease CHF-mortgage-ridden debtors was laid out in June 2016. Last week the president’s experts finally presented the draft law whose core element is the obligation for banks to refund the borrowers overcharged spreads…

YES WE CAN’T, one would love to paraphrase Barack Obama’s campaign slogan. After several promises to bail out borrowers (majority of whom are either well-off and their only problem is that their properties cannot be sold, or are suckers who wanted to outwit their fellows indebted in the domestic currency) the final scheme has been grossly whittled down in comparison to what had been pledged. Yet, as Mr Dera sincerely confessed, perception of a candidate differs from perception of an incumbent president.

Thanks to the new scheme hapless debtors will see principals of their loans decline by the amount of spreads overcharged at disbursement and at each instalment payment until August 2011, when anti-spread law came into force. Essentially, if you look at this detail, president Duda’s task force’s proposal is just the extension to the banking law amendment enacted by PO-PSL government (and initiated by former president Komorowski in the wake of soaring CHF in mid-2011) since it applies to payments between banks and borrowers made between January 2000 and August 2011.

So far no one has mentioned the risk of new law’s illegality. It needs to be noted though banks had charged FX-debtors excessive spreads, or simply had ripped them off, they had done it within the letter of law (there had been no limits on spreads) which in principle is not retroactive. Yet with constitutional tribunal brought to the heel, this should no longer be a concern.

Even if the total cost for banks in Poland reaches PLN 10 billion, the burden will be bearable and will not shake stability of the financial system. “Ensnared” borrowers are let down by Mr Duda’s scheme, while the refund of overpaid spreads will in fact constitute a transfer of wealth from banks’ stakeholders (not only shareholders but also clients) to a relatively wealthy group of PO and Nowoczesna’s electorate who will have their mortgage loans prepaid (or if they have paid off their debt, they will receive cash).

The 72^nd anniversary of Warsaw Uprising outbreak was marked by a dispute to who the homage should be paid at W-hour. A handful of insurgent were called to minister Macierewicz’s office and forced to agree to a compromise that the full list of 96 fatalities of Smolensk air crash would not be read out, instead names of five persons involved in nurturing the remembrance of the Uprising would be read out.

The presence of Smolensk tribute during each and every event assisted by the army not only contributes to denigrating remembrance of 96 Tu-154 passengers who died in the tragic transport accident, but also is the top point on the agenda of rewriting the history.

Besides, the PiS-inspired industry of hatred is running at full steam. The two victims are 99-year-old general Scibor-Rylski accused of collaboration with communist secret services in post-war years and Zbigniew Galperyn. Beyond all doubt general Scibor-Rylski did co-operate in these bleak times, however by all accounts the collaboration was tactical and did not harm anyone. The campaign against Mr Galperyn kicked off just recently, after he criticised combining commemorations of Warsaw Uprising and Smolensk air crash and is backed by no evidence, a similar article could be written about anyone doing anything.

Actually it does not matter whether they collaborated with communist regime before 1989. Many today’s zealous supporters (Jerzy Zelnik) and politicians (Stanisław Piotrowicz) of PiS did it and their past does not disqualify them out of public discourse. What only matters is one’s attitude towards PiS today. The moment you firmly oppose against what knights of dobra zmiana pursue is the moment before the mud-slinging machine is set in motion.

Seven years after this pledge, my approach to the Warsaw Uprising has not changed. I still pay homage to inhabitants of Warsaw who valiantly fought against the Nazi occupier and to civilians who either lost their lives in the Uprising or endured probably the biggest humanitarian catastrophe in the history of Poland. I am sick when I see people who show off how they pay tribute to the insurgents, use the W-hour anniversary as an opportunity for lansik or when public figures attempt to capitalise on the anniversary. Commemorate, but not celebrate. Stop for a minute, in silence, with your head down and be thankful you live a in free, peaceful country.

Meanwhile, first serious cracks can be seen among affiliates of the ruling party who have relished on power. Backdrop of the decision to oust Mr Kurski from the public TV broadcaster’s CEO seat and then to defer his departure by nearly three months laid bare clashes between coteries. Unlike some of you may think, supporters of PiS are not a uniform group. Gazeta Polska entourage is not fond of wSieci / wPolityce and the other way round. The two entourages have also little in common with priest Rydzyk’s empire, not as influential as in 2005-2007. Just read Toyah’s blog to learn more. He often gripes about Rafał Ziemkiewicz, Tomasz Terlikowski and moans how other accolades of PiS hinder the good cause.

