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How do you present arguments for and against something while making sure it’s plain the reader should be for? One way to do it is to present the arguments against as being, in fact, opinions held by, for example, politicians. This is a method that Dean Baker has drawn attention to on numerous occasions. For example, you write “Democrats argue that X is the case” when it is an incontrovertible and even uncontroversial fact that X is the case. Like magic, X is now no more than a party position, an opinion, an option.

October 28^th’s Gazeta Wyborcza presents arguments for and against the euro in much the same way (although they also resort to using obviously rubbish arguments against). There are ten arguments in favour and seven against. In four of the seven arguments against, the authority referred to is Aleksandra Natalli-Świat, the deputy head of the parliamentary opposition. For example, the second argument against is: “Before we can enter the eurozone we have to meet many requirements, including reducing inflation, which will require higher interest rates, which in turn means slower economic growth – says deputy chief of PiS Aleksandra Natalli-Świat.” As far as I know it is a fact that Poland must reduce inflation to join the eurozone. This is done by raising interest rates, which makes money expensive, which means slower growth. Aleksandra Double-Barrelled Świat has nothing to do with it. Could they not have got an independent economist to verify or disprove this claim? Another argument against the euro is given a big wet French kiss of death by being associated with the League of Polish Families (LPR), which used to run this country and which few if any readers of GW can have even a shred of sympathy for.

Another argument against is discredited by association with the clearly exaggerated fears of another PiS figure, who said that prices in Cyprus had risen by 30% because of sellers rounding up. “Official data do not show such a rise in prices,” the newspaper says. So why mention the 30% at all? In order to be able to say “we looked at the official data” without actually telling readers what that official data said. Did the official data show a 3% rise in prices? A 29.9% rise? Who knows? Not the readers of Gazeta Wyborcza anyway.

There really is no such thing as a cloud without a silver lining. The crisis is now being used as a stick to beat Poles into accepting the euro as their national currency. “Look at Slovakia,” they say. They do not say: Slovakia’s central bank has surrendered its say in how to deal with the unfolding events. Cut interest rates? Raise them? That’s decided by that well known Slovak nationalist, Jean-Claude Trichet. Gazeta Wyborcza, inevitably, is at the forefront of the pro-euro movement. Yesterday they published an interview with one Radosław Bodys of Merrill Lynch headlined “The euro will move us from the Hungarian league to the Slovakian.” Now, I don’t want to be negative and all, but a Merrill Lynch expert? Aren’t they the same experts that, well, you know what banking experts have done to us recently.

Elsewhere, opinion polls show the majority of Icelanders now want in to the EU. The banking experts so comprehensively screwed up their economy that it’s hardly surprising. Maybe Naomi Klein was right.

Polish workers (among others) are required by law to play the stock market with at least part of their pension savings. I hardly need to go into what has happened to the stock markets of late. Gazeta Wyborcza had a cheerful lead story on Thursday: The Shares Slump is Devouring Pensioners (a very free translation of “Bessa zżera emerytom”). It turns out that half of the gains made by the so-called “open pension funds” since they set up shop in 1999 have disappeared in the last few weeks (GW corrected their earlier report that 100% of the gains had been wiped out). It’s a complicated and dull subject – unless you are a woman facing retirement next year. In that case, I would imagine, it is gripping to say the least. By some quirk of sexism, demographics, life expectancy, incompetence and blind adherence to free-marketeering ideology, women (but only old ones) will come off worst, though the situation is not all that bad, as a part of pensions benefits are and will continue to be paid out by the boring old state body, ZUS (also notoriously inefficient, lest I be accused of bias). Still, real people will see real reductions in their real pensions starting in a few months because of the crisis (that’s what they’re calling it here: the crisis. Have another vodka.) GW’s article is accompanied by a commentary from the pen of Dominika Wielowieyska. In a sudden rush of good citizenship I have decided to provide here an interlinear translation into English of the reassuring words of wisdom from the ramparts of Gazeta Wyborcza:

Nasze składki w OFE są po części inwestowane na giełdzie.

Our pitiful savings are gambled on the geegees.

W 2007 r. fundusze chwaliły się, że pomnożyły nam pieniądze o kilkadziesiąt procent.

In 2007 the tipsters boasted that they had made us a tidy cash profit.

Dziś z powodu bessy kilkadziesiąt procent zmalało o połowę!

Now, as a result of a losing streak, I could really use three squares and a cot.

Już w przyszłym roku pierwsze osoby dostaną emeryturę, której część - na razie nikła - pochodzi z OFE.

This is going to be one tough winter.

Ich emerytura będzie o kilkanaście złotych niższa, niż wydawało się kilka miesięcy temu.

Your pension’s going to shrink by 10, maybe 20 zloties a month.

Niby niedużo, ale dla ubogich liczy się każdy grosz.

It’s no big deal but when you’re a deadbeat every penny counts.

