The thing with Poland and the current world crisis is that you could assume Poland should not be affected at all. Banking industry has been healthy, local regulations never allowed the American style sub-prime or similar derivatives. Mortgages were granted to those who met reasonable criteria. The banks are in good condition. So how come [...]
While Poland is still dreaming about adoption of the Euro in 2012, eight years after joining the EU, its tiny-weeny, titchy-witchy neighbour to the south, Slovakia, is using the Euro as of Jan 1 2009. The even smaller nations of Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta have also joined in the last year or two. I confess [...]
I have the world’s worst internet connection. It costs me 50 zl a month and is slightly less reliable than a Nigerian oil millionaire who wants to use your bank account. Frankly it would be quicker to write Google searches on handmade parchment and post them to California. I can get quicker results by shouting [...]
The city bus is real democratic institution. Anyone can speak, and everyone else (who happens to be on 34 at the same time) has to listen. It’s like a people’s television. And as with tv: you cannot reply. It would not be polite to interfere in other people’s conversations, even if you’d love to disagree. [...]
Continuing my amateur dramatics (economic variety) from a string of rants on 20 east (below the fox), I thought I’d pop over here and carry on waffling. Carry On films used to be all the rage back in the UK, you know. When I was a lad at any rate. The Big Picture I very [...]
CNN decided to dedicate a week of coverage to Poland, which according to the network is “one of the fastest developing nations, with a proud history and a promising future”. The Network’s daily schedule is scattered with live broadcasts from Warsaw, where Fionnuala Sweeney reads news from some cool places: the Chopin monument, the Palace [...]
Back in December I raved about how low the GBP was to the PLN, at that time it was standing at around 4.99 zloty to the pound. We’re now in April and the zloty has strengthened such that the rate to the pound is around 4.2, the dollar at 2.2 and the euro at 3.4. [...]
By, or on, the last day of April everyone who is part of the Polish system of taxation must submit their PIT-37 annual tax return form to the Urząd Skarbowy and pay them whatever money is due. Popular belief is that if you don’t do this you will be banged up in the nearest prison [...]
The Polish Government approach to Energy seems a tipsy turvy world of contradiction, unfortunately with most of the contradiction being quite negative. I appreciate the current Government is grappling with many issues and problems created by the woefully bad management of the last government but energy seems to be one area the current government are [...]
A discussion we’ve been having recently on this blog on whether Poland is poor or not, now has a surprising epilogue. This year the income of an average resident of theWarsaw region (the Masovian voivodship) will level to 88% of the EU average – says Eurostat. This is a great achievement: even though EU funding [...]