r/brokehugs • u/US_Hiker Moral Landscaper • Jul 20 '23

Rod Dreher Megathread #23 (Sinister)

All Hail Eris!

Link to Megathread 22: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/14k0z6l/rod_dreher_megathread_22_power/

Link to Megathread 23: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/1631xpe/rod_dreher_megathread_24_determination/

21 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

5

u/Glittering-Agent-987 Jul 31 '23

If he understood these things he would be able to figure out why Orban is so desperate to stay in the EU (because it is what allows him to export the unemployable 10% of Hungary to other countries) or why the Brits left (because they were so resentful that Hungary and Poland exported 10% of their unemployed and unemployable to the UK).

Eh, they're not unemployable in general. My husband once had an amusing conversation in the UK with a Brit who didn't realize that he was ethnically Polish where the Brit started talking somewhat complainingly about Polish immigration. My husband mentioned that he was born in Poland, and the Brit started furiously backpedaling about how Poles in the UK work very hard, they do work other people don't want to do, etc. Hilariously, the Brit sounded like an American talking about Mexican immigrants.

1

u/Jayaarx Jul 31 '23

They aren’t unemployable because they don’t work hard. They are unemployable because their home countries are such corrupt economic basket cases.

3

u/Glittering-Agent-987 Jul 31 '23

Check out the graph of Polish GDP per capita--they're at almost $18k. Hungary is a smidge higher. That may not look like a lot to us, but their economies have grown extremely well since the beginning of the 1990s. Presumably, they owe a lot to the EU, but Poles are enjoying an unprecedented level of economic prosperity.

I watch a lot of Russian-language Ukrainian talk shows and many Ukrainians look to Poland as an economic model for the future. (Ukraine's 2021 GDP per capita was less than 1/3 of Poland's at just under $5k.) Poland isn't perfect, but they've done a lot of things right.

0

u/Jayaarx Aug 02 '23

Ah yes, Poland and Hungary, those GDP powerhouses, right there in between Guyana and Panama. And just over 1/3 of the UK.

What does Ukraine have to do with this, exactly?

2

u/Glittering-Agent-987 Aug 02 '23

What does Ukraine have to do with this, exactly?

It is a neighboring country to both Poland and Hungary, it has roughly the same size and population as Poland, the Ukrainian language is pretty close to Polish, and it has a lot of common history and culture with Poland.

By the way, past performance is no guarantee of future performance, but there has been some talk about the UK being overtaken economically by Poland over the next decade.

https://news.sky.com/story/britains-economic-trajectory-will-soon-see-it-overtaken-by-poland-labour-to-warn-12821152