One of our glorious leaders, Gunter Verheugen, has had a jolly good idea. He thinks it would be good if business executives were not so obscenely well paid. It’s never too late to start learning in the Third Age University of Life. Welcome aboard, son!
You know… well, that crisis and all? It isn’t really all that bad. No. Not at all. It’s been hyped up out of all proportions. Yesterday’s Gazeta Wyborcza has the real deal. Page one’s main headline is about the cheerful sounds coming from the United States Federal Reserve (which GW clubbily refers to as “the […]
The strapline on the TV over the bar last night had some exciting news. Through the fumes of pure alcohol rising in wavy lines from the gin-soaked counter I made out the words “US stock market rises for second day in a row.” Wow… two whole days.
Well, perhaps the Times Online misquoted him: ‘Dermot Ahern, the [Irish] Justice Minister, said: “Legislation is in place to bring to justice those who may have played hard and fast with the financial security of this country”.’ There’s nothing wrong with playing hard and fast. What Ahern should have said was “fast and loose” but […]
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 […]
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 […]
That’s the headline in today’s Gazeta Wyborcza. They led with the same story yesterday, the one about British workers demanding jobs for British people. Yesterday’s front page article was surprising in that I was able to read it through without flinging the paper on the floor – and it was written by Jacek Pawlicki. Sure, […]
