So where did you do your learning?
You seem to have great confidence in your assumed understanding of the conflict.
:haha:


Any way...the guy(Romney)don't impress very much either way.

I know it's rather a Romney-orientened discussion but to straighten some things out:
the average salary in Poland is around 3500 PLN (around 1000$) which gives more or less 2400 PLN after the taxes (700$). The minimum wage is 1200 PLN (350$). For every born child you get almost exactly the same - around 1000 PLN. If you compare it to any other central and western-Europe standards, it's barely a subsidization. It's rather charity.
It's too complicated to argue with it here, but let's say it's true.
not true at all. If you are employed you pay an obligatory contribution for your health insurance. If you pay it, you get a document (or like in my district a chip card) which proves that you pay the contributions. If you visit a doctor, you have to show the document/card. You won't get any help without it. I'm unemployed and my father's contribution is higher bcoz of that.
true. However, 2012 is the last year when Poland will get more than it PAYS for the EU. (you can check for any of Skybird's whining posts saying that "Germany has to pay for everyone". It's true in the case of Poland, but as I said - starting the next year we will get less and less, and we will have to pay more and more. That's how the EU is organized, I guess...

yes.
if only it was true :har:

In general, the part of article concerning Poland is 50% crap and 50% a fairy-tale.
For Poles (and it was confirmed by some Americanist Professors) Romney's visit was another "thanks for Pulaski and Iraq".

I don't assume that I have easy answers - noone does, but I have no issue saying what I said there. He doesn't understand the first thing about the Palestinian "state", life within it, the way it works (or doesn't), the reasons for it, or the relation this problem has to other problems in the region. You do not deal with a two-sided issue by giving one side a blank cheque (as he seems to have done both on the issue of Palestine and the issue of Iran). I don't believe for one second that he actually means a blank cheque at all, but his remarks were irresponsible. His comments on the Palestinians that were trumpeted by various media outlets as being racist? Well, they were darn close. They weren't so much racist as they were uninformed, condescending and disingenuous. He has no problem writing off Palestinian economic, social and political problems to assumed cultural and ideological inferiority, in spite of the fact that there are some very concrete obstacles to the infrastructure of that "state" in terms of both economics and politics put up by you-know-who. All I read behind these comments is that Romney doesn't believe in a Palestinian state, or the Palestinians; he equates Israel to a god-given biblical entity; and he does not want to look at it from any other perspective. And he's willing to let Israel call the shots at will in a region that is already massively destabilized by recent events. His basis for this is poor understanding. He couldn't get basic economic facts right. He couldn't even acknowledge some of the key claims made by one side. This is not a responsible way to go about anything.

It goes without saying that to the current Israeli government, he's a godsend. Or at least he talks like one. Of course the "blank cheque" is more like an invitation for conservative pro-Israeli groups to give him a few to fund his rather cynical campaign. I know that he won't actually be a godsend to Israel at all, but he'll act like one in situations where, in my view, it's completely irresponsible to.

This doesn't require special understanding. And if you want my personal stake in this, I have close personal connections and family in Israel and yet I have no issue of taking things on balance. Please don't hold this whole "you're not there, you don't get it" thing over me. You seem to have an awful lot of confidence in your right to start :haha: ing at every mention of Israel by someone who doesn't live there.

Fair enough but....what is balanced view may vary a lot.:haha:
I'm not fan of those biblical lovers of Israel myself yet i would probably disagree with you about lots of issues regarding Palestinian Israeli conflict.

Bottom line is that West Bank without European money heavily invested in infrastructure and government would quickly fall apart as independent state...the investments in infrastructure is what actually keeps Palestinians afloat.
Israeli presence in WB also creates a lot of jobs as well.
As for now living standards they are much better than most non oil ME states...
Gaza is lost case....
Palestinians had opportunity for their own state on 97% of west bank territory...and they missed it on few occasions when Israeli government and public opinion was in favor of that...now lets wait for second coming lol.


