Thread

September 2026: The world today, as seen by one Polish guy

522 points · 391 comments · marjancek

Tade0 · 1790758636 · focus · HN ↗
I feel like this is overdramatized a bit.
For instance: it's mentioned that EU gas storage is at 67% and Germany's at 56%.
What is not mentioned though is that Poland's storage is at 97% because the previous administration, for better or worse, was paranoid enough to invest in a sizeable marine gas terminal and the current one stocked up early.
Regarding real estate: adjusted for inflation prices peaked 2.5 years ago, interest rates are also much lower than back then. Nobody is buying because all the Ukrainian refugees who were moving to Poland are here already and that's the last bump in population this country will see for the foreseeable future.
Also there's the threat of war on Polish soil, which affects investor sentiment.
1. lifestyleguru · 1790758885 · focus · HN ↗
  Real estate in Poland is the only investment option without capital gains tax. You only have to keep it 5 years, extremely simple. A condo is tax free, risk free brokerage account. Even if drones start hitting these mostly empty buildings, the prices will keep rising.
  1. altern8 · 1790762589 · focus · HN ↗
    I guess that's why houses are so expensive, now
    PorciiVorbesc · 1790778998 · focus · HN ↗
    In which EU places worth living in, houses AREN'T expensive right now?
    lifestyleguru · 1790780266 · focus · HN ↗
    Thus, perhaps, none are worth living in?
    Maybe it doesn't matter how livable or beautiful Paris, Barcelona, Zurich, Stockholm, Sardinia, or whichever is, if you are never going to get roof over your head there.
    PorciiVorbesc · 1790789113 · focus · HN ↗
    >Thus, perhaps, none are worth living in?
    Depends from person to person, what you want from life, what age you're at, what career you're in, what your finances look like and what your family/relationship status is. Like if you're a radiology specialist, then you can find work in any city in the EU big or small, but if you're say an aeronautics specialist, then you're restricted to work in a handful of cities you can count on very few fingers.
    One can argue that the smaller cities in EU are often times better to live in than the capitals and major economic ones, that is if you aren't dependent on the corporate/big-tech careers that are mostly dominant in the major cities which tend to suffer from high housing shortages and higher crime or at least more roughness.
    But then, if you avoid the big expensive cities, you also miss out on the more developed rail transportation meaning a car might be required to save on commute times, big airports with cheap international flights, top hospitals and medical specialists, wide variety of cultural and entertainment events, etc. In the end, everything is a tradeoff, you can't have it all, all of the time. You can't have a capital city with top careers and entertainment opportunities, that pays well and is also affordable. You could get that maybe 6-14 years ago, but today not anymore.
    >Maybe it doesn't matter how livable or beautiful Paris, Barcelona, Zurich, Stockholm, Sardinia, or whichever is, if you are never going to get roof over your head there.
    That's also how I see it. The whole "X city is most livable" is so fucking subjective, that I just can't take those "livability" rankings I see online with a straight face, especially when I live in the country whose capital often takes the first place for "most livable city", so I know what I'm talking about.
2. Germanioum · 1790758948 · focus · HN ↗
  Humans are fragile.
  Just because the numbers might be small if germany doesn't has enough gas and some old fragile human being might die of this or because they cant afford the gas, its still no way to die in a country like germany.
  1. Grimeton · 1790759789 · focus · HN ↗
    Life is finite.
    Germanioum · 1790760028 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes than reduce the strain on the planet by removing yourself from it?
    What does your comment add to this discussion?
    We should stop caring? You decide how others can live because you are well off?
    Grimeton · 1790762719 · focus · HN ↗
    People not being able to afford gas is nonsense. Germany pays for it.
    The other thing is: If a few cold days kill you then your health wasn't much to begin with after all.
    Old people die. It's not always a heart attack or a stroke. It's the flu at a high age that gets them.
    Germanioum · 1790784783 · focus · HN ↗
    Germany doesn't pay for it, the consumers pay for it.
    The issue is real: if prices jump to high, certain people stop heating. They have to endur the cold, get sick etc.
    Poor people and old people are affected the most.
3. Aeolun · 1790759051 · focus · HN ↗
  Germany hasn’t historically been nice about leaving Polish oil to the Polish when they decide they need it though?
  1. altern8 · 1790759945 · focus · HN ↗
    Not to be that guy, but I'm pretty sure that "Polish" is capitalized. "polish oil" is what I use on my leather shoes
    Aeolun · 1790765990 · focus · HN ↗
    Thanks xD now I can’t stop thinking about polish oil.
    oblio · 1790767324 · focus · HN ↗
    The fact that you have time to "xD"-reply to some comments but won't address the other ones basically marks you as a troll. Good to know, shame HN doesn't have ways to block/mark users as ignorable.