Quarrels between coteries do not herald break-up of the wide front of PiS supporters, yet the more perceptible they are, the more they remind Poles PiS politicians are no different than their predecessors, they go back on promises and become corrupt by power

Like tomorrow doesn’t exist…

Was curious to hear yesterday in the radio about an article in Gazeta Wyborcza by its correspondent to Riga, capital of Latvia. The piece of writing mentioned in the press review turned out to be a just short story with quite astounding purport.

To sum up, as the author claims, Riga, this year enjoying the status of the European Capital of Culture. One event follows another, the carnival goes on, the Latvians live it up and make the most of the life, before a disaster aborts the festival. Inhabitants of Riga are deeply convinced Putin’s fifth column waits round the corner, ready to intrude into Latvia, as they invaded the Ukraine. The journalist argues an equation mark between Latvia and Ukraine is illegitimate since Latvia, unlike Ukraine, is a member of the EU and NATO and Putin would not dare to attack the military alliance because deep down he and his administration realise they would be defeated by united armies of NATO. Such arguments do not persuade the Latvian interlocutors who point out the Russian president is immensely unpredictable and ingenious and Russians as a rule do not let up.

Whenever hearing about Russian minorities in Baltic countries when the Russian parliament enacted a law entitling the Russian authorities to take every step to defend rights of mongered Russian minorities beyond the borders of Russia, contingency of Russian army stepping in to Latvia seemed incongruent. I had in mind the same argument – Putin would not dare to attack NATO, as it would mean a suicide for him. A few months later, after the Malaysian civil airplane was shot down and given how situation in Eastern Ukraine unfolded, I have changed my mind. Putin might come to a point when, after losing the battle for Ukraine and after suffering other prestigious defeats, he might have nothing to lose. In such situation, i.e. when you are bound to lose everything when you give up but if you take action you may either also lose everything or win something back, placing a dicey bet is economically justified.

The article draws a parallel between what goes on in Latvia and the summer of 1939 in Poland. Three quarters of century after the outbreak of WWII I wonder how it felt like in Poland in August 1939. The war was in the offing, its onset was just a matter of time. There was something in the air, probably the gut feeling something was inexorably about to end soon. Would anyone share the memories of their parents or grandparents?

Let’s figure out how people behave when they realise the end of something draws near and is inescapable. As the history proves they try to relish on every moment, cherish the life and quite frequently indulge in debauchery. Oddly enough, this sinful picture grossly contrasts with Christian commandments. For some reason, God-fearing people rarely pray, go to church to confess their sin ask for penance or beg their fellow men for forgiveness for the harm they have done them. Conversely, they push salvation away from themselves…

If I were to face such situation, from today’s standpoint, I would keep on living the way I do. I have no influence on what the fate brings. Orchestra on sinking Titanic kept doing its job until the very end. Business as usual, one would say and this strikes a chord with me.

Oddly enough, five years ago Mr Tusk and Mr Tusk strolled down the pier in Sopot before commemorations of 70^th anniversary of WWII. Today relations between Poland and Russia are, to put it mildly, tense, but just like five years ago I am glad in have the luck to live in peace.

Politics, Economy, Society – five years on

Having soldiered on as a blogger for half of a decade (fifth anniversary officially falls tomorrow), a tenure few can boast about accomplishing, I can dub myself an unfaltering blogger (blowing my own trumpet). Instead of posting some tedious musings on hardships and sacrifices in blogging, I decided to review all my posts tagged ‘predictions’ and ‘forecast’, to check, with hindsight, their accuracy. As the list below demonstrates, I was an active forecaster during first two years of blogging and then perked up in last quarter of 2013.

18 March 2009 – mentions forecasts of GDP growth in 1Q2009 of 0.5% y/y and encouragement to speculate against the Polish currency. In fact the Polish economy expanded by 0.8% and PLN hit its many years’ trough one month earlier.

25 March 2009 – makes a reference to BNP Paribas forecast of EUR/PLN conceivable reaching 5.40. It has not climbed to even 5.00 thereafter…

13 April 2009 – a bearish post, completely wide of the mark. My outlooks of stock market reverting to a downward trend vehemently have not fulfilled. 2009 witnessed one of the most vigorous bull markets in the history, largely driven by the scale of precedent decline (what goes down must come up) and flood of cheap money, pumped in by central banks.

