wielki pan: This may be the case of a some people, but the greater majority live off the pension, selling a few mushrooms or berries may be the only time they can earn extra money, Mr D do you read the newspapers, Poland has a unemployment to the tune of 11%,
France has unemployment of 9.5% and climbing, Spain's employment was over 20% at one point, the list goes on...
Don't believe all the hype about "poor Babcia" - indeed, many of the genuinely poor ones are poor because they gave up working in order to look after children/grandchildren. I've read some very sad stories about how the children used their mother to look after the kids, then when the kids grew up and Babcia was getting old and sick - they abandoned her.
Strangely enough though - many of the poorest ones are the ones sitting in flats worth the most money. I have a friend who lives in an old Kamienica in Poznan in the very heart of the city. Most of her neighbours are very old, and they won't pay to renovate the kamienica - they don't have money to do so. Many of them are also very very poor - yet when she called a meeting and suggested that they should sell their places if they can't afford to renovate it, she was met with a firm "no way".
Yet - they could sell up, move to small, modern block with a lift and have more than enough money left over for the rest of their days. They won't do it - and it's the cause of some of the housing shortage in cities in Poland. The flats we're talking about are over 80sqm each - and worth over half a million zloty.
your post makes me laugh, are you telling me that things are so bad that they employ guards at car parks.
It's a hangover from the bad old days of the early 90's when anyone sensible put their car in a guarded car park. It's also very affordable - I pay 115zl a month to have a guaranteed, guarded parking space. Given that car ownership is rising fast in Poland, paying 115zl a month to be able to slot straight into a space no matter the time of day is worth it.
(plenty of unguarded car parks around, but without guaranteed spaces).
wielki pan: sure that is right, it seems that most Poles are employed in the security industry, crime figures must be pretty bad.
Not really, it's more because it's cheap to have. You can get a "guard" for 10zl an hour - I used to hire one occasionally for some work.
As I said, it's a hangover from the days when you wanted stuff guarded. People can afford it, so why the hell not?
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