    Aeolun · 1790828757 · focus · HN ↗
    There’s no point in responding to people that have already judged and found wanting. I have better things to do with my time.
    Though sometimes I still get pulled in, like now.
    oblio · 1790832194 · focus · HN ↗
    My comment about "Polish oil" is probably right so I guess you go ahead living in your fantasy world.
  2. skrebbel · 1790760083 · focus · HN ↗
    Your comment implies Germany can just somehow command Poland to please hand over their gas, which obviously makes no sense, so I think you either forgot to include some key detail or you’re just talking out of your ass.
    Unless you mean nazi invasions ofc in which case you’re just a troll.
    consp · 1790760696 · focus · HN ↗
    On the ad absurdum: They'd also go the other way. The integration with the Dutch gas fields and system in Groningen is good enough and there is at least two decades of gas left in the fields. While closed, they can be reopened within a relatively short time and there are storage fields abound there (Groningen and Drente storages account for half the Dutch supply). And since it's ad absurdum, the earthquakes do not matter.
  3. oblio · 1790760823 · focus · HN ↗
    Poland barely had any oil. If you want to go "historical", Romania was the source of oil for Germany during WW2 (and Austria-Hungary also wanted to take over Romanian oil fields in WW1).
4. nazgob · 1790759146 · focus · HN ↗
  It's 97% but total gas storage capacity it quite low so it's easier to fill.
  1. Tade0 · 1790762592 · focus · HN ↗
    True, but other large EU members also did a better job replenishing their stores:
    <a href="https://energiedashboard.admin.ch/gas/eu-gasspeicher" rel="nofollow">https://energiedashboard.admin.ch/gas/eu-gasspeicher
    For instance, Italy has more storage capacity per capita despite very similar consumption (~10TWh/1mln population) and they're already at 86%+.
    Meanwhile indeed Poland has much less storage (about a third of Germany per capita), but it also uses it less (half the consumption of Germany per capita).
    I must ask: what the hell are the Germans waiting for?
    ben_w · 1790763416 · focus · HN ↗
    > I must ask: what the hell are the Germans waiting for?
    Bureaucracy, most likely. That and in-fighting (I count NIMBY as an example of that, but not the only thing).
    Here's a train station in Berlin, whose upgrade is currently 20 years behind schedule: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin-Köpenick_station" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin-Köpenick_station
    rostigerpudel · 1790764734 · focus · HN ↗
    Our minister responsible for energy is Katherina Reiche, a lobbyist for fossil companies. She has been suspected to dawdle on refilling gas storage to make it easier for her former employers to make a quick buck when gas becomes scarce in winter. She's also botched the transition to renewable energies by removing the incentives for state and industry to build out electric infrastructure, so it would not be out of character.
    Plus, our chancellor has zero experience in governing anything (he's not even been mayor before) and is firmly stuck in thinking like a Blackrock executive.
    So, to answer your question: We are waiting for a government that is not entirely in the pocket of those that want to stick to the status quo and profit from crises as long as possible.
    LeChuck · 1790771758 · focus · HN ↗
    That's a nice conspiracy theory you have there.
    Which former employer is going to make a quick buck? The grid operator or the grid operator lobbyist? Besides, who is going to profit from a price spike when the whole point is that the summer-winter spread is inverted, so no one expects to make money from injecting?
    looperhacks · 1790774434 · focus · HN ↗
    > Which former employer is going to make a quick buck? The grid operator or the grid operator lobbyist?
    Well, both. Katherina Reiche was CEO of Westenergie until she joined the current government; and was, at the same time, listed as a lobbyist. She also caused controversy when she presented a plan for energy politics that was _very similar_ to plans by major electricity providers (including the parent company of her previous company). Or when she directly asked the electricity provider EnBW for better arguments why we should build more gas power plant (directly violating lobbying laws). That's just a small excerpt; the list of controversy is long.
    But tbh, I don't think there's a big conspiracy about the empty gas tanks. Yes, Reiche is most likely corrupt (which is a huge deal), but afaiu, the gas tanks are empty because nobody wants to pay for the gas right now.
    PS: Just today, Reiche ordered Sefe GmbH to stockpile more gas [1]. Sefe is conveniently a public company. So private companies don't have to buy expensive gas, because the public is going to take care of it.
    [1] <a href="https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2026-09/gasspeicher-deutschland-katherina-reiche-sefe-erdgas-gxe" rel="nofollow">https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2026-09/gasspeicher-deutschla...
    rostigerpudel · 1790843239 · focus · HN ↗
    Regarding filling gas storage, I might have been too quick to judge. It seems that prices are just too high atm. However, this has been a long time coming and she did not act, so that's on her.
    I stand by the rest, though. She's really a blight on our energy policies and development.
    Tade0 · 1790788275 · focus · HN ↗
    So another Gerhard Schröder?