24 April 2009 – IMF’s prophecies of doom have also not come to a pass, neither in 2009, nor later in 2012 or 2013… The Polish economy has not contracted in any single quarter.

4 August 2009 – again I expressed a bearish stance on the stock market, hoping for a correction allowing me buy stocks at cheaper price. In subsequent months stock market moved most upwards…

29 August 2009 – interesting to look back on the musings on shape of the 2008/09 recession in retrospect. In Europe, while the financial crisis is still not over (had the end of it been proclaimed, we would have to see different-than-zero interest rates) there was a double-dip recession, with the second bottom of W-letter touched at the end of 2012.

2 September 2009 – these bearish postings are getting boring. Yet, they reflect my key investment strategy I use until today. I wait for a local trough in corrections to buy up shares near lows and sell them a few weeks later with double-digit (in percent) profits. Predictably, the forecast was a miss.

14 October 2009 – no stock market tumble was observed, decreasing my hit ratio, but after the first early spell of winter, no snow was seen in Warsaw for 2 months.

16 December 2009 – here I was more successful – the stock market correction I waited for ensued in early February 2010, PLN generally appreciated against other currencies, Mr Bernanke was elected for his second term as CEO of the money-printing factory.

5 January 2010 – I mentioned a forecast of long and snowy winter. Generally it proved true. In January 2010 temperature dropped to –23C and in mid-February snowcover reached 53 centimetres in Warsaw. The last gasp of winter was felt around the half of March.

30 January 2010 – I estimated odds of failure of my bearish conjectures at 35%. Was much enough to prove me wrong.

5 February 2010 – post compiled on the second day of an abrupt stock market decline. Yet the guess the bull market was just a correction in a long-term downward trend was flawed.

19 April 2010 – I foresaw a crash on stock market, which in a soft version ensued three weeks later, in the wake of threat of Greek default.

6 November 2010 – makes a reference to reliability of long-term weather forecasts. Winter in 2010 was to hit early, while November 2010 was extraordinarily warm. The long-term forecast of winter 2010/11 generally proved right, except for late advent of spring.

13 November 2010 – here I mentioned what I had heard of a projections of super-crash in late 2014. It is too early to judge whether this forecast was correct, but I today I would not dismiss it out of hand.

19 January 2011 – bolstered up by strength of the Polish economy, I put too much faith in the Polish stock market. In the short-term indeed the Polish equities performed well and the blue chip WIG20 index peaked in April 2011 above 2,900 points, but then, in August 2011 plummeted and at the end of the year was well below expected 3,200 points.

2 October 2011 – another chance to confront long-term weather forecasts with reality.

- October was chilly – hit.

- November was generally cold, but not wet – partly hit,

- December was anything but frosty and dry – miss,

- January also neither very frosty, nor dry - miss,

- February instead of above-average temperature brought the longest cold snap since 1987, but its last days were balmy – miss,

- March was spring-like – hit.

1 January 2012 – contains a whole bulk of predictions for 2012:

- financial market were quite wobbly indeed – hit,

- fire in PIGS countries was put out, bondholders of Greek government debt had to take on board a loss of 53% of face value of securities they held, but Greece was not forced out of the eurozone – miss,

- winter did not stay mild and the lowest temperature was –23C rather than –16C – miss,

- in 2012 indeed Poland’s economy expanded slower than in 2011 and economic performance, measured by GDP growth, was worse than in early 2009 – hit,

- property prices kept going down – hit,

- no economic disaster struck us – miss, fortunately, albeit markets were very shaky and investors fearful in 2Q2012.

1 September 2013 – had a go at dream interpretation. In retrospect, what I thought could send misery on me, left no mark on me, I was not riding for a fall.

6 October 2013 – an extensive and informative (I dare to claim one of my best) post on prospects of the property market in Poland. 3Q2013 figures point at surge in demand and uptick in prices. I suspect we have to wait until data for 2Q2014 (to see a full year of upward trend) to judge whether last revival is just a temporary rebound, or the trend has sustainably reversed.

1 December 2013 – also to early to evaluate accuracy of the forecast. Second half of January 2014 saw a considerable correction on developed stock market, but clearly there are no reasons to speak about any crash. Needless to say, QE tapering might clamp down on the bull market that has lasted for five years.

