Of course I am thrilled every time I see Boni involved in solving any conflict on any issue. He has the disposition of a born mediator. And the innate ability to stay above the fray, solving immediate thorny problems without ever losing track of the long-term vision. In the government’s prior incarnation, he was the Minister At large for all thorny issues. And he was the only government rep who could be counted on to argue from and with real vision.

The heartbreak is in the recognition that he is gone, to be brought out potentially only in these rare cases when IT can solve a problem.

And the heartbreak was weaved throughout the interview. Minister Boni discussed the viability of setting hard deadlines for IT integration projects, he mentioned the nature of what he had learned from talking to IT managers, he named a few technicalities of the social security systems and health fund systems that need to be integrated in order that information concerning refund rights and insurance coverage prove shareable. He felt obliged to argue that the original system implementation at social security – widely known to be one of the biggest fiascos in the history of Polish reforms – had been a raging success.

So the competition to see who is the greatest visionary in the new government is wide open. No leaders, no favorites, no hints, few odds.

Find that underwhelming considering how common rowdiness and disorder are in Polish politics?  Let me add this little note:  it will happen without the opposition really even having to say a single word on policy.

Poland’s government is three days into the new year and has already opened several fights within its own ranks while leaving the windows open for the neighbors to listen in. Uncharacteristic.

Poland’s Finance Ministry and Treasury Ministry are fighting in the press over the shape of a tax to be placed on copper and silver mining, the domain of listed miner and smelter KGHM. We weren’t surprised when KGHM leaked its study, highly critical of the project, to the press. We were, however, a bit surprised to see Treasury Minister slamming the bill in a press interview and see the government’s own legislative study office publicize its own stiff criticisms throughout the press. The Finance Ministry rose to the challenge and fired its shots back at everyone via the media. Fun for me, of course. Probably just noisy for most everyone else.

Poland’s central bank had to issue the government a back-off warning this week, rebuffing Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski for a radio interview in which Rostowski claimed that the door was open for the central bank to buy Polish government bonds if market conditions deteriorated.  To date, we had considered cooperation between this government and this central bank to be model.

It’s unusual to say the least.  This has often seemed like a very disciplined government. And when not disciplined, at least quiet.  Nobody’s nerves get frayed listening to these guys. Prime Minister Donald Tusk is a master of defusing thorny issues and pointed questions and calmly addressing the underlying issues.  And, to everyone’s continuing amusement, every election victory or concession speech he issues continues to focus on the value of Love in politics.  (Yes, I wrote “Love in Politics.”  Seriously, I’m not making this up)

It highlights the old question:   has the relative peace and quiet within Polish government circles been a sign that this crowd is a new breed of Polish politician, something like responsible adults who can actually show discretion and appropriate behavior?  Or a sign that that ambitions have been too low to generate any major conflicts?

That the infighting has begun to this degree over the copper and silver tax is a worrying sign.  It affects one company from a little corner of Poland where the government party doesn’t have a single vote to lose.  What will happen when they begin debating retirement age which affects the entire nation (admittedly gradually over time) or farmer health care premiums (admittedly small payments, but still the domain of the junior coalition partner) or uniform services pension programs?

If there is anything comforting to be said, it is that the fighting could be restricted almost exclusively to within the government. My next prediction for 2012:? That the main opposition party PiS will spend another year ignoring great opportunities to attack the government on policy and prefering to exorcise its own ghosts.

And it is this:  if your news service is tied to a trading terminal, you are beholden to the type of journalism that provides value for traders. And value for traders is a simple equation built on increased volumes and increased spreads.

So you go for the market mover EVERY TIME. No matter if it is there or not. No matter if the calm investment story is more compelling than the dramatic trading story.  And you make it as market moving as you can. Drama trumps news judgment.

And to make matters worse, you have to beat your competitors for price-moving drama.  Because what kind of newswire are you if your competitor offers bigger price movements for their traders than you give yours?

Today I attended the briefing at which bank PKO BP announced the debut of its Eurobond issue on the WSE’s Catalyst bond market. With nothing to offer their traders on that that topic (Sadly, nobody trades on the still-infant bond market), the trader terminal agency journalists offered a question on Q4 earnings, a would-be price mover.

