Poles do not save money because they don’t know how to. Perhaps recession will teach them, writes Newsweek. The following joke is a good illustration of the popular attitude to saving.

Weeklies reviewed by Krystyna Kolosowska.

Mom says to little Jasio: Son, we want to save money for a new car. Dad will quit smoking and I will not buy new clothes. What are you going to do? – Me? I will not go to school – Jasio replies. According to a recent survey, more than a half of Poles spend all the money they earn. Only seven percent save part of their salary each month. In 2007 only 38 percent of Poles had any savings at all. What is more, those who save, choose the less profitable forms of saving, like bank accounts. Why is this happening? The answer is simple: firstly - Poles are still in the process of building their wealth, secondly – they have not had time to learn how to save. The banking and capital system has been built for less than 20 years here. This is definitely too short period of time to educate the whole society. That is why a half of the people surveyed say they are guided by their intuition rather than expert knowledge when it comes to saving. Now, the global financial crisis has prompted many Poles to take unwise decisions, like moving their money from investment funds to bank accounts. More and more often people pay out money from their accounts and terminate their deposit contracts. Fortunately, most Poles still keep their money on bank accounts and they are right. There is no risk of any bank collapsing in Poland and deposits are guaranteed. On the other hand, the crisis can teach Poles a good lesson. Thanks to it they can learn about the risk of investing in various financial instruments and the importance of saving for the future, Newsweek writes.

Polityka comments on Poland’s plan to enter the euro zone on January 1, 2012. This will not be easy, what with the global financial crisis making an impact also on the Polish economy. The best time – the years 2005-2007 – was wasted by the then ruling Law and Justice. Today, we can envy the Slovaks that the several year long process of preparations is behind them – Slovakia adopts the euro on January 1 and despite the financial crisis in the world, it is not experiencing any major upheavals. Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary can regret that they have not taken a similar road, says Polityka. 

Gazeta Polska is worried that Polish shipyards may land up in the hands of the Russians. It points out that the Gdansk shipyard is owned by the Ukrainian group ISD Donbas, which is intent on buying also the Gdynia Shipyard. Treasury minister Aleksander Grad has admitted that restructuring plans, which Poland presented to the European Commission, were prepared by prospective investors, that is Donbas and Norwegians, who want to buy the Szczecin Shipyard. Since July Donbas has been conducting talks about a merger with the Russian steel concern owned by Roman Abramowicz. Gazeta Polska asks if it makes sense at all to privatize Polish shipyards at the time of a global financial crisis and when other European countries are nationalizing enterprises of  key importance to their economy.

‘We are going to a masquerade ball in East Berlin’ – that’s how a Polish intelligence office Jan Pieterwas explained the look of his car to a West German customs official. Wprost writes that Pieterwas and another man, an intelligence major employed as a diplomat in the embassy of communist Poland in Bonn, were crossing into GDR in August 1982. The car boot was half open and protruding from it was a warhead of an anti-tank missile, painted in loud colors. Next to it lay all sorts of gadgets, masks and costumes – ostensibly meant for a masquerade ball. The customs official accepted this explanation. Such was the end of a major intelligence operation, thanks to which one of the most modern missiles at that time landed up in communist Poland. The weekly says, however, that the theft of military technology actually was not the main task of the intelligence service. Among its main achievements were: the composition of aspirin, the washing powder Ixi, construction of the Frania washing machine, the production technology for integrated circuits, bearings and whole car engines. The economy of communist Poland functioned chiefly thanks to technologies stolen from the West, Wprost says.

Przekroj laments the state of sex education at Polish schools. Though under the anti-abortion law, schools have to organize such lessons, in practice the classes are optional and are conducted on an on-and-off basis by poorly prepared teachers. What is more, they use archaic manuals promoting a conservative, Catholic point of view. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that every year 20 thousand babies are born to girls below 18. Leftist MPs have come up with an initiative of amending the law. They want to introduce obligatory sex education classes, conducted by highly qualified teachers. Przekroj expects, however, that the bill will be rejected, falling victim to ideological disputes in the parliament.