I sadly and honestly have to admit my hit ratio over five years was low. I would justify my poor performance by psychological bias in forecasting. I envisaged what was favourable for me, not necessarily the scenario grounded in cogent economic reasoning.

I thank all the ardent readers of the blog for their endurance and patience. Take care!

Meg - the first decade gone by

Some two weeks ago I was scoffed at, by my somewhat older female workmates, for sticking to my almost six-years-old, always reliable, Nokia 3110 Classic and not upgrading to an all-the-rage smartphone / iPhone or whatever else a modern corpo-lemming needs to swank. I refuted their half-jocose, half-serious remarks with a question how long their previous devices worked before packing up. Unsurprisingly, one said her previous smartphone had cracked after hitting table surface after being dropped from the height of 20 centimetres, the other’s iPhone had broken down after a few months from purchase, helpless technicians hadn’t known how to fix it and eventually she’d had it replaced under warranty with another shitty iPhone which even doesn’t have a removable battery. Since early 2008 when I purchased my Nokia, it has never let me down. A few times over that time it crashed and I had to turn it off and on, a few times it lost signal and needed a restart, but except for those minor incidents, the handset worked like a clockwork and nothing seems to indicate its end is near. Of course given its age it can conk out any time, but if it happens, I’ll have a justification to buy a better device, probably a low-end smartphone.

The other story is that they also asked me how I can live without access to internet in my mobile phone. Well, the real life is offline and may it stay so. I don’t keep track of the ever-accelerating world and don’t follow my friends on facebook incessantly and don’t miss it. It’s simply healthier not to be in a debilitating state of continuous partial attention… Is it something worth missing out on?

How I’ve used my phone and why I’ve not upgraded to a state-of-the-art device is the essence of my policy towards consumer durables. I generally:

- buy only brand new stuff,

- choose items of good quality, with as many features as I need to have (why paying for gadgets I won’t use?),

- take care of the stuff so that they serve me longer than their built-in obsolescence,

- get rid of them and replace with new when their wear and tear justifies it.

Such should be also the way of handling probably the most expensive consumer durable – a car…

As a matter of principle I wouldn’t buy a used car. Supply of used cars in Poland is limited by low number of sold new cars (many of which serve as company cars which doesn’t bring a good testimony of their condition after a few years of use), so used cars come to Poland from its western neighbours. Given how much I heard and read of crooks trading in used cars, I’d never buy one. Well-maintained used cars are:

- either not for sale, because due to price homogeneity market values them almost at the par with their rickety counterparts, hence owners to well-maintained cars have no motivation to sell them,

- if they are sold, the new owner will be someone from family or friends of an old car owner or a car trader, which brings about negative selection…

With a brand new car you get the producer’s warranty, new technologies and clean history of the vehicle. It does depreciate over the first years rapidly, but why should you care if you plan to keep that car going for 10 – 15 years? You use the car properly, have it serviced at regular intervals, parts which wear out and engine oil are changed when due and the car should serve you for 10 – 15 years. Then comes the moment when each, even the best car, becomes less reliable or simply requires more money sunk to keep it going. Even if repairs are not expensive, you need to take the trouble to find a cheaper spare part, pick it up and have it replaced. So after all there comes the moment to part company with the old car without regrets and buy a brand new car that should serve you years. Provided in the era of built-on obsolescence the newly produced car are that durable... Time will tell…

The reason why I write it all is that today is the 10th anniversary of the day when my car was purchased. As a young driver I’ve been in the luck of having my first car neither purely brand-new (not recommendable for beginners behind the wheel), nor purely used. My parents signed it over to me two years ago when my father decided he wanted a new car. Probably hadn’t it been for my need (a proper word, maybe I should write ‘whim’) to have a car, he would’ve driven it for some time more, but given the circumstances, the choice was obvious…

After 10 years the car still looks well and holds up well. Engine and transmission are in superb condition, bodywork and some of auxiliary elements signify their wear and tear (although there is no trace of rust!). To the right – snapped on 18 June 2013 after a wash and some polishing ;) Maybe not like driven out of showroom, but as for a decade-old vehicle, looks splendidly.

