Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Remember the Polish jokes?


I was listening to Patrick Madrid this morning, and he observed that we don't hear the Polish jokes we heard back in the 60s and 70s--which were about American-Poles, not the ones living under the oppression of Communism. John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan brought down the Soviet Union--with the help of the collapsing economies of Eastern Europe--something that happens to Communist countries. The Poles survived the Nazis and the Russians and today 90% of the country is Catholic and thriving. According to Wikipedia, Poland has seen the largest increase GDP per capita (more than 100%) both among the former Soviet-bloc countries, and compared to the EU-15 (around 45%). It has had uninterrupted economic growth since 1992, even after the 2007 financial crisis. We could learn a lot from Poland--and that's no joke.

No comments: