We decided to take over the management of the state in the sense that we decided to create structures parallel to the Polish state. Over the last 16 months, 267,000 companies have closed or been liquidated in Poland. You board a plane, and a handsome man stands up and says: "I'll be piloting today, because I'm a good talker and I'm charming." We earned our money through hard work, while politicians live solely off our money and at our expense . And today we will be looking for answers to these questions with my guest, Professor Mariusz Miąsko, professor at the Nicolaus Copernicus Main School in Warsaw. Good morning, Professor. Good morning, Editor. Hello, everyone. I don't think we'll run out of topics, because the Polish debt clock is ticking upwards. The government reassures us in reports, news, and press conferences that it's fine, nothing is happening with the debt because the GDP is growing. How will Poland's record-breaking debt, which keeps growing, actually affect the average Pole's wallet, how will taxes rise in the coming months and years, what might inflation be, and how will we lose value in our assets? How can this be explained simply? Contrary to appearances, it is a very simple matter , because we have a very simple analogy here to our own family budgets. Essentially, you have to consider what this budget is and where the money in the budget comes from. And basically, the money in the budget comes almost exclusively from entrepreneurs and the employees employed in these entrepreneurs 'firms. Because we, the entrepreneurs, and our wonderful employees—after all, we wouldn't have generated these funds without our staff , even if we were the best managers— it is very important to unite and appreciate those we work with, our employees. We generate about 90%of the entire Polish state budget, in the broad sense of the budget. And this is the foundation, because the structure is not like this in all countries. If we looked, for example, at the revenues of Norway or countries that have natural resources, they very often have diversified sources of income—not just from the work of entrepreneurs, from goods and services produced by entrepreneurs. But it just so happens that Poland does not possess such resources that it could export externally through entrepreneurship. It is very important here that we understand that we do not only mean private entrepreneurs, but state ones as well. After all, Orlen is an enterprise. It is the same type of enterprise. It just has a different owner, but it is still an enterprise. So, we entrepreneurs generate, let's say, at least 90 percent of the entire substance and value of the budget. And now, if we know, if we already have this information and we know that we have nothing, we have no way to cover the surplus above these 90%of revenues, and the Polish state and Polish politicians create social projects: 500 plus, 800 plus, they create, they put hospitals into debt, they create projects related to medicine that generate gigantic, gigantic costs— gigantic costs—or any other projects, for example, they create a massive, one could say, layer of bureaucracy that financially burdens the Polish state, then we must understand that if we do not have coverage from entrepreneurial revenue at the level of the Polish state budget, then the government has only one option: it can put the Polish state into debt. Because if the government has generated expenses higher than the revenue from our taxes and other tributes that we entrepreneurs generate, well, the government has no alternative source from which it could add money to the budget box, right? It cannot sell more gas, crude oil, some gold, diamonds, etc., etc., because we simply do not have them. It cannot release them to the international market, it has nothing to replenish with, it can only go for a loan. And that is exactly what is happening. That is to say, as of today, more or less 600-something billion zlotys are the planned budget revenues, and the government, besides those 600-something billion, has planned another 270-280 billion, right, to fill the entire budget, that is, all planned expenditures. What does the government plan to cover this with? It plans to cover it exclusively from credit, which it takes in the form of 10-year bonds, most often 10-year, sometimes five-year, on the internal and external markets. And that is the whole misfortune, because we are at a point where we currently have, also estimated, between 80 and 100 billion zlotys just in interest. We are not able to pay off this interest, because if our budget is, let's say, 600 billion in budget revenues—I emphasize revenues—but we have to pay 100 billion in interest, then we are no longer able to cover the value of the interest from current budget revenues. And what have we been doing with this interest for many years? We roll it over, which means we are actually taking out another loan in order to pay off the interest. But the problem is that the mass of this liability— because every year these liabilities, this debt, increases—the mass of this liability is so large that Poland is becoming less credible on the international market. What does that mean, what does that mean in economic terms? It means that we must issue our subsequent bonds at a higher cost. That means we can buy them back, but not at 3%like Germany or 3.2%like Germany, but at 4, 5, 6, and in a year or two we will be able to buy them back at 7, or maybe at 8%. So, the more indebted we are, the more expensive it is to redeem these bonds, because we are less credible. And this is an endless loop, this is an endless spiral, this is the path to the absolute catastrophe and collapse of the Polish state. And why is that? Because politicians fundamentally do not understand basic, core economic mechanisms. They fundamentally do not understand. I recently gave a speech on, among other things, the economy and debt at the Heartland Institute in Warsaw. There were politicians present. When I showed some of the figures, just imagine— it’s hard to believe—they pulled out their phones and started taking pictures. If you had seen the level of these politicians, it was hard for me to believe that such politicians were taking photos of such obvious data. This means they don't understand the mechanisms, and it is very important that we do not limit ourselves here solely to complaining and saying that things are bad and we don't like the state of affairs. We must change it ourselves. For this very reason, among others, we organized the "We Entrepreneurs" association, in which we brought to life an entrepreneurs' government and an expert council, consisting mainly of outstanding Polish entrepreneurs and Polish scientists in economics, law, and management, where there must be this synergy. We decided to take over the management of the state in the sense that we decided to create structures parallel to the Polish state, which are based on meritocracy, on knowledge, on competence. We decided to teach—our goal is to teach politicians and teach future administrations, to teach them economics. Because if, ladies and gentlemen, we know that everything— look at healthcare, defense, education, roads, the entire infrastructure—is based on the budget, because frankly, there is no aspect of the functioning of the Polish state that is not based on the budget. If the budget is high, these areas will function relatively well, provided they are managed relatively well. If the budget is low, then even if we put the best management expert there, no matter their competence, if they don't have the funds, they won't manage well either. So if we know that the foundation of any state, and in particular the Polish state, is the budget, and the foundation of that budget, at the level of 90%of revenue, are entrepreneurs and their employees, then what should we be talking about? What should politicians in the media be talking about primarily ? Primarily about the economy and the labor market, that is, how not to destroy jobs so that employees have a decent place to work. How to create new jobs by creating good conditions for entrepreneurship. Then