Coverage by Bloomberg:

*PKO BANK `HOPES’ TO MATCH 3Q NET INCOME IN 4Q, PAPIERSKI SAYS
2011-11-22 10:15:55.593 GMT

Papierski Says PKO May Match Third Quarter Net Income in Fourth
2011-11-22 10:19:53.714 GMT

Nov. 22 (Bloomberg) — PKO Bank Polski SA, Poland’s largest lender, “hopes” its fourth-quarter net income will match the result in the third quarter, Deputy Chief Executive Officer Jakub Papierski told reporters today in Warsaw.

Coverage by Reuters as I found it online:

WARSZAWA, 22 listopada (Reuters) – Bank PKO BP SA liczy, że w czwartym kwartale 2011 roku uda mu się wypracować miliard złotych zysku netto, powiedział we wtorek wiceprezes banku Jakub Papierski.
“Chcemy się rozwijać. Miejmy nadzieję, że tak” – powiedział dziennikarzom zapytany o miliard złotych zysku w ostatnim kwartale tego roku.
W trzecim kwartale zysk netto PKO BP po raz pierwszy w historii przebił poziom jednego miliarda złotych, a w okresie styczeń-wrzesień bank zarobił na czysto 2,86 miliarda złotych.

Or, as I found a paragraph in an English language Rueters version, with interesting grammar:

He also added that the bank hopes that its net profit this year would surpass 1 billion zlotys for the second consecutive quarter in the last three months of the year.

Here is the story as I saw it and reread it from my notes:

Asked by journalists at the end of a long Q&A session on the sidelines of a Tuesday briefing if his bank can repeat Q3 earnings in the current quarter, VP Jakub Papierski visibly waved off the question, using it as his excuse to break away from agency reporters in favor of a TV appearance.

“We always try to grow and develop,” Papierski said to end the chat. “We hope to keep growing.”

As I understand it, the PKO BP press office is currently working over what type of correction to possibly demand.

My sympathies.  It will be hard to demand the correction that says Papierski doesn’t hope for such earnings in Q4.  Such a correction would,  however, get dramatic bold headlines in the services.  The correction claiming that he just didn’t say that, however, can’t be traded and might fall on deaf ears.

More later.

But it happened.

What I have always admired about Tusk is his ability to get quickly and consistently to first principles.  He virtually never gets tied up in the details of a debate, as is the norm for an overly loquacious political class. He sees through journalist questions and opponent attacks to the motives that lurk beneath. His answers defend the particular by laying the principles and values that define the general. And I’ve loved it. Nobody pins him down. Every issue is a chance for Tusk to speak to all Poles at the level of underlying tone.

[Some will say that it is not Tusk constantly reaching for first principles so much as he is avoiding details where he has none to offer, that the government hasn't been ambitious enough for Tusk o have to defend any specific policies. Only marginally true.  They have advanced some issues and Tusk uses the style just as well in fending off the opposition, rejecting populist demands, advancing Poland's foreign affairs agenda, et al.]

On few topics has Tusk done this better than on economic policy, where Tusk faces off against the legion of reform-fetishist economists sufficiently enthralled with Poland’s initial shock therapy reforms to dream of a world in which Poles live in constant revolution as Poland makes massive new leaps daily towards the free market paradise. They missed the part when Poland graduated to the class of nations sufficiently advanced to be able to forego revolution for evolution.

“I don’t work for the satisfaction of economists, but for the well being of average Poles” is a mantra repeated ad nauseum throughout the past term. He takes both the calls for radical market reforms, usually supported by fancy economic and financial indicators, and the populist demands for wild spending and whip their authors with the same bare bones definition of good stewardship and husbandry.

I’m a financial journalist, some would say a lackey of those mystical foreign investors who gain as hard working Poles bear the price of reforms or some such drivel. Someone will always say something.

But I’ll be the first to tell you.  It is glorious when Tusk hands out the graceful smack-down.

Then there was the Friday policy speech. Against all odds, Tusk detailed a long list of quite specific reforms to taxes, fiscal policy and pension policy deemed necessary to shore up Polish finances as the financial crisis rages in Europe.

The array of policy initiatives proved wide: Poland will rejig child tax breaks, eliminate select tax breaks, raise and balance retirement ages for men and women, partially unwind a prior cut to the social security premium, eliminate select pension privileges and begin a reform of farmer pensions that will gradually lead even to setting income tax on farmers.