The car:

- has never had a collision on the road, although has scratches and one repaired dent after too close meeting with objects other than other vehicles,

- has never broken down on the road to the extent it had to be towed away to a garage on a trailer and never has it failed to start,

- has always been serviced by Renault dealership’s garage (a bit more expensive, but as long as you prove you know the onions and keep tabs on mechanics, they won’t rip you off) and most of the time parked in a garage,

- when I was behind the wheel endured temperatures (thermometer readings) from –24C (cold start, not just driving out of garage into such temperature) to +36C and tomorrow the latter record stands a chance of being tomorrow, when heat wave that has come over Poland is about to reach its zenith),

- over 10 years had 6 breakdowns of auxiliary elements (in a French car inevitable), out of which 3 over the 3rd year of usage and 2 over the last year (total cost of unplanned repairs over the last year: slightly less than 500 PLN) and 2 minor breakdowns of engine / transmission – related elements (cost of repair below 1,000 PLN each time),

- at the moment has a mileage of 59,693 kilometres.

The odometer reading is the effect of simply using the car only when necessary. As I counted, the car had 13 longer trips (> 100 kilometres to a destination) which contributed to some 10,000 kilometres of mileage, the rest driven near Warsaw. My general principles are:

- if the distance to cover is too short to let the engine heat up, there’s no point in starting it – engine and other elements wear out most before working temperatures is reached (for the same reason I don’t understand why people cherish low-mileage car from someone who used it only on short distances – what’s the percentage of mileage driven with warm engine?),

- in Warsaw, unless justified, the car should be left by the nearest underground station and then public transport should be taken,

- when weather permits and I don’t go to work, I use a bicycle…

The plan now is to use the car as long as it is reliable. Given its age, frequent breakdowns may begin to plague before long, but I hope to enjoy at least two years of problem-free usage. And then – option one is another car for years, but preferable is the second option – a company car. Even if I had to pay for petrol from my own pocket, it would spare me depreciation, servicing, repairs, insurance and other car-related expenses, which at the end of the day are… money down the drain.

Four years on!

Few bloggers can boast about such quite long track record. Despite being short of time and other adverse circumstances I’m soldiering and don’t plan to give it up. To mark the anniversary, a short list of several out of over 300 posts that deserve to be remembered. I’m not judging they are my best, nor claim they are outstanding, but think are the ones worth reverting to.

The very first serious post – in the middle of option crisis in Poland

The first post on linguistic puzzles – first of many

The timeline of Polish history after 1989, but before its defining moment which ensued 10 months later.

At the end of this trifling post – an appeal for support to Paula Pruska, young Polish blogger, who documented her fight against the cancer, lost on 31 August 2011…

A look at pathologies of Polish banking from before the times when I immersed to it – as a 3rd year student with no job, no income and little assets I was offered a huge loan…

The shift from socialism to free-market economy – who was better-off,who worse-off.

Taxation and justice – part 1 and part 2

My take on martial law in Poland – hasn’t changed since then

Why I don’t commend pursuing loose monetary policy – a recommended read less than two weeks after fourth consecutive interest rate cut in Poland

What’s to blame for the crisis – Lack of fear or other factors?

Black swan theory – posted two days before Smolensk crash – what a coincidence…

A hilarious attempt to write a letter of application in English – one of many lost battles betweens Poles and the most often used foreign language in Poland.

How end justifies the means – after three years I look at how PiS and its followers have no scruples to harness any method to attain their political goals – this will never change…

The whole series of posts on the story of 1,000 PLN I lent to my classmate who turned out to be a compulsive gambler – I haven’t recovered the money, but it’s nothing compared to him, up-and-coming lawyer expelled from university, doing a sentence for unpaid debts and after a few suicide attempts…

Probably the most controversial post on Smolensk crash – number of comments proves this best!

Winter timelines – 2010/11 and 2011/12, another one pending

A comprehensive description of workings of Polish pension system, written in time when it was one of the most topical issues – part 1 and part 2

Memories of 9 April 2010 and 10 April 2010 – for posterity…

The last post on studying at my university – foreign language teaching evaluation

On taking risks – indispensable in our lives

A gloomy picture of farewell to the ruthless corporate world – this year my company is going to lay off 600 employees, or over 10% of its staff. Here we go again!

My last year’s examination of conscience – helped me understand a lot and realise how many mistakes I had made…

A conversation between my guardian angel and me – over four months have gone by, I have broken away, but still there are days when I have to chase away ghosts of the past… And here is when it began. Over a year wasted?

Corpo-life in a nutshell – a wry look at absurdities of corporate capitalism and similarities between it and the communism.