why do politicians talk about everything else, arguing every single day? How proportionally do politicians talk about the economy? I don't even know if it's 3%. Give me 30 seconds. The world teaches us how to spend money, but no one teaches us how to manage it. Inflation is taking its toll, and finance seems like black magic. We decided to change that. That is why we are launching our financial metamorphosis for the fourth time. Over the last few years, we have helped thousands of Poles pay off debt, build emergency funds, and invest better. Registration for the new edition is now open. The grand prize is 30,000 PLN, but unfortunately, spots are limited, so click the link in the description, sign up today, and regain control of your finances. The question is, professor, do they actually have that knowledge, because the example you mentioned is just one of many. Rafał Brzoska recently said exactly the same thing. I don't know if he said it in an interview, but I saw the quote or a comment he made on his social media that, in meetings, he saw that most of these politicians have never owned a business and that they simply haven't achieved anything in life, at least in the working groups he worked with. I recently heard from a military officer that, in these geopolitical times we live in, the first question politicians asked this man at a meeting—I won't name him specifically because that's not the point—was, "When will the pea soup be served?" And in these times we are in, where we should be discussing security in a substantive and concrete way and not wasting time, the first question from a high-ranking politician was when the pea soup would be ready. So, let's move to the second question, and I'll start with whether politicians even want to learn. Because you mentioned this, I would call it a parallel government— let's call it that—where politicians could learn economics, yet at the same time, politicians are imposing KSeF on us entrepreneurs, even though we produce a lot of the GDP, or, or, or most of the budget. They are introducing KSeF, and today we are talking about freedom, about those tools and solutions, where we as entrepreneurs choose freedom, we choose that liberty, of which there is less and less. How do you evaluate this? Because this KSeF is working. It was devised by politicians who, for the most part, have never worked, because those are the facts. They never worked in the free market, and only a minority of those politicians had their own businesses. An overwhelming minority. The majority never had businesses or lived off—we know, we won't talk about that. How do you assess KSeF? Is this another piece of freedom being taken away from us entrepreneurs in Poland? Let's talk about it; we must say it openly, as you, editor, have alluded to. Politicians live off our money. We had to earn it, we entrepreneurs and our employees. I mean , in the best sense of the word, our employees are like family to us. This is very important, because we spend more time with our employees than with our own families most of the time. So we earned our money through hard work, while politicians live solely and exclusively off our money and from our funds in the vast majority of cases. I've known politicians for 26 years, I've been around most Polish governments for 26 years. I left the village of Koryczany as a very poor man , literally without a penny, with just a promise of a job in Warsaw. And over those 26 years, I've had the opportunity to get to know most Polish politicians and most Polish governments . After all, I held various advisory roles, both external and internal, but I always kept my distance from all politicians, because in my view, it is an evil at various levels. Politics as such, and the mentality of politicians. So I keep my distance from all politics and I profess political ecumenism and project-based action. And this KSEF is just a great example of that, because, sir, ladies and gentlemen, please note that KSEF is just another form of burden. It is, it is, it is disastrous on several levels. First of all, it's nothing more than the surveillance of the entire Polish economy, because although the formal operator of KSEF is , of course, a state institution, the Ministry of Finance, the actual providers of the KSEF system are two private operators, who have also, in part, changed their ownership to foreign owners, right? As a software developer, I can say that, of course, the producer always has access to all information, because it's impossible for them not to, as they have to maintain this software. Inevitably, these foreign corporations that operationally supply this software have insight into the entire Polish economy, into all Polish enterprises. If anyone says otherwise, they must be extremely naive or not understand the entire structure of software and its specifics at all. So that is the first thing. The second layer is that for many entrepreneurs, it is, after all, an additional burden, both a financial burden and an operational burden. I also know—it must be said honestly— some entrepreneurs who are satisfied with KSEF, but in the overwhelming majority. For example, we in our companies consider it a burden for us. It's not a relief, it's just a burden. Why is this so important? Because someone might say, "Oh, it's just some extra burden, you'll just click three or four buttons, spend an extra 5 minutes." But there is something called the Laffer curve. This Laffer curve is, you could say, a—forgive the term, as I wouldn't want to say it's like a god of economics, because there is only one God—but it is an objective parameter of economics. That's what I mean. An objective economic parameter. It is a point where, once crossed in either direction—up or down—on that curve, the revenues of the Polish state, or any state, because it is essentially independent of geography or politics, will always decrease. So, if we raise it excessively, meaning the greed, the politicians ' greed, spilled over the moment they introduced their tax. And the point is, please take note of what has been happening over the last 16 months. Data for the last 16 months regarding the entrepreneurship market: 267,000 companies in Poland have closed or been liquidated—some suspended, others shut down—in the last 16 months. 267 thousand firms in Poland. Take a map and put it on the wall. Take those pins and stick in 267,000 pins. And now imagine that under each of those pins, there are 10 employees. Look statistically at how, over 16 months, there has been a drastic reduction in the capacity to fund the Polish budget, because that is where we started— where money comes from. And now, something like the KSEF might, from the perspective of some official, just be a few extra clicks, a few or a dozen extra minutes we have to spend, or maybe just 300 zlotys per company that we have to pay more each month to the firms that handle our accounting. But this parameter of the last 16 months— 267,000 liquidated or suspended companies—shows that we are in an extremely sub-optimal place on the Laffer curve. It’s not, you can’t look at it as just one element. Why are these 16 months so unique, and how do those 267,000 compare to, I don’t know, the last few years? What is the proportion? Oh, it’s a record. It’s a record for suspensions—I don't know if it’s not even a record for suspended and liquidated Polish companies since the year 2000. We also have a 20-year record for companies in restructuring. We also have a 24-year record of consecutive months in which unemployment has risen. Let's remember we had 10 or 11 consecutive months where unemployment only rose, and interestingly, the spring months didn't stop it, because usually the spring months slow it down. That was the first such instance in 24 years. We had 134,000 in terms of job losses. This is , this is, ladies and gentlemen, this is two-thirds of Katowice. That’s two-thirds of Katowice in just one year . In the transport industry, it breaks down this way: 1,100 companies went bankrupt last year and over 1,100 in the first quarter of this year, so one year and one quarter of the current year generated 2,200 fewer transport companies. I am speaking about net values, because both these 267,000 in Poland in general and in transport, I am speaking about net values—meaning, if we offset the companies that were created against those that were suspended or liquidated, we get these figures. Transport, ladies and gentlemen, generated 7%for us of the GDP, and there were record years reaching 13%, with usually around nine. This means that we only needed 11 more sectors like transport and we would have fully funded our entire Polish budget requirement. But ladies and gentlemen, how could it be allowed to effectively lead to liquidation by one's own hands? Because it was not the Mobility Package that liquidated Polish transport, but two successive government amendments that liquidated it—and one must say: both governments —because at the very end, the first disastrous amendment by the previous government, and later the current government’s amendment to the driver working time law, drastically increased labor costs for transport companies. What the current government and the previous government did at the end was introduce "supersocialism." Supersocialism—even in heavy socialism before '89, there was never a history of per diems and lump sums as compensatory benefits being subject to contributions and taxes, because they are only compensatory; they cover costs , increased costs. However, the governments decided to introduce supersocialism for us lately, taxing and charging contributions, thinking they would have higher revenues, right? Because the Laffer curve is relentless. And where will all that money go, which results from the Laffer curve, when it actually spills over and this government greed doesn't appear in the results, doesn't appear in Excel, and the budget deficit doesn't shrink? Instead, citizens say "enough," that there are so many contributions, appearing even in the elements you mentioned just now. So, will the gray market increase? But what does it mean, the gray market? Of course the gray market will increase . That is obvious to me. But what does it mean to have a gray market? It means there is no money in the official budget. And when it's not in official circulation, it means sidewalks won't be repaired, it means hospitals will be closed, some schools will be closed, and all our benefits will be at a lower level, roads won't be repaired, and new ones won't be built. So this is, this is, this is a road to catastrophe, and that is why we don't believe—I don't believe—after 26 years of dealing with politicians from all the parties that have existed so far. I believe there were 17 governments, if I remember correctly, or 14 governments, but there were some number of them since 2000, since I've been here, so I can only speak for that period. I do not believe that politicians are capable of handling the management of the state. they have no elementary skills, they have gigantic egos, and zero qualifications. I cannot understand how it is that to be a pilot , to fly a plane, you must have qualifications while carrying only 200 or 400 people. Yet to govern a state, it is enough to be a historian, because most Polish politicians are historians. I have nothing against historians, because I like history very much myself . Besides, as a lawyer, that’s naturally the case. So, it's clear that I value history. I highly respect all historians, and I even respect politicians as people. But these are two completely different things. To like someone as a person, versus respecting them as an administrator or a manager. They aren't managers, because where would they have learned it? Who taught them to manage anything? After all, you said yourself that most politicians have never run anything, not even a simple kiosk. They have no idea about running a business, so why should they manage a state? How is it possible—can you imagine a situation? Can anyone imagine a situation? You board a plane, and a handsome man stands up and says: "I’ll fly today because I'm a smooth talker and I’m likable, right? I look good and I can convince you; who votes for me to fly this plane—raise both hands and say:' Dear man, sit here, you’re cool, we’ll even buy you a drink, just please don't cause a disaster, because you'll just kill us all. '" So, where did this gigantic budget hole come from ? How is it that we have, sir, 100 billion in interest, meaning truthfully about 1/6th of the entire budget is just interest to be paid, because they don't know how to manage us. It is absolutely insane. Very often in economic materials and textbooks, you read that a modern state is always in debt. No, debt is always a dysfunction. The point is, it is always a dysfunction of the state and of governing the state. Let’s finally end this myth that a modern state must always be in debt. The point is that people say, and rightly assume, that there are forms of debt that can finally be beneficial for the Polish state if they are of an investment nature. For example, if we started taking on liabilities to build 5 or 10 nuclear power plants, and we had electricity at the same price as France , which is 1/5th the cost of Polish electricity. At 1/5th the cost of Polish electricity. That’s what France pays; the French and French companies pay that much for electricity . That would make long-term sense, that kind of investment. Please. However, consumption loans make no sense at all. They are only proof of fatal management . Why do politicians of successive governments take on these liabilities? because they just need to somehow survive those four years, or eight at most, because the terms are so short that, in reality, they only need to survive that long, take on debt, and show that things were good during their time, and that under others it will be or is worse. Either it was worse, or it will be worse, because for every subsequent government it will only become harder to manage Poland. We will get to the solutions shortly, to that sovereign individual—a direction we have been supporting on this channel for years—providing solutions not only in the form of financial transformation, but also many health-related solutions. After all, we know how the NFZ works, and the point today is not to list every single one of those elements. We did that at the beginning, too. Before we move on to the solutions—to the solutions that we as entrepreneurs can implement, like taking responsibility for our own financial path, which means starting a business—I would like to say this. And today we know that many Poles, despite all these problems for entrepreneurs, continue to keep their businesses running. And I think that the way Poland looks—and I say this personally and take full responsibility for it—is how it looks. It looks the way it does. In spite of politicians, not because of them, because some say we have this, that, or the tenth government, and it is thanks to them, or thanks to the EU, that we have such a Poland. I say we have it in spite of the politicians in Brussels, in spite of the politicians in Warsaw, thanks to your hard work, mine, the professor’s , and that of thousands and millions of Poles. Everyone gets up every day at 4:00, 5:00, or 6:00, goes to work, and generates taxes with their hands or their heads. And despite all these incompetent governments over the years, we have the kind of Poland that Poles are returning to after 20 years in Great Britain. Yesterday, I talked to an entrepreneur who was doing great things in England. He said that it’s impossible to live there anymore and he doesn't want to raise his children in such a place. He is moving to Poland. We will return to this topic, but I wanted to ask: Professor, where are we heading, then? Because before we sat down in the studio today, we were talking outside the office on the steps about those difficult times, the 80s and 90s, when there was real poverty, when people stole car radios, when they stole batteries, when they even stole hubcaps, when unemployment was at a level that reached 30%—that’s for sure, I don't remember the exact statistics, but there was that level of unemployment. Since you, Professor, say today that we are heading toward such a —well, an economic, disastrous situation, where we have 100 billion in interest alone, 1/6 of the annual budget, where is this going? Since many western neighbors, many people come to Poland and say: "Here is a model." You are doing great economically, in terms of values, security. We are truly a great country with great citizens, but we have bad managers. How will this end ? It will end well, because we will take power in the Polish state. I mean us, the community of entrepreneurs and the community of scientists. Because there is no alternative at all to our leadership. Because the alternative is not to pay homage to politics and politicians, who—I started, just as you started, from the moment I left the village of Koryczany not having a single zloty. Literally not having a single zloty, I only had promised food in Warsaw, I had a promised place to stay in Warsaw, and I had a promised advance in Warsaw. I didn't even know if it was likely. Starting with not having a single zloty, I built several companies, and they are leaders in their industries, in their fields. Therefore, as an entrepreneur—I have been an entrepreneur for 26 years. I know how to spend every zloty. I turn it over four times, I wonder if I should definitely spend it like that, if it will be rational or not. And for 26 years, I clash every day in my dealings with politicians who think exactly the opposite; they lack competence. I am tired of this already. I don't know about you, but I am tired of this. I am saying enough is enough. Enough of this management by these people without any competence, but with gigantic aspirations and ambitions instead. How many benches for 200,000 PLN do we see in our cities, monuments for millions, toilets for 7 million in every......with our millions and benches with our money, because no politician earned that. You earned it, the public and the employees who work wonderfully with us, because we earned it and no administration worker earned it. I have nothing against administration workers as such here. I think there are too many of them, but I respect them as people, so we understand each other. We won't divide anyone here; we will unite. We will unite the society, in this way of thinking, that we are the ones who bought the F-35s that were flying recently. I was asked to speak on one of the radio stations. What do I think about it? I said in the first sentence, I say that I thank all the entrepreneurs for buying us the F-35s, and the employees of those entrepreneurs, because we are the ones who bought these F-35s for ourselves. We bought everything for ourselves. We —it is very important that we believe that this is ours, that we earned it ourselves. We, the entrepreneurs, and we, the employees of the entrepreneurs. Once we understand that, then I know that we will fix everything else, because we actually know how to manage, unlike politicians. We have the hard skills, both in the form of appropriate education and proven evidence of effective management. That is exactly why we organized a government of entrepreneurs within the My Entrepreneurs association. I encourage everyone to visit myprzedsiebiorcy.org; as an organization, it is very important, and there is a form there you can use to sign up. If the editor is kind enough, we will also include a contact phone number and a link. We will put it in the description under this episode. Yes. And I encourage you, ladies and gentlemen, the response is massive. I will only say that, as of today, we have 3,500. companies that have signed up since the first podcast where I spoke about this topic not long ago. That is a massive level of interest, because the government of entrepreneurs is something ecumenical. It is also very important to say that this is an ecumenical organization. It does not matter what your political views are. That does not interest me in the slightest. Everyone has the right to have whatever views they want. But we are not talking about politics here. We are talking here about hard economics, about mathematics. About the fact that if there is a demand for 900 billion in the Polish state budget, there should be 900 billion in revenue from our work . And not from loans, because that only makes us slaves, and such a state must sooner or later collapse. There is one more issue. There is this great study by Thornton concerning the Polish economy. It says that if the Polish society increased the purchase of Polish products by just 1%, do you understand, the annual revenues to the Polish state budget would increase by 5 billion zlotys. Actually, the study states it could be as much as 6.6 or 6.2 billion, but let's say just 5 billion from 1%. What does that mean? It means that we, the government of entrepreneurs, are betting on Polish entrepreneurship. The Polish government cannot do that because European Union regulations forbid promoting the entrepreneurship of a given country. What an absolute absurdity. Economic patriotism in practice, my friends, we have been preaching about this for I don't know how many years. I encourage you, I'll just throw in a question here . Make today, after this episode, a day or at least an hour of spending your money in Polish businesses. I always give this example. When you go to a gas station to fuel your car, go to a Polish gas station. If you go to send a parcel, any parcel at all, go send it via a Polish company or drop it off at a parcel locker, which is...Of course, there are companies that invested foreign money into InPost's development , but it is still a company that employs tens of thousands of Polish people, yet a smear campaign appeared in the media that it sold out to the Americans. And I say, well, if it weren't for foreign capital in such amounts, then that company would not have developed to this scale. So let's head toward spending money at Polish companies. Go buy coffee at a Polish restaurant. Go to a Polish restaurant. Check this out. Of course, but obviously, this is the foundation. A study clearly showed that one zloty spent at a Polish producer, an entrepreneur producing and selling in Poland, leaves 97 groszy in Poland. With a foreign entrepreneur producing in Poland, it only leaves 47 groszy in the Polish budget, which is nearly half as much, right? It's even less in other categories, but it shows how fundamentally important it is to buy from Polish entrepreneurs producing in Poland, or foreign ones producing in Poland, because at least those 47 groszy of every zloty will remain with us, ladies and gentlemen. Now please imagine we are talking about 1%, but what if it were 10%? Well, we would have 50 billion, wouldn't we? And the entire budget is 600. Just look, we would have to take out 50 billion less in loans, which means we would have to pay less in interest. So it is theoretically, it is theoretically that simple. It is a matter of national awareness, sending the message that that hundred we spend every day. Check your budgets, your bank statements, to see how much money you spend every day. It is not a hundred, it is much more. Of course, refueling a car, that is three hundred just for refueling one car. After all, most of you have two cars and you fill them up sometimes once a week, so just the fuel alone. And where are the packages? Where is the food? Where, where, where are many of those elements that we, but we have banks, Polish banks and we have foreign banks, ladies and gentlemen, and one should also think in this regard, where to take out loans, yes, where we keep our money, where we keep our money, liabilities, interest, where it stays, all of this is truly ours. Regarding freedom, professor, because...because we are talking about what has been taken from us, or what–going to those solutions–that...that entrepreneurship, which is by definition a choice, is freedom, well, KSEW has complicated that for us a bit. But we, as Poles, do not give up, and even the association you mentioned is a kind of balance. I am curious how it will develop, so I am rooting for it, I will sign up myself, and I encourage you, my friends, we have many entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs. I encourage everyone to support it. Let's move on to cash, because in my opinion, it is another bastion of freedom, a bastion of that choice and freedom, that if I have cash, I decide where I take this money, who I pay, and what I buy. I mean, I'm independent of banks, that I can just withdraw cash, and not have to log into an app and, surprise, be unable to because of a technical break, or some error, or the app just crashed and I can't do it. But today we also see that this isn't just idle talk ; when we want to withdraw money from our account as an entrepreneur or make a payment at a bank. I have been experiencing this myself as an entrepreneur since 2009, where I want to withdraw money from my sole proprietorship or deposit it, and the clerk asks me increasingly detailed questions. I had one such conversation at a bank where I asked the clerk if she knew what she was doing. I asked very politely if she was sure she wanted to ask me these questions, and if she really understood where the line is being pushed here at the bank. I have been a client there for many years . And she says: "But we have to." And I say: "You don't have to." I say: "You don't have to, because it's us entrepreneurs, us employees, and you too, who work for...I do this from the bottom up." I talk to raise awareness. I don't yell at this clerk, because I know that her manager or the bank director told her she has to read those questions from the computer screen. And I say: "You don't have to; if I as an entrepreneur take a stand, you take a stand, then the director or manager takes a stand, then I say: they won't fire everyone." They won't fire everyone. And if everyone agrees to letting the clerk ask me where I got my money or for what purpose I am withdrawing my own funds, then that is the moment for entrepreneurs to stop withdrawing cash and decide to just wire transfers instead because it's too inconvenient. Do you see that this is really moving toward the total elimination of cash? Or is that impossible? It is moving toward an idea where the system will know exactly what the financial flows are, who is paying whom and how much, and will be able to draw specific conclusions from that. Well, KSeF is already doing that, after all. Undoubtedly, but KSeF is at the company level, whereas the whole system is for every single citizen in general. And now, those very questions you mentioned are the result of AML regulations. There is this law based on an EU directive regarding anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism. It has such a menacing name. Yes. It’s just that it turns out that 99.9999%of all entrepreneurs and citizens are neither terrorists nor are they involved in dirty money. The problem, the thing is, that this is just how it's named, at the semantic level, these kinds of tactics are being used. That’s how these laws are named , in order to justify in the human consciousness that we must be under surveillance, because what would happen if, say, one in a million citizens accidentally laundered money or was a terrorist. It’s so—please notice how cleverly this is presented, how cleverly it’s trained, how cleverly we are being manipulated. It’s the same with the "Quackery Act." Look at how this law is being named. That’s not its name; it’s not called the " Quackery Act," but such a name is deliberately used in the media space so that people think, "Aha, this law is good," the one restricting and shutting down the freedom of doctors who would want to treat patients differently than the National Health Fund dictates. " That's good, because of these quacks" —perhaps you understand what is happening here on this semantic, subliminal level of action? That is exactly what we are talking about, and so, the banks did not want to apply these AML regulations, because I know them exceptionally well, as I work with these AML regulations. Because of this, a gigantic number of Polish entrepreneurs are having problems. Polish entrepreneurs who traded with Asian markets, with African markets, who withdrew from the African market because there are enormous sums, reaching hundreds of millions of zlotys , of money blocked for entrepreneurs. Even here, not far from where we are recording, there is an entrepreneur who had 15 million zlotys blocked based on an absolutely bogus bogus case by both the bank and that AML body at the Ministry of Finance. Because the regulations were created in such a way that no Polish entrepreneur, no matter how competent they are, is able to demonstrate all the variables required by this AML act to confirm that they know where the money came from in Africa from their contractor, and that it was certainly clean as well, and that the money before that, from which they received it, was also clean. We don't have insight into any regulations concerning financial flows in Africa from African, Asian, or South American contractors, or anyone else, right? We don't, because we don't have intelligence or counter-intelligence services, we don't have relations with their tax authorities, etc., etc. We have no way to obtain this information. And what happened? Since the banks did not want to apply these regulations. They didn't want to. Respecting the interests of their clients, one of the banks was fined 20 million zlotys last year, I believe in June. In this way, all the others panicked so they wouldn't get a 20-million-zloty fine again, and they simply started applying these rules blindly by asking questions . I couldn't believe it either. Please believe me. Just like you, I went to the bank, I went to see the manager, and I asked the question: why are you asking these questions, right? You are questioning what I am spending my money on. Where they are above a certain amount. Those questions being asked. Yes. She says: "Sir, we have to, because we're terrified, we're afraid that we, as a bank, will get that fine. Just like everyone else. Do you know what's happening here? Do you realize what we go through, what people throw at us every day? How many rows and heated arguments there are here? How people treat these girls who sit here and ask these questions, and we are trapped because we don't know what to do. And the system closes in on everything, on everyone, the system closes in. We are just like slaves. And that is why we cannot afford to have cash taken away. No way. We cannot afford a situation like in China, where in one province they tested—because it's not true that this point system was introduced in all of China, but in one province they tested this point system—where you don't get money, you get points to spend in a specific place, at a specific time, with specific vendors. After all, they didn't test it out of curiosity, just to test it; they were preparing for a specific action. They were checking how people react, how public opinion regulates it, what the benefits for the system are, and what the downsides are, right? The system was ultimately suspended for now and it is not being tested further in that province for the time being, but the preparations are already there. We must not allow them to take away a single zloty, nor must we allow them to take away our cash. Why is there talk that we need to switch to the euro? Well, ladies and gentlemen, what are these successive governments after? For example, the Minister of Finance, why are they so insistent on preparing us for the euro? Well, because it is again a problem, the source is in the debt, because if we borrow, and 40%of our debt...they say that 30%of our debt is internal debt, but if we add the banks, which are admittedly registered in Poland under Polish licenses, but are actually Spanish, British, etc., etc. banks, then in reality 40%of the entire debt sum, which amounts, ladies and gentlemen—depending on how we measure it—to four times or three times the entire Polish, the entire annual budget revenue. That is how much we are cumulatively in debt, three times or four times, depending on the method we use to calculate it. There is one method from the European Union, the other is Poland's own. The European Union claims that we are in debt for four times our annual revenue. It's as if for four consecutive years we had to spend nothing, not a single zloty on anything. We would have to spend nothing on electricity, water, repairs, healthcare, or education to pay off our liability. It is a gigantic liability. It is astronomical, meaning not eating for 4 years and just working for free, not eating for four years, right? If everything we work for for free could miraculously appear, we would have to pay it off entirely. And now, ladies and gentlemen, so we have this gigantic debt. And the point is, if that is the case, if we have debt in foreign banks and institutions—because as I said, they claim 40%of our public debt is in foreign institutions—then we cease to be sovereign. And the government says that since 40%of the total debt is in foreign currencies—meaning it is in three currencies: the euro, the dollar, and even a bit in South Korean currency , interestingly enough, for our defense contracts—we are vulnerable to exchange rate fluctuations. Because if there is instability in our market, in our region, for example, in Central Europe, if some war or conflict breaks out, even a small-scale one, the value of the zloty will fall, meaning we will have to pay back even more of this debt . So we won't be paying back 2 trillion 200 billion zlotys at all; it could immediately grow to 4 trillion due to exchange rates. Mm. And that is why governments are pushing for us to adopt the euro. Because if we take the euro, convert, and lose the Polish currency to join the eurozone, we are told it is good because we won't be sensitive to exchange rate differences if turmoil occurs. But that is a false narrative. Because, Mr. Editor, I must explain why it is fundamentally false, as it assumes that we will keep getting into debt. Do you understand? That is just madness. If the Minister of Finance comes out and says:" We must adopt the euro to be safe. "Well, Minister, perhaps instead of liquidating 267,000 Polish companies in 16 months, we should create optimal conditions according to the Laffer curve in 16 months so that we build half a million companies and your entire budget is covered. That 900- something billion, so it would be covered by our taxes. We would gladly pay them as entrepreneurs and employees of those businesses. But only if we have something left, so please focus, Mr. Minister, Mr. Prime Minister, of this or that specific government and the next one to come. Maybe you should focus on the Laffer curve, on building that optimum which will result in twice as many companies in Poland, right? How many do we have currently? 3.2 million companies. If there are 6 million and they are all profitable, and costs are well-reduced, we will generate all our own revenue. We won't need a single zloty, which means our zloty currency is safe. There is no need to exchange it for the euro. But Professor, perhaps our frustration— especially yours today, as you've been speaking much longer, though I would direct similar answers toward politicians. Maybe we are addressing it wrong, because when I hear people ask why economic universities don't teach practical economics, or why politicians don't act for entrepreneurs? Another thing is that they don't understand entrepreneurship, because most have never owned businesses. We already talked about that. After all, it is not in the politicians' interest for citizens to be free, wealthy, independent, organized, and united, incapacitated. Financially, I would say they simply don't have to be dependent on this system. They, on the other hand , make people dependent on social welfare and so on. Governments don't really care about us having entrepreneurs, so I wonder if we are addressing this correctly, or if they aren't acting exactly as planned in some way. Because there is no point in believing at all. You know, Mr. Editor, the box of faith in politicians— current politicians, and I don't mean just this government, but those in power in general. Let's just close that box. I don't believe in them. We will change this country ourselves. I—how, because you said, how could what you mentioned happen, you used a statement a moment ago, that we will take over this government or... But we are already taking it over. I'll tell you, I've been doing it for 16 years. 16 years ago I founded the first association, which is the Best Way association. Within this association, I carried out 400 interventions. 400 at the state level, but I concluded that this is a dead end, because it took me 16 years, and I concluded that 400...my life won't be long enough. That is why I decided to set up another association ," We Entrepreneurs, "I'm mentioning it again, and there to establish a normal government of entrepreneurs that will generate 40,000 such interventions within three years. 40,000, not 400 over 16 years. Because we entrepreneurs joined in associations, and people in associations in general, have enormous statutory powers that we are not told about. It's just like you said, that politicians don't tell us about many things. They don't tell us that we are legally guaranteed the right, at the first reading stage, to enter the Sejm to attend a subcommittee meeting—not a committee, but a subcommittee—and submit a proposed amendment with a justification, and it must be voted on, and it is almost always voted on positively. That is where my effectiveness comes from: I am a lawyer . I know how it works from the legislative side. I know what the regulations say—that the legislative path dictates that at the stage of working on regulations in ministries and on bills at the first reading in subcommittees, the social element must participate. It doesn't participate because it doesn't know. Because if it knew, if politicians said in the media: " Come to the Sejm and say what you don't like, bring your own amendments, "the people would move, but then political parties would be unnecessary. That is why this knowledge is kept from us, because as it happens, I am a lawyer, I teach the principles of lawmaking, and I have participated— well, I have been participating for 26 years to a greater or lesser extent— in the legislative process. I know it inside out. The whole system, really; I know where we can enter, and that is why I create associations that are not ...we do not rely on any kindness or any favors from politicians. Ladies and gentlemen, for 26 years I have not had dinner with any politician, nor have I had vodka with any politician, nor beer , nor wine, and I don't intend to. Zero fraternization with politicians. Zero. We don't need their favors, because the law says that we can enter the work of the tripartite commission in the ministry, work on regulations as a social element, and work in the Sejm anyway. And that is exactly what we are doing. And now, how is this institution , which this entrepreneurs 'government is establishing, supposed to work systematically? What does that mean? It means we are dividing the state for now into—the entrepreneurs' government has divided areas of the economy into 22 such boxes. Maybe one day there will be 222 or 400, but you can't. You shouldn't make an organization too big at once, because when you do everything , you don't do anything well. So, for now, we have divided it into 22 boxes. For each of these boxes, we are dedicating one to three lawyers. Lawyers who, 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, do exactly the same thing they do in the ministries, only in the opposite direction—that is, they prepare drafts of bills, regulations, drafts of letters, strategies, and analyses of construction; and why lawyers? Because the world is legal. It is legal. It is this legal soup, because this table was created, this microphone, this glass— everything that is here was created within a legal environment. So there must be lawyers, because they have to be able to, so to speak, encode it in legal language. But of course, in each of these, oversight is provided by a council of experts, meaning people who are knowledgeable and experts in that discipline. And now, for the first time , we are operating systematically, that is 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, just like the state—our freedom system operates systematically to prepare actions in these areas. But that is nothing, because you also need to know that the state functions at the ministry level, and we have the right to participate as a social factor, that is, as associations. We have the right to participate in legislative work on regulations in the ministries, and as a government of entrepreneurs, we want to provide our experts to every ministry. To what kind of work? To all work, not just selected parts, not from time to time—to all of it. But that is nothing, because there are also tripartite committees working alongside the ministries. We want to staff all tripartite committees with our own expert teams. But that’s not all, because as I said, in the Sejm, all economic legislation can be processed with our participation to a greater or lesser degree, and we want to place at least three of our experts in every subcommittee to work systematically. This means that we will control 100%of what happens in the Polish state. But that is still not everything, because one must also remember that political parties function and exist. And how do political parties vote? Political parties generally vote as a block. This means that instructions are given to individual parliamentarians on how they are to vote. This is pure fiction of parliamentarism. What must be done to tear the deputies away from the party chairman, away from his power, so that they start voting as they autonomously and authentically want, and not as the party chairs want? We must abolish the" number one "institution in the minds of the deputies. Currently, if a deputy is not very well known, they only have a chance to get into parliament if they are in the number one spot on the list. If they are not number one, they won't get in because they aren't known. Party chairs know about this and they prey on it. That is, they do it by saying either you vote and maintain a 97%rate of voting in line with the party, or you won't get the number one spot. They might want to vote in a pro-entrepreneurial way, but they will never do it because they won't get re-elected, and most often they don't know how to do anything else in life. Given that they have a big ego, that would be a great dishonor. If they accidentally stopped being a deputy after some term, they vote as the party chair tells them, not as you want, not as I want, and not as the listeners who are, for example, entrepreneurs want. So I created a website which lists all 460 deputies and senators, but without division by party. And there, our economists and programmers have created an algorithm for negative points for votes inconsistent with the idea of the Laffer curve. No, so it would be objective, not just inconsistent with my personal idea of what is good or bad for the economy, but the reference point is the Laffer curve. You will see it officially in a few days. Yesterday we published and presented this website to our group of experts. In a few or a dozen days, all of Poland will see it, and we are assigning negative points there, and, of course, it will turn out there are, let's say, 100, maybe 200 members of parliament who vote against the interest of the Polish state as understood by the Laffer Curve, meaning against the interest of entrepreneurship, that is, to the detriment of entrepreneurship. If it is to the detriment of entrepreneurship, then it is against the interest of the state. Because we already established at the beginning that 90%of all budget revenue comes from us. So what will happen then? The members of parliament will have only two options to choose from. First, they will continue to vote as their party leader tells them, but they won't get elected anyway. They can be number one on the list, but if we, 15 million people, we entrepreneurs, say that we are not voting for these first 150 names because they voted against the interest of the state and against the interest of entrepreneurship. There are 3 million of us entrepreneurs, plus our families, plus our employees; they won't get anywhere. If we state in the media that such and such names won't get in, they won't get in regardless. Then, for the first time, it will finally pay off for them to vote in accordance with their own interest, their own conscience, and the interest of the state, rather than the interest of a political party. Because the interest of a political party is not the interest of the state. It's about getting to power, surviving four years, and if possible, eight. And then, obviously, leaving. And parties are not interested; that is why no party is concerned about any debt. To them, they could rack up debt at a rate 10 times higher as political parties, because that is not a party interest, because party interest absolutely diverges from the state interest and the interest of entrepreneurs. We are the greatest treasure. We entrepreneurs , and our employees, and the employees of entrepreneurs, are the greatest treasure of this state, because we provide 90%of all funding. There is nothing more valuable than us in the Polish state. No greater value exists in an economic sense, because everything that is in the state, or almost everything that is in the Polish state, we produce. That is how we must be respected, but we do not believe in politicians. That is why we are creating our own government of entrepreneurs. And that is why I cordially invite all of you here to sign up at www.myprzedsiebiorcy.org and join the government of entrepreneurs. We will build it ourselves; we will have our own budget of 100 million zlotys to start. We will create parallel foundations of the state ourselves. Over time, it will be such that we will train so many experts. Brilliant. For instance, you and a group of friends have created an educational system here, through your channel, regarding economics for the average Pole. We will create a similar one based exactly on the system you brilliantly developed, tailored for the level of entrepreneurs; we will train our own experts and eventually permeate the Polish state as undersecretaries, ministers, and directors. We will permeate it with people possessing expert competence. Professor, some intense emotions have emerged here. I let them out so they could be released, because it’s clear that all of this weighs heavily on your heart. I would use a few words here. First, some call Poland's situation— and such comments may arise—the first part of this interview as a bit of doomsaying, that things are bad, that everything will collapse, that we have such huge debts, that deficit, those 100 billion in annual interest. You could say the state is in shambles, that so many firms, 200,000 businesses suspended or in debt, and so on. Huge, truly huge numbers. Doomsaying. On the other hand, however, there are solutions and immense hope. Hope, but combined with the concrete solutions that you presented. I am convinced that many people listening today have not heard of this idea and haven't seen it yet, because it has been operating on the sidelines. People live in bubbles, focused on their own affairs; they haven't heard. That is obvious, so I am glad that this has emerged. And thirdly , I would point to the example of the Krakow referendum to recall the mayor —not the council, or rather the councilors, because the citizens of Krakow didn't succeed there—but I have the impression that for some time now (we don't have to frame it this way ), I would call it this: the country is waking up, not the state, but Polish citizens have had enough, that the cup is overflowing in many areas. Krakow is a great example; I won't get into politics, but if a city mayor tells residents, living on their dime, tells them on social media that if you don't like it, yes, then you can move out. Yes, even though I don't live in Krakow, I felt like I was slapped in the face. Even though I didn't live in Krakow, and don't live in Krakow, I thought to myself, what kind of arrogance is that? How can you speak to the residents of a city, a beautiful historical city, the city