You would have thought Tusk was addressing a convention of ratings agencies. Any or all of those reforms might be good or necessary. Let’s not debate that; the hacks are on it already.  Just wrong language to wrong audience.  A glaring lack of stewardship and husbandry.

And it was Janusz Palikot, formerly of Tusk’s own party and now leader of what appears to be the only vivid and legible opposition, who capitalized.  The mainstream media will focus on the personnel jabs (“You waxed Schetyna, so now you have to suck up to Gowin”) because they like the personal drama. But Palikot’s meta-message is what I’ve been describing. Speaking to Tusk from the podium,  Palikot said: “Your entire expose can be reduced to ‘I have an idea about how to make the threat of the crisis a bit less’. But that is all.” On vision and declarations of what national strengths are drivers of Poland’s future growth – that is, on Tusk’s own traditional strength – Palikot actually challenged the PM to name a few.

The Premier of the Palikot Show suggests a strong start to the season. The Tusk rebuttal begins in under an hour.  Polish Parliament is back after an absence.

So am I, perhaps. Sorry for the lack of posts.

And I am going to propose it for the public good.

I propose the broad promotion of dark corners lobbying and behind-closed-doors deal making. I propose channeling corporate and other money to high-paid well-placed lobbyists who schmooze with Polish legislators round the clock. I propose opening Parliamentary doors to corporate big-wigs drawing big salaries to wine and dine MPs.  I support government subsidies to get such a fledgling dirty lobbying industry on its feet.

And here’s why:  because loser Polish politicians who have failed once, twice, three strikes but not out, need a place to go.  A place largely out of sight, but where their limited qualifications have some use. A place where television appearances – which run a rather high risk of irritating me – are actually bad for their shady business dealings.

Because I can’t really take it anymore.

What does one really have to do to get a red card in Polish politics?  Does anyone ever just go away?

Poland is a training ground for libertarians.  By not giving its failed politicians a back door to (something that at least they might consider) self-respecting employment – or anything to take those losers out of the public eye – Poland drives home the point day after day ad nauseum that politicians by and large are people who, by definition, don’t know how to create value (read:  hold a real job) in the real world. If they could, they would. Or might.  Or at least have something to fall back on.

Since the election, the TV screens have been filled not only with the winners, not only the recent losers (SLD’s Napieralski), but the likes of Leszek Miller, Roman Giertych, Jozef Oleksy and other loser reminders of yesteryear. Sometimes a yesteryear better forgotten.

Roman Giertych, I understand, is a lawyer. And is making a living. God bless him. I will almost tolerate his presence. I do not understand the motivations of the television producers, but I do appreciate the fact that Roman doesn’t necessarily need the limelight. I worry that he kindles hopes of comeback, but I kindle my own hopes that he at least has an option to stay away.

But journalists are asking former Prime Minister Leszek Miller (perhaps you recall a not so distant connection to perhaps the greatest corruption scandal in post-communist Poland?) if he would take charge of SLD now that Napieralski is on the outs following that little election fiasco.   People!  The very fact that Leszek Miller is still free to take the job – six plus years after Rywingate – should disqualify him. Leszek, get a job.

Former Prime Minister Jozef Oleksy, once upon a time, had given hope.  After “leaving” politics, he showed up as a supervisory board member for a listed residential real estate developer responsible for smoothing over business deals in Russia. Alleluia!  The former Prime Minister, accused of being a Russian spy, finally putting his qualifications to work for the greater good. But what happened?  Sometime later we all heard the announcement of his pending glorious return, secretly recorded: “I’ve been reading a lot of books and I am going to be sharp as a f***ing razor” (no, I am not making that up) and, true to his word, here he is.  On TV. Sounding wise as ever.

My advice:   Somebody find Grzegorz Napieralski [who led the leftist party SLD to a jaw-dropping defeat in the elections] a well paying job doing nothing somewhere.  Anywhere. Right Now!  And I mean well paying, no half-assed measures. Nothing less than Senior Executive Vice President of Company X for Management Board Private Indiscretions. Big bucks. Give it to him now, under threat of having him return to politics.

[My vote for best tweet of the week went like this:   SLD survived the Moscow Loan (what it sounds like), Olina (Oleksy's alleged code name as a Russian spy), Rywingate (see above), but not Napieralski. It turns out that that this is truly a historic figure.]

Americans loathe the practice of having failed and compromised politicians go to private lobby practice. Vote a person out of office and they just take the higher paid office down the hall or down the street. It’s vile. They keep doing what they’ve always done, only for bigger money and outwardly against the public interest. Corporate and special interest money.  When I lived there, I derailed it too.

But for about the past 72 hours, I have seen the light. Genius.

I said, more or less that locals fall to technical analysis as there is no ready means to attribute anything that happens on the Warsaw broad market to any fundamental factor in Poland. Sure, any given firm might react to news its generates, but few broader signals act as drivers. Specifically I said:

  you can almost NEVER list any generic cause for a market gain that happens in Poland.  You can almost never write that the market gained on a strong Polish GDP reading. Because it never does.  And you can never write that the Polish market declined on weaker than expected Polish industrial output or a weak jobs reading, or a weak Polish anything. Because it never does.  Too much foreign money flowing in and out, driven by whatever little whimsical factor (butterfly wings?) it is that drives sentiment and risk appetite globally.

And the obvious answer is to stop writing about markets as if Warsaw was the center of it all.

My hat off to the Warsaw Stock Exchange and its largely successful bid to be the “Financial Hub of Central Europe” as they never tire of calling themselves. But that doesn’t make it the financial hub of Europe or any even larger domain.

So right here and now, little old me calls on the nation’s daily newspapers Gazeta Wyborcza (which gave up on market reporting entirely – shame), Rzeczpospolita, Polska The Times, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna and the nation’s radios (and you’d be amazed how much radio news there is and how many people rely on it) to begin all daily market reporting with a broader view.

• Lead with European markets. Broadly.  Reference DAX, CAC40, FTSE, other nations as necessary.
• If market directions must be attributed to plausible causes (and check my rant again before taking that too far), have them be the broad European and global causes that drive European markets.
• Put performance of the Warsaw Stock Exchange no higher than the second paragraph and closer to the third or fourth paragraph on average.
• More segment reporting. If cyclicals lead the sell-off or rally in the west, how does the comparative relative performance of those sectors look in Warsaw?  etc.
• Of the individual stocks listed, cap the list of Polish stocks at half of the total in the article.  Introduce readers to the largest listed foreign firms (with possible reference to their size relative to Polish-listed firms).
• And hold off on the technical analysis. Or at least add with caution and explicit caveat for what it is.

It would be accurate.  It might make retail investors demand a broader palate of investment options from their banks & brokers. It would be another small step towards European integration. Let readers have it how it is, not filtered through the lens of the self-absorbed Polish exceptionalism of the Polish media. (Major caveat to that criticism, by the way, for the effect of the Polish EU Presidency on the Polish media – but more on that some other time).

I am sensitive.  Particularly to the criticism that the media create false realities through the power of thoughtless repetition. You’ve all heard a similar criticism before:  western news agency reporters when writing about the day on the market always attribute the day’s gain or loss to a single factor in the lead:  Market gains on jobs report; market loses on jobs report; market gains on soft inflation reading;  market gains on latest monthly production data;  market gains on FED-speak; market loses on FED speak.

The reductionism of the billions of market driving factors each day is unbearable and the distinction between cause and correlation deserves better defense. The only positive aspect of this journalism crutch is that it does acknowledge how often markets reflect the real world around us, as opposed to possibly creating it.

I’d prefer to bring in Edward Lorenz with a little  “Markets gained after a butterfly flapped its wings inIndia” and put us well on our way to chaos theory. But the sad upshot may be, that with each and every agency writing two to five times daily: market up/market down on insert single factor here, we may have bolstered the generation of investors that buy and sell on insert single factor here.

Having heard all of the criticism (Columbia Journalism Review reminded me of it recently with this note on puts Reuters & Bloomberg) I have tried to avoid the reductionist drivel. Even though the style guides of the big time agencies make it a requisite.  A fact stated without an attributable cause doesn’t stick in the mind, some say.  So slap a plausible narrative on any old fact you can pass for news.

