| ▲ | 6d6b73 4 hours ago |
| It turns out it's not that hard to grow an economy once countries all around you stop trying to kill your culture, exterminate your population and steal your lands. |
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| ▲ | thfuran 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Surely there are more than 20 countries that have been in a position where their neighbors aren’t all trying to exterminate them for at least as long as Poland. |
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| ▲ | wvbdmp 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| That only explains some sort of “noob gainz”, not moving into the top 20. |
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| ▲ | 6d6b73 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | When you lose 20% of your population and then spend 50 years under communist rule because your allies sold you out, there’s really only one direction left to go—up. A lot of people either forget, or never learned, that Poland was once one of the largest and most influential states in Europe.Yes it was long time ago, but the potential was always there. The real challenge was surviving the consequences of being caught between neighbors whose ideologies gave rise to two of the deadliest systems of the 20th century. | | |
| ▲ | wvbdmp 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sure, but the explanation is still Poland’s potential and its capacity to fulfil it. You could be free all you want and still plateau on some immediate post-war rebound gains. | | |
| ▲ | trinix912 29 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Which in some ways is what happened here in Slovenia. We used to be doing much better than other communist countries (as a part of Yugoslavia), exited relatively peacefully, entered the EU, and everything seemed to be going great until the 2008 financial crisis. Then it seems our politicians stopped being pragmatic and started bringing up ideological issues more often, which divided the population, while IMO not doing nearly enough to promote further development of the economy. So now we have a population split on ideological issues, while Poland and Croatia are overtaking us economy-wise. We have had every advantage (geographically at the crossroads of multiple trade routes, sea access, EU funds, hard-working population, didn't turn into a Russia-style oligarchy...) but mostly slept on it. |
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| ▲ | 10xDev 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I remember when Poland colonised half the world. |
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| ▲ | keiferski 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Don’t know why this is downvoted. The history of Poland for the last 300 years is pretty much exactly what you wrote. |
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| ▲ | ch4s3 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Well there are plenty of countries that aren't facing those conditions now, or in the recent past and still have shitty economies. It undersells how hard it is to build a strong economy and therefore undersells how hard Poland has worked. | | |
| ▲ | PunchyHamster an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | being in the trade union helps, especially when for most part it was "cheap labour" for that union | |
| ▲ | 6d6b73 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | But maybe that's because these countries did not have to struggle as hard as Poland did? | | |
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| ▲ | mrits 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| We did that in the US and became the #1 economy. Leadership just changed. |
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| ▲ | MrBuddyCasino 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Why are polish people like this. |
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| ▲ | ash162 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Hundreds of billions in subsidies and Polish workers displacing West European workers inside and outside of their country have nothing to do with the success of course. The EU is based on greedy West European corporations maximizing shareholder value at the expense of their own populations. The EU is too big and should be reduced to the Western core countries. I wonder how Poland would fare then. |
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| ▲ | keiferski 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I don’t understand why people constantly mention EU subsidies and not mention the billions of wealth destroyed or taken during the world wars, partitions, or the deluge. | |
| ▲ | mazurnification 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That is not true. Poland run substantial trade deficits (as opposed to China) up to very recently giving sizable marked for products manufactured by western Europeans and thus __helping__ and not hindering West European workers. And this trade deficit was enabled by mainly external investments (and little but by subsidies). Also since PL was converging this investments were more profitable then in the west. Also I am of not very popular anymore opinions that not distorted trade help both sides of the trade and immigrants really help economy of country that they immigrate into. Including workers. | |
| ▲ | 6d6b73 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Most of the subsidies go back to the western Europe in the form of cheap products, and cheap labor. Also these subsidies were used to buy technology, machinery and goods from the West. Let's have Germany pay few trillions in reparations, and we can give back the billions in subsidies. Deal? | | |
| ▲ | 2398 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sure, Germany pays reparations, Poland gives back Pomerania and Silesia (which were part of the reparations) and Western Europe forms a new EU so we don't have to deal with Poles any longer. Deal? | | |
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