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- Hacker News
- Living only a good hour away from the Polish border I must say that this is really great for our region, too. When the income difference was higher, there was a lot of property crime (mostly cars, but also other things) originating from Poland. I went to a Polish village just at border once and you could feel the crime there. Young guys driving too expensive cars despite houses being run down, suspicious looks if you drive by with your German number plates. But that is over. If you go to Szczecin or Bydgoszcz you feel no wealth gap at all and I am happy that it turned out this way.by jansan
- 7 years ago we got a Polish Hunting Spaniel, and did our first trip to Poland. Since then we've been back several times, and each time you really see the different - new and upgraded road, city buildings being renovated into new housing and commercial areas - also noticed the costs going up too.
But also you start to notice that definitely a lot of people who left Poland are coming back, and with that skills and new economic opportunities.
by tanepiper - How it happened? (Source: I'm working with polish companies)
1. Hard working people
2. Biggest recipient of EU subsidies used for projects which generates more profit. Infrastructure, internet, etc. To compare, Czechia used it for stupid things like bicycle lanes, child playgrounds etc.
3. Building permit is very easy to get for basically anything. Yes, this way you can sometimes get chaotic new buildings, but this can be solved later. In comparison, in Czechia, obtaining a building permit is difficult and depends on the whim of the official. Also we have basically non-existent property taxes, so new homes are unaffordable for everybody and only used as an investment.
4. Not allowing imigration from countries where people don't want to work and with hugely different religions and customs. This worked for Czechia too though, our biggest immigrants are Ukranians which are also slavs and very hard working. Official statistics is, that they paid in taxes more than they got from social support.
by Fokamul - Educated AND motivated workforce will do the trick.
All the polish I know that work in IT enjoy handwork as well. They are hard workers.
by ptdorf - I love the polish, but credit where credit is due:
„Poland is the largest beneficiary of EU funds 2014-2020, with one in four euro going to Poland“
https://www.gov.pl/web/funds-regional-policy/poland-at-the-f...
Update: The comments below this are strange.
I ment: „Poland gets money, Poland transforms it into more money”.
Is Poland more efficient in it than other countries? I do not know. Would Poland have generated less money without it ? Probably? Is an annual investment of the 2-3%of the GDP into a country a lot? I think so?
by niemandhier - Years ago I bought some really nice brushless motors and was surprised to see they were made in Poland. I had no idea they were manufacturers of things like that.
Later I bought even nicer motors, meant to provide exceptional control and feedback for tactile/haptic behaviours, and they were from Poland too.
Then I got to work on a robotic arm which contained a bunch of components from Poland. At this point it was clear to me that it wasn’t coincidence.
Finally, I built a drone with my kids and again, the motors are Polish. And they’re excellent.
They went from being a place I would only expect to encounter cultural food items from to a place that entered a high tech supply chain which seems to produce high enough quality components that I see them without seeking them out.
As a Canadian it made me very envious. We should be able to do this. I’ve seen a handful of Canadian motors in my life, and they were all blower motors a long time ago. Our ability to build cutting edge technology seems to be so limited as to be virtually irrelevant in most cases.
- I live in Poland. This headline is misleading. Poland didn't build a top-20 economy. Western Europe and the US built their economy in Poland, because the labor is educated and cheap.
There are almost no globally competitive Polish companies. The "growth" is branch offices of German and American corporations taking advantage of engineers who'll work for 40% of Berlin rates. Remove the foreign-owned sector and you're looking at a mid-tier economy running on EU structural funds.
It's a great place to live, genuinely. But calling this "Poland's economy" is like calling a McDonald's franchise "your restaurant"
- The story is longer: Poland was the first country to make a remarkable peaceful transition from a bankrupt, failed Soviet satellite state. The shock therapy, plus NATO and EU aspirations, paved the way.
It is a story of a country that made a lot of the right decisions along the way. Managed to keep consistent high growth, not a pony trick or boom/bust mode.
Poland should be a role model for many other countries.
Recommend a book: https://www.amazon.com/Europes-Growth-Champion-Insights-Econ...
And Noah's blog post: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-polandmalaysia-model
by jakozaur