I seldom follow debates before elections. I don't know if this is simply a coincidence, but I find myself having discussions about problems reaching the future at most a fewer years. Are problems that already be and will consequence in generations not debated before the upcoming elections?
These problems are inherently hard to grasp by their scale and temporal range, but by the same token they become the most important. This would be fatal, but given the standard of Polish political life, it is not surprising.
In those days, the Central Statistical Office announced that Poland was entering another demographic crisis, and this is confirmed by the fact that last year the least children have been born since the end of planet War II. For the next 20 – 30 years, the Polish population will decrease by at least a fewer million. It's like more than 2 Podkarpackie provinces have died out. Let us remind that the Podkarpackie region presently has more than 2 million inhabitants. It's hard for me to imagine that I'm on my way from Stalowa Wola to the Lower Injection and on my way to nowhere alive.
However, the fact that Poland is dying out is only part of the problem. An ageing population is simply a bigger problem. This raises bigger economic, social and political problems than extinction. If the pensioner died, the cost of the ceremony is fundamentally the last cost he generated. A pension that lives but is ill, senile or otherwise incapable of surviving alone, generates high, extra costs, even for medical care. The political problem is that specified pensioners are becoming a increasing political force.
These facts are linked to the fact that the Government of the Law and Justice is planning a budget for next year with a immense deficit, which is de facto debt. PiS politicians don't even cover that they owe the state to bribe pensioners – voters. In addition, in the election run they promise not to rise their retirement age. Even a fewer years ago, we had a situation in Poland where 2 – 3 workers made up a pensioner. In large steps we are approaching a situation where 1 individual will gotta support 2 – 3 pensioners. Who can handle it? After all, there is already a point on the horizon where money can no longer be borrowed or printed. specified a policy is cynical fraud and leads straight to disaster in various dimensions. However, for now there is no political force in Poland, which would have the courage to say it publicly, especially in the election campaign. To even effort to prevent this disaster, many very unpopular decisions must be made right now.
I am referring to my individual situation, that is, individual who will be retired in a fewer years. The situation of my life forces me to stay in Stalowa Wola, and I anticipate a miserable retirement. Now Stalowa Wola is the fastest depopulating city in the voivodship. It is simply a city at the forefront of cities with the least natural growth and at the same time it is simply a city in the first 3 cities in the voivodship with the oldest population. In over a twelve years, half of the adult residents of Stalowa Wola will be retired.
What does that mean for a city like this? mostly speaking, a immense degradation in all way. Steel Wola will be overwhelmed by the problems of the attic people, mostly sick and not wealthy. As far as I am aware, the current city authorities do not at all wonder how to adapt the city to another rules of operation, especially in financial terms. Steel Wola, like the full state, is very indebted and this debt will grow. At any point, the debt of the state and cities will collide with social and economical processes affecting financial and state capabilities and cities. Pensioners are weak buyers and taxation payers in Polish conditions.
What then? No political forces, either in the state or in Steel Wola, are afraid about seeking answers to this question. The effects of specified deficiency of far-reaching reasoning and any deficiency of sense of work are already affecting us. For 30 years, a cross-party consensus could not be built to rebuild and modernise the energy strategy in Poland. As a result, we have constantly rising electricity prices, and as a consequence any of the highest in Europe. We stand against the wall in the face of adapting our energy strategy to the requirements of the European Union, which threatens with disastrous consequences for the Polish economy. We're in the incorrect circle. On the 1 hand, it must be hard to tell pensioners and not only that further policy of bribing them with different social benefits turns against them. On the another hand, pensioners as a increasing political force must not be alienated, due to the fact that there will be no triumph in the election, so it will engage in economical nonsense.
And what's going to happen to me in Steel Will? No poorness and pain. Poverty, due to the fact that hunger pensions and almost no anticipation of earning money, due to the fact that neither the labour code nor another laws affecting it do make a strategy of encouraging employers to employment or make jobs for pensioners. Pain, due to the fact that I have diseases that are expanding with age and, as I see around me, make life miserable, and at the same time the degradation of the medical care strategy is worsening.
If Stalowa Wola is to stay an industrial hub, it is inevitable that they will appear in a large number of immigrants as a labour force. If they represent 1 3rd of the population of the city (and sooner than later) they will become not only an economic, but besides a social and yet a political force. Both of them, and especially their children born in the Steel Will, may not want to lay on specified as I do. What then? These areas of future economic, social and political problems are already visible to the bare eye. Both in Stalowa Wola and throughout Poland it is quiet about it. Is there a political force to break it? Unfortunately, it doesn't look like she's coming out before these elections. I don't think he'll come out after the election either.
Andrzej Szlezak
