The government assigned me to a pension fund (the one that was stung by Bernie Madoff) run by one of the big banks here. In their very first letter to me, an unwilling and forced customer, the managers of my money write: “In the attached prospectus you will find the conditions of your membership.” Oh […]
Olga Tokarczuk, my most favouritest writer of them all, has an article in the latest Polityka. It’s travel literature, my most favouritest genre of them all. She’s been to China: “His [Mao’s] face is found in the most unlikely places: on the walls of buildings–” Hold on, hold on a minute there. The wall of […]
Sport is a subject I neglect somewhat so in an attempt to redress the balance and bring all readers up to speed on what’s going on in the wonderful world of noble sportsmanship, here’s a quote from yesterday’s Gazeta Wyborcza: “Former Polish Football Association observer and umpire ethics lecturer Wiesław K. has been arrested by […]
Sylwia Chutnik, who has been looking out at us from numerous magazine covers and newspaper interviews over the last few months, is a feminist and a radical. She also likes punk and wrote a book called A Pocket Atlas of Women, which is actually very good. Depressing as all hell of course but a welcome […]
As we all know, if it were easier to fire workers, capitalists would hire more of them. But what about tenants? The law regarding rented accommodation in Poland is being changed. In short: it will be easier to evict tenants. “And what’s in it for tenants?” asks today’s Gazeta Wyborcza. “Thanks to the reduced risk […]
When the zloty was strong a lot of people took out mortgages denominated in other currencies, especially the Swiss franc. In a so-broad-as-to-be-meaningless sense any loan is a gamble of course, but this seems to be a double hazard: (1) I will be able to pay off the loan and (2) the zloty will not […]
What’s fun about the crisis is watching the experts scramble to explain things they obviously don’t understand. The same experts who didn’t see this coming are now spouting off about how long it will last. It’s funny also to see blind faith in the voodoo power of magic words make a comeback. Tusk announced yesterday […]
Naomi Klein, Michael Moore, Barbara Ehrenreich, Thomas Frank – I’m familiar with them all but it turns out that if you want real red in tooth and claw writing you should turn to the French. I’ve been reading Alain Bihr’s frankly Marxist Neoliberal Newspeak and it’s strong stuff. Essentially, any kind of exchange between people […]
When Platforma Obywatelska took over it looked like the end of a glorious two-year run of self-writing stories courtesy of the assorted gang of oddballs and weirdoes that had been in power before. With PO in the saddle it was just more dull neoliberalism – without even any need for the shock tactics Naomi Klein […]
It is heresy to say shops – of all things, shops – are miserable places in Poland today. “Under the communists all you could buy in shops was vinegar and blah blah blah…” is the usual response. But communism and rationing are gone for getting on a quarter of a century now. There’s no need […]