of Polish kings, in such a way? I thought, well, this must—at the very beginning I thought—there must be some punishment for this. I didn't suspect that the residents would get so angry. We know perfectly well what the consequences are. It's a different matter what happens there, who they put in place, and so on. That is something else entirely. But I think this is one of the first such signals to the authorities in general, whether it's municipal, local government, or the national one up in Warsaw, that residents actually matter, that residents actually have a voice, that entrepreneurs are a force, that farmers are a force, that, uh, that, that foresters are a force. After all, those associations, those huge groups of entrepreneurs...Farmers, farmers plus their families, that is probably the largest group in Poland if. If huge numbers of conscious people, wanting to live normally, not wanting to have a chain or a muzzle on their necks, this is happening. Would you, Professor, call this some kind of, I don't know, awakening? In general, many of these circles that today are not only watching, not only creating. Our own metamorphosis, where 10,000 Poles have signed up in the last three years who want to change their finances, who don't want to be dependent on banks, people are looking for alternatives in health because they see they have been deceived for many years. What would you call it? A few years ago, there was this general mobilization on a mental level. Uh, a few years ago, together with Paweł Johymek from Olkusz, we founded a social movement called" We the People, "which, one could say, also exploded, www.myludzie.pl, I encourage you to visit the website, because not everyone is an entrepreneur and not everyone is an employee of a company. There are also people who do not fit into this category, and people need to be integrated. And we created such a social movement, which, among other things, played its role in the matter of this referendum, the Krakow referendum, when I met with the deputy mayor, one of the deputy mayors of the city of Krakow, and I said:" We the people do not accept what you, what you , what you all are doing here. "We the people, let me explain this title, because the highest value in human rights is the right to dignity. Human dignity, meaning we the people, meaning we the people with dignity, we the people with the right to dignity. This is very important, right, not to disparage anyone, not to divide these people, but to unite and integrate people. They might sometimes be wrong, like some officials or politicians, but you still have to have a proposal for them. I say:" Mr. Mayor, Deputy Mayor, you know, it's very good that you introduced this clean transport zone. I like it very much, because until now I had nowhere to park. And now I came in my car, which consumes 21 liters per 100 kilometers. "I have so much space, and besides, I'm parked next to other decent cars, not some falling-apart wrecks." And he looked at me, and it took him a few seconds to realize that it was heavy irony. Once it hit him that it was heavy irony, I said: "What have you done? I mean, you’ve introduced the world's first segregation of people. You are segregating people into the poor who can't afford it, and you don't want them." The educated Krakow elites don't want the poor who can't afford new cars , but you're happy to let someone in with a car that burns 21 liters per 100 , and you have no problem with that. What are you doing at the human rights level? Honestly, that conversation of mine with him was a several-minute monologue, and really not very cultured or classy, but I didn't hold back from saying what I think. I said, we the people will modify this idea of yours anyway, and let's hope it ends with just a modification. And it turned out to be prophetic later, because it turned out there was an idea for a referendum and it ended, it ended very well. You see, we only hire public officials for ourselves. We entrepreneurs earned the money, and the employees of entrepreneurs earned the money for the functioning of the institution called the state, and we hired officials for ourselves. Each of us, in a fractional part, hires officials for themselves. We hired them just so that things would work better for us, for which we pay ourselves. And what do the officials do? How do they treat us during audits? As if the tail were wagging the dog; it’s a mistake, they’ve confused the order of things. Why? Because we don't speak up. There is a little bit of hidden, well, not intentional fault of ours, because we are beaten down by work. It's known that it's not our fault, but in the sense that it didn't occur to us that we need to say that we are the ones earning everything that exists in the Polish state. It didn't occur to us for years. We didn't speak up. Now we will speak up. There is a special campaign that also starts on Monday, in which we will speak up, and there will be thousands of such spots that you will see. We bought the F-35s, we entrepreneurs, we employees and entrepreneurs bought the tanks. We will distribute this information by the thousands, hundreds of thousands, that we bought this for ourselves. And we hired officials, and they have the nerve and the audacity to come out and talk to us and push us around during audits. How those audits look. I know, because I participate in those audits. I have experience with 12,000 administrative proceedings alone. Well, that's how many I've handled. Our law firm is quite large; it’s a quite large firm. Therefore, I really mean it when I say I have experience resulting from massive volumes. The result of this is that, through years of tolerating undignified behavior by officials—which we, the entrepreneurs , tolerated (not intentionally, but de facto we did, we didn't put up clear barriers against such practices)—a huge portion of the rulings by judges of provincial administrative courts is absolutely illegal, because it is based on reasoning prohibited by law. A huge portion, and it is significant for entrepreneurs because we, the entrepreneurs, in order to obtain building permits or any environmental permits, must work precisely within administrative law. A huge portion—I don't want to say the majority, but perhaps even the majority—is based on prohibited actions by both officials and judges. And I speak about it openly , even showing exactly what this illegality consists of. I personally file disciplinary motions against judges. It's not that I just talk about it, but I file them almost assembly-line style—motions for disciplinary proceedings against judges , and notifications to the prosecutor's office against judges and officials. I have been doing this for years, ladies and gentlemen. This is not just at the level of words and texts. That is why, to summarize this topic, in one of the petitions that you can still sign in the petition system, you can sign a draft amendment imposing financial penalties on officials and judges, as well as criminal liability for officials and judges for unlawful rulings and administrative decisions. It cannot be that we work 18 hours a day here, often 7 days a week, and almost every entrepreneur works at least 16 hours. We pump in this money and we are not even respected. You know , this is about such a fundamental thing, that there is no respect for us even from those to whom we pay wages, those we have hired. What you said about that president who spoke in that way, that is a lack of respect. And every day we experience this lack of respect from the people for whom we have collected this money. We collected it through hard work. Let us respect other officials, because they are people who deserve respect, but let them respect us just the same. Professor Mariusz Miąsko, we put a period here today. Freedom, sovereignty , and remembering that it is we who earned all this money for the budget. Not the politicians, you, the professor , myself, and our loved ones. Professor , thank you very much for visiting the studio and for so many wise words. Thank you. It was a great honor for me. Take care, look after your freedom. See you later. M