    I still remember some of the lyrics to Der Steuersong.
    rostigerpudel · 1790843985 · focus · HN ↗
    I never liked Schröder very much. I somewhat respected him for working his way up to the top coming from a very poor family. But Schröder was not a lobbyist before he became chancellor and his actions during his reign do not strike me as guided by taking care of his cronies.
5. nojs · 1790759527 · focus · HN ↗
  [dead]
6. alpineman · 1790760850 · focus · HN ↗
  So it's overdramatised on the gas, but underdramatised on the war?
  1. Tade0 · 1790763298 · focus · HN ↗
    The threat of war is largely in the minds of investors.
    I don't know if Putin is crazy enough to chance it, but I wouldn't put it past him to do so.
    But even then, Russia would need to mobilize hundreds of thousands of troops and that is not something you can pull off in a week, or even a month.
    kakacik · 1790766372 · focus · HN ↗
    They are massively increasing their medium sized drone capacities (ie Geran) while improving on those drones too. Faster, harder to detect and shoot down, no GPS/Glonass navigation necessary so jamming won't do much.
    A country that is rained on by 500 drones daily delivering 125KG explosives (so like a proper standard bomb dropped from airplanes) can overwhelm local military defense capacities quickly, leave infrastructure in crumbles (as in no water, electricity, gas, heating, gas stations working and so on) and at least in dictator's mind local population may crumble in weeks. You don't need to put a single foot in the country to reduce critical infra to rubble.
    I can't imagine Polish folks would ever bow to russians after horrible things they repeatedly done to them, but ie in Slovakia it would be a very quick victory even if country wouldn't be ruled by ultra corrupt folks who would just give whole country to russians for some more corruption promises for later.
    If puttin' will try anything in eastern Europe now is the best time. But I would expect more something along Moldova or baltics, Poland is far from russia and any extra force concentration in Kaliningrad would be easy to see.
    galangalalgol · 1790770342 · focus · HN ↗
    The baltics have even more vivid memories of soviet life don't they? And nato trip wire troops so any attack would be killing french and uk soldiers (nuclear powers). Trump was talking about taking Greenland by force right up until the trip wire forces arrived. It is an odd job as a soldier to be a hostage I think, but it seems to work. It would be more reliable for Poland to obtain its own nuclear deterrent, along the lines of the buffers vs dependencies argument in the post. There has been talk, but that seems difficult.
7. yzydserd · 1790761276 · focus · HN ↗
  Dramatised yes. Overdramatised no. This is a dramatic period of history.
  1. ben_w · 1790763286 · focus · HN ↗
    Every period of history is dramatic; sometimes I rewatch old episodes of a UK satirical news quiz, Have I Got News For You, and even in the best of years there was plenty of drama.
    radiorental · 1790780664 · focus · HN ↗
    I've been thinking about this a lot recently. Are people more pessimistic now? While there are ebs and flows to the general state of various societies I feel that objectively the 2020s are no better or worse that any of the preceding post WW2 decades??
    Is this an effect of social media and the 24 news cycle that has negative headlines on repeat?
    AnimalMuppet · 1790782251 · focus · HN ↗
    Depends on your metric.
    I would say that the 1950s were better economically, at least in the US. If you were working class, you could make a living, and offer your children a better life than you had. That led to optimism.
    But if you look at health, there were still a bunch of diseases that hadn't been conquered. Today is much better... if you can afford health insurance.
    Technology? Today. No question.
    Culture? They weren't on the 24th Marvel movie in the 1950s. Sure, there was a lot of schlock, too, but the original stuff was still original, not retreads of the same old stuff.
    I like life now. But I'm not working class...
    ben_w · 1790783523 · focus · HN ↗
    > They weren't on the 24th Marvel movie in the 1950s. Sure, there was a lot of schlock, too, but the original stuff was still original, not retreads of the same old stuff.
    While there was a lot of innovation, we can say "original stuff was still original" even today. How would you classify Sorry to Bother You, Beau Is Afraid, or Hundreds of Beavers?
    Plot wise, cinema back then still had a lot of stuff lifted from decades previous.
    Like, Westerns date to at least 1903: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Train_Robbery_(1903_film)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Train_Robbery_(1903_...
    And the first Western film was inspired by Wild West shows that started before the Old West era even finished: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_West_shows" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_West_shows
    ben_w · 1790782384 · focus · HN ↗
    I don't think we're even that much more pessimistic, overall, though we might be.
    24 hour news cycle may do something, but we had daily bad headlines for a long time before that.
    If anything new is making us depressed, it's likely algorithmic attempts on our attention. A/B testing on the most engaging content, leading to addiction, as in people who hate that they waste all their time on their devices and yet can't bring themselves to stop. At least some of that may lead to negative affect, including pessimism but also dysmorphia and rage etc. depending on what the A/B testing finds works best for your demographic.

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