On top of this, I’d add all reviews of films and books – it never hurts to have a dose of culture here…

Anything you’d add to the list, enjoyed most, etc.? My foregone conclusion is that since the inception of full-time job quality of my blogging has gone down - less time for writing, less time for reflections, less inspiration...

Politics, Economy, Society three years on

Just a few sentences not to let pass the third anniversary of my blogging pass unnoticed. Few people manage to run the blog for so long, but knowing I hardly ever post more often than once a week, I can't consider this a success. Of course I'll keep it up, but the inspiration and passion I used to have in 2009 or 2010 are long gone. It's rather a call of duty that prompts to update the blog (usually) each Sunday, not the desire to write I had prior to the start of my professional career in summer 2010. The blog has seen a shift from subject matters mentioned in its title to more personal observations and I have serious doubts whether this is the right direction...

My big thanks for the faithful readers who keep visiting the site, despite declining quality of its content. Please don't run out of patience and if you still like PES, gee me up from time to time.

And I'll try to refrain from sharing the state of my mind here. Will do it better

I tied myself with wire
to let the horses roam free
Playing with the fire
till the fire played with me

(...)

Two souls to smart to be
in the realm of certainty

(...)

Every eye looking every other way
Counting down till the pain would stop

(U2: Moment of surrender)

"Politics, Economy, Society" two years on...

Gosh, that's been a lot of time. And on other hand it feels like it was yesterday when I returned home and on the spur of the moment set up my account on blogger and twenty minutes later clicked the 'PUBLISH POST' button for the first time.

Much has changed since then. The day I began running this blog economy was in the middle of its worst post-war crisis, I was a third-year student with unsettling career prospects and quite good command of English. Today economies of many countries are back thriving, I am a would-be graduate of SGH, have an almost dreamt-up job (it would be truly dreamt-up, if it wasn't for the owner), I have worked on my English and pledge to soldier on.

When it comes to the downsides, a significant one is posting frequency. My sluggishness made itself felt in late May 2010, when I decided to suspend blogging for two weeks to press on with exam period and job-seeking duties. Then since July 2010 I have posted only once a week. I tried to break away from this "ultra-predictable" pattern in January 2011, but now it seems it will be hard to revert to the satisfactory rate of ten posts a month. The only way out are short, up-to-the-point (no more than 20 sentences) postings over the working week and longer posts on Saturday or Sunday.

PS. Don't think I wrote it at midnight, as the footnote suggests. The post was written last Sunday and scheduled to come out today :)

Last year, short before the first anniversary I put in a visit meter. Around 17 February 2010 it read around 2,500 visits. At that time I said I would be happy to see 10,000 by the end of the second year of blogging. The meter hit 10,000 on 17 January 2011. Now I set a target of total 20,000 visits by the end of the third year, if I keep up doing what I do, it should be met. Compared to some outstanding blogs in Polish-English blogosphere, which recorded over 250,000 visits (20 east), over 1,000,000 visits (Polandian, turning three today), or can boast around 9,000 visits each month (W-wa Jeziorki), my figures look poorly, but given my motto "the last thing I need is publicity" I am glad to have small audience who appreciate my job. After all it could not be any other, as the language barrier takes its toll on the blog.

At the end I would only like to thank all commentators, your contributions add much value to this blog and other blog-keepers and site-owners whose pages link to "Politics, Economy, Society".

Psalm stojących w kolejce / Queuers’ psalm

Za czym kolejka ta stoi?
Po szarość, po szarość, po szarość.
Na co w kolejce tej czekasz?
Na starość, na starość, na starość.
Co kupisz, gdy dojdziesz?
Zmęczenie, zmęczenie, zmęczenie.
Co przyniesiesz do domu?
Kamienne zwątpienie, zwątpienie

Bądź jak kamień, stój, wytrzymaj
Kiedyś te kamienie drgną
I polecą jak lawina
Przez noc.
Przez noc
Przez noc.

What are they queuing for?
For greyness, for greyness, for greyness.
What are you waiting about for?
For old age, for old age, for old age.
What will you buy when it’s your turn?
Tiredness, tiredness, tiredness.
What will you bring home?
Doubt, doubt, stone doubt.

Be like stone, stand, withstand.
We will leave no stone unturned.
And they’ll slide like an avalanche
Through the night
Through the night

I can’t proudly admit I managed to retain the rhythm, singing my translation would be a breakneck task, but there’s a reason to look back on the bleak days just before Solidarity rose up.