A dla nas wszystkich liczy się poczucie emerytalnego bezpieczeństwa - podczas turbulencji bezcenne.
And we all need chumps to keep putting their dole money on horses.

Winne są trzy ostatnie rządy SLD, PiS i PO - ich skandaliczne zaniechanie.

It’s all the fault of the last three hot tips: Hallo Dundee, Fancy Lady and Santa’s Little Helper.

Do tej pory nie ma bowiem ustawy o funduszach bezpiecznych, w których towarzystwa lokowałyby nasze pieniądze, gdy do emerytury zostało nam niewiele lat. Fundusze bezpieczne - bo nie mogłyby inwestować w papiery ryzykowne, np. akcje.

If only the government had listened to us when we were proposing our 100% failsafe, foolproof, guaranteed, waterproof System, available to the discerning turf connoisseur on recept of cheque or postal order.

Wybierałyby obligacje skarbowe.

If they had listened to their One True Turf Source, they would only have picked Sure Things, and not donkeys.

Chroniłyby nasze oszczędności przed giełdową sinusoidą.
This would have protected your savings from the eventuality of it coming up mud.

“Gazeta” kilkakrotnie wzywała do ich utworzenia.

We often called for betting on form and breeding, And the man that did that could never be burst.

Bo twórcy reformy słusznie założyli, że na giełdzie zarabia się w długiej perspektywie, najlepiej kilkudziesięciu lat.

The tote investors and the bookies take the long view that the house never loses.

Jednak to założenie nie zdejmuje z rządzących obowiązku chronienia ludzi przed momentem, gdy giełdowa huśtawka jest najniżej.

But we know how to beat the odds and profit by laying off long shots against each-way bets at off-course bookies and exploiting the resulting vig differential.
Niech się politycy wytłumaczą, dlaczego o to nie zadbali.

It’s time the politicians adapted our patented, guaranteed System.

Niech parlament szybko naprawi ten błąd, by chronić kolejne pokolenia oszczędzające w OFE na starość.

Parlament should send a cheque or postal order to Gazeta Wyborcza without delay to learn the secrets of the turf trade that guarantee a retirement in clover.

Here are translated (badly – the Polish language has changed and I don’t have a historical dictionary), edited snippets of a letter from Catherine II to her Polish – ahem – subjects in 1768 after the Bar Confederation.

“…Our army in the Commonwealth of Poland, for the keeping of peace … Our friendly, allied nation [Poland] .. to restore the peace so respected by Poles … which we are obliged to do by Our duties to the Commonwealth … that Our army .. friendly and allied in accordance with its duties under Our guarantee … Our will and order … Colonels and Generals because they are all required to carry out orders quickly and with absolute justice …”

On second thoughts, maybe language hasn’t changed that much. The original document can be seen here, at the State Archive in Kraków.

Witold Gadomski of Gazeta Wyborcza is beginning to sound desperate. Today’s front page story in his newspaper is that the crisis is at hand. Ukraine and Hungary are in serious trouble and for foreign investors there is really no difference between all those East – sorry – Central European statelets. They’ll pull their money out of the whole region en masse, even if, say, Poland is actually in good shape. Already the zloty lost 18 groszy to the euro. But Gadomski on page two is of good cheer. A recession is not pleasant but it’s no catastrophe, he tells us. On condition that the economy quickly hits rock bottom and then bounces back. What is it that economists of a sardonic bent say, again? Oh, yes: even dead cats bounce. But for me the real gem of his piece is the following statement: “Almost everywhere in the world banks have stopped trusting their customers…” Bad customers! Bad customers! You may have thought customers had stopped trusting banks but you didn’t win a prize for defending market economics, did you, thicko?

Okay, so the US is not Poland but still I find the Onion more reassuring than Gadomski.

Witold Gadomski is plainly relishing the opportunities the current financial troubles offer for a fight. Here he is in last weekend’s Gazeta Wyborcza, telling us all to calm down, calm down. There is no cause for alarm. The system works.

He quotes Stiglitz: “The fall of Wall Street has shown the world that a certain way of economic functioning is unsustainable. What is happening is a sign that the calls to liberalise the financial markets were mistaken” (a back translation into English). Gadomski comments that Stiglitz cannot decide if he is an academic or anti-globalisation ideologue. I won’t pretend to know what’s going on – pretending to know is the job of Henry Paulson – but Stiglitz’s words strike me as being very cautious and handily borne out by the collapsing right and left of banks. Then again, Gadomski has in the past won an award for “defending the principles of market economics”- regardless of how dismally they fail. It’s funny how talking up the markets is practically a patriotic obligation while talking them down is a dastardly act of treachery.

Congratulations to Micahel Cronin and all at Routledge, who have put out Mr. Cronin’s book, Translation Goes to the Movies, bearing the date 2009. You can find it in bookshops already, three months before time. Then again, Cronin is so prolific it may have been a good idea to spread things out a little.

Translation Goes to the Movies