Dell screws Ireland over... In favor of Poland

why the difference between the czech republic and slovakia?

Structural differences. Slovakia was industrialized mostly during the communist times (and so according to the commie doctrine - heavy industry, weapons) so its economy went down the toilet after 1989, when the communist economic system crashed. This was one of the reasons why Czechoslovakia broke up.

Now they are doing the same mistake again - they produce the most cars per capita in the world, so their economy is very dependent on car industry.

Also, Eastern Slovakia is... well, a bit of a Wild East with high unemployment, bad infrastructure leading to a lack of investments and thus the lack of job opportunities. Despite this, Slovakia's unemployment rate halved during the past few years.
 
1) Subsidies are overrated. EU money goes to infrastructure, education, research etc., it is not used to subsidize trans-national companies.
Every penny that the EU spends on infrastructure, education, research etc for Poland is a penny that the Polish government doesn't have to spend on infrastructure, education, research etc for Poland. It frees up government budget to cut taxes.

2) Redistribution of wealth is one of the key principles of the EU. The idea is that wealthier new members will also buy more products from Western Europe, plus of course the W. Euro. investments to new member countries will generate more revenues. Everybody profits.
You're conflating private investment from Western European companies with public investment bankrolled by Western European governments. The former is something I encourage; the latter has far reaching implications, and is no trivial matter.


The Palestinians received €3bn over a period of 8 years. Over the next 5 years, Poland will receive €65bn. That's €13bn every year.

And it's not European money, it's French, German, Italian and British money.
 
Could you not refer to us as poor? Or is that just to much of a pleasure for you to stop?

Well theres no way Dell would have moved to Poland if it wasn't a poor country by Western European standards. Are you seriously letting your nationalism blind you to that fact? :eek:
 
Well theres no way Dell would have moved to Poland if it wasn't a poor country by Western European standards. Are you seriously letting your nationalism blind you to that fact? :eek:

What Warpus said, We aren't some Angola or something. I live my life like any other American/Canadian/European/Australian.
 
What Warpus said, We aren't some Angola or something. I live my life like any other American/Canadian/European/Australian.

Well the word poor is relative. If we were talking about Africa I would call Angola rich and Malawi poor. If we're talking about Europe I would call Poland poor and France rich.

How this can be offensive is a mystery to me. I do realise there are poor and rich people in Poland. I am not calling you personally "poor".
 
There is barely a difference financially between the average Pole and the average Frenchman is my point. We aren't poor commies anymore, if you haven't heard.
 
There is barely a difference financially between the average Pole and the average Frenchman is my point. We aren't poor commies anymore, if you haven't heard.
This seems like a familiar subject.
 
I guess Poland wasn't forgotten this time
 
From the OP:

With salaries on the factory floor averaging 1,500 to 2,000 zlotys (345-460 euros, 445-590 dollars) per month, labour costs in Poland are a fraction of those in Ireland.

Completely unrelated to the previous discussion whether Poland is wealthy or not (honestly) - how does this pay relate to others in Poland? Is that a good salary?
 
There is barely a difference financially between the average Pole and the average Frenchman is my point. We aren't poor commies anymore, if you haven't heard.
:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: again with the inferiority complex... why are you mentioning communism? Poland is dirt poor compared to most of western Europe, and Rich as astronauts compared to most of Africa. It's relative; the terms rich and poor can only exist if you have somehting to compare them to. Shekwan, ignore it, it's an inferiority complex some (but not all) of the central and eastern Europeans on OT have.
 
There is barely a difference financially between the average Pole and the average Frenchman is my point. We aren't poor commies anymore, if you haven't heard.

I highly doubt that buddy. I have many polish clients and travel there very often, and there is clearly no way to compare the two nations financially... Is poland closing the gap every day? yes. Is the gap closed yet? not realy there is still a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng way to come
 
With salaries on the factory floor averaging 1,500 to 2,000 zlotys (345-460 euros, 445-590 dollars) per month...

Is that supposed to be a fulltime job? What kind of living would a person earning that have? I'm just curious, because here in the US even someone with a fairly poor job would make double that... and in most places they would probably just barely be able to get by with that.
 
How this can be offensive is a mystery to me. I do realise there are poor and rich people in Poland. I am not calling you personally "poor".

Since I am obviously not very good at English, I looked for the word "poor" in the dictionary:

poor (pr)
adj. poor·er, poor·est

1. Having little or no wealth and few or no possessions.
2. Lacking in a specified resource or quality: an area poor in timber and coal; a diet poor in calcium.
3. Not adequate in quality; inferior: a poor performance.
4.
a. Lacking in value; insufficient: poor wages.
b. Lacking in quantity: poor attendance.
5. Lacking fertility: poor soil.
6. Undernourished; lean.
7. Humble: a poor spirit.
8. Eliciting or deserving pity; pitiable: couldn't rescue the poor fellow.
n. (used with a pl. verb)
People with little or no wealth and possessions considered as a group: The urban poor are in need of homes.

How the heck could anyone not like being called poor? :eek: :mischief:

Is Poland less developed that France? Yes. Do the people on average have lower wages? Yes. Are they poor? No. So, perhaps you should admit that your WestEuro bias is speaking here, take it back and carry on :)

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: again with the inferiority complex... why are you mentioning communism? Poland is dirt poor compared to most of western Europe, and Rich as astronauts compared to most of Africa. It's relative; the terms rich and poor can only exist if you have somehting to compare them to. Shekwan, ignore it, it's an inferiority complex some (but not all) of the central and eastern Europeans on OT have.

Someone obviously doesn't know the meaning of words in his own native language. Is that pathetic or just funny? :mischief:
 
Every penny that the EU spends on infrastructure, education, research etc for Poland is a penny that the Polish government doesn't have to spend on infrastructure, education, research etc for Poland. It frees up government budget to cut taxes.

That a simplistic view. If Poland didn't attract the foreign investors, the unemployment would be much higher, therefore the government would get less money from taxes and it would have to pay unemployment benefits to all the jobless workers. I think the economic and social costs of that would be much, much higher.

You're conflating private investment from Western European companies with public investment bankrolled by Western European governments. The former is something I encourage; the latter has far reaching implications, and is no trivial matter.

Prosperity of one EU member state is good for all other member states. I merely explained why. Austria for example benefited much from the EU enlargement, since it invested a lot of money into the neighbouring new member states (Czech rep., Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia). Their prosperity is thus contributing to Austrian prosperity.

The Palestinians received €3bn over a period of 8 years. Over the next 5 years, Poland will receive €65bn. That's €13bn every year.

Poland is much bigger and, in case you didn't notice, it is an EU member state, unlike the Palestinians, who never do any good with the money they get. Poland made a huge progress in the last 20 year. What progress have the Palestinians made? So, the difference is that in Poland, most of the money is put to a good use, while in Palestine, to which EU has no obligations at all, wasted every single euro.

And it's not European money, it's French, German, Italian and British money.

I forgot that France, Germany, Italy and Britain are not European countries :p European Commission is one ofthe main donor, and these money go from EU budget. In addition, national governments also like to waste their taxpayers' money on Palestine, instead of building new schools or hospitals for their citizens.
 
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