.............

Any way Romney....

I also apologise for kidnapping the thread, but I cannot believe that Poland, who is currently the biggest net recipient (in absolute terms, data found in this Deutsche Bank report), will in the span of one year become a net payer. As to why, there are several things we should look at.

First of all, you need to know about the different sources of the EU budget, with the biggest one today being the GNP resource (now the GNI resource). This is also a marginal resource, meaning that the EU budget is topped up by EU member states to the limits set out by the multianual financial framework (the EU budget is capped, meaning that it cannot spend more than the member states decided to attribute to it). The share of this resource is determined by the GNI of the particular member state in relation to the EU27 GNI. I cannot find right now what the percentage is, but in relation to what follows cannot be bigger than what you receive.

Poland receives both structural and cohesion funds. Structural funds are given to an administrative unit called NUTS 2. Regions that have a GDP lower than 75% of EU-25 average are eligible to receive aid under the Convergence objective of the Regional policy and from both the European regional development fund, the European social fund and the Cohesion fund. According to the latest data I could find (from 2008, found here) the majority of Poland's NUTS2 region were below 50% average, a tad less than half were in the 50-75% range and only one region was between 75 and 100%, meaning that it was not eligible for structural funds. Even with the growth of Polish economy, the majority of your regions will remain eligible for some time to come.

Secondly, we must look at the Cohesion fund, whose funds are disbursed on a state level. For member states to be eligible, they must have an average EU25 GDP below 90%. As seen in this Eurostat table, in 2011 Poland stood at 65% EU27 average (meaning that it is slightly higher when calculating with the EU25 average, but not enough to prevent you from getting funds). All of this together means that Poland can still draw sufficient monies from the EU regional policy and that in my opinion means that it will be a while before you'll be forced to pay more than you get (although that would be a good day for Poland, as it would mean that you have achieved a high level of development).

To cap it all up, for Skybird or anyone else, the debate around net payers and receivers is a very complex one and cannot be looked at merely from an accounting point of view, as money moves around freely in Europe and often comes back to the major exporters and highly developed states (we have to buy our machinery from somewhere, don't we?). I hope this helped clear the subject a bit.

Now back to Romney!

Romney is a Socialist anyway, if you vote for Bank bail outs like he did - you are a socialist. Simple as that.
Bailouts are about as captialist as 'collective farming'.

Romney supported the bailouts and is on record saying he would support more, but since he was never a member of the U.S. Congress he did not and could not vote for anything.

Nit-picking to a point, I admit, and I don't like him at all, but fair is fair.

Oh sorry, (ahem) that then^

I cringe at Romney, he may be dumber than Bush. It seems the GOP doesn't care what they put up for office. Romney comes across as an spoiled elitist, out of touch with the middle class. I don't want to vote for BHO either, again, hold my nose when I vote or just stay at home.

Write in who you want.

Hes just another 'yes' man thats all. You should still vote, maybe just dont vote for D or R. Every third party vote tells D & R they need to sort themselves out.

Or do what I'm going to do in our next elections, draw a big unhappy face on the ballot paper :yep:

If we only used paper ballots in Pennsylvania, I would now find myself with impetus to vote.

Everything ive read, leads me to believe he's the upper class spokesman. The representative of the "upper 1%", with only their interests at heart. One article in particular that i read on CNN put me off to him. If i could remember it i'd link it but it was a few weeks ago. Everything about the guy gives me the impression of someone who's a financial crook. Regardless of anything I may have read, I've always thought there was just something shady about the guy, i'm not sure what it is, but i'm pretty sure I don't like it.

So how many people here really and truly believe that Romney is the best candidate for President or is it a case of "anyone but Obama"?

My company is full o' conservatives and we talk politics often. I have not met anyone at work who really and truly prefers Romney. But almost all of them will vote for Romney as a way of unseating Obama.