I write:  The market gained.  Or I write The market declined.   If I ever wish to get fancy I will write it as it is:  the market rose as supply outweighed demand.  Or perhaps:  the market fell as demand outweighed supply.  Or a variation on those themes.  Perhaps after speaking to a dozen traders I might get fancy: markets gained as a plethora of buyers proved more aggressive than a relatively limited number of would-be sellers.  You get the idea.

[èDigression:  my secret fantasy lead: "Markets gained / lost on the cumulative effect of a huge horde of relatively random transactions. " It’s the bare truth. Interesting to find out how quickly I would be looking for a new job.         è Digression to the digression:  Perhaps I just hope to get back to such days after weeks and weeks of describing markets these days.]

The Polish media seems to suffer on this point of attribution.

All the more so in that you can almost NEVER list any generic cause for a market gain that happens inPoland.  You can almost never write that the market gained on a strong Polish GDP reading. Because it never does.  And you can never write that the Polish market declined on weaker than expected Polish industrial output or a weak jobs reading, or a weak Polish anything. Because it never does.  Too much foreign money flowing in and out, driven by whatever little whimsical factor (butterfly wings?) it is that drives sentiment and risk appetite globally.

And left with the desire to say more than up / down but with nothing tangible to which market moves can be quickly attributed, the media has taken to technical analysis.  With a passion.  And now with a dependency.

You would be AMAZED at how many texts about markets lead with or focus on technical analysis.

On any given day, the Polish newspapers – even the newspapers for the general public – may lead their market coverage with a sentence like:  “Polish stocks fell Wednesday, driving the large-cap WIG20 index below support at 2200 points and opening the door for further losses to 2150″ or some such drivel.  You can hear it on the radio. You can hear it on TV.

Western readers will not believe that.  At all.  They have never in their lives seen such a text in the papers or heard such insider chatter on the radio or TV. And Polish readers will not believe that anyone would even be slightly surprised by it. They have never known much else.  Worlds apart.

I don’t wish to denigrate technical analysis: it is really the ultimate social or behavioral study. The data set is enormous beyond measure. Markets provide perfect data on human behavior: prices and volumes, the full history of supply and demand. The market record shows different types of personalities, different types of investors and how they make themselves felt at varying key market moments.

It’s historical data, so what you learn, you learn through induction with all the associated perils. But as long as the patterns hold you can trade on it and make good money. At its simplest level, technical analysis might simply tell you that historically a lot of people have been known to buy in at a given level or sell at another level. At its best, tiny formations in market charts can tip investors off to the fact that certain types of investors are about to get in, get out or otherwise make a recognizable move that can lead to a company soaring, tanking, changing trend, what have you.

For many Polish journalists, I suspect, technical analysis is a soother in an unpredictable world.  How wonderful to be able to confine the future within an identifiable trend. The market fell today? Don’t worry, support is waiting just 20 points away. Break out of the short-term trend? Don’t worry, the medium-term trend line is holding. 

Insert Taleb Black Swan discussion here.   And with good reason.   These are ugly times with ugly markets.

But the ugliness is no longer confined to markets.

Listen toPoland’s deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy Waldemar Pawlak speaking Friday both on talk radio station TOK FM and separately to journalists:

“On the stock market we have come back to the lows which we had in August. If they are broken, particularly in theUSA, then we could go to levels like we had at end-2008 and the beginning of 2009. If we look at the charts of the [Warsawbroad market index] WIG, the lows we currently have are lower than what we had in mid-August. From the point of view of technical analysis we can expect further declines. This is a rather dangerous moment.”

Can you believe that this guy draws a salary on Polish taxpayer money?  Isn’t it this guy’s job to redirect investors away from non-fundamental factors and constantly convince investors – even financial investors – that Polish fundamentals are sound and worthy of investor confidence?  Is it the job of the deputy Prime Minister of a nation to warn investors that “this is a rather dangerous moment?” What on GOD’S GREEN EARTH does his job have in common with technical analysis?

But it got worse. Much worse. Here is what Pawlak told the radio audience:

“The world is on the edge of a crash. If markets head down, then a longer period of crisis will ensue. . . For us it means the necessity to prepare a clever program in the macro and micro sphere.”

If your jaw is not on the floor, reread.

The deputy Prime Minister of Poland may be using technical analysis of stock markets to determine if the government needs to prepare “clever programs” for an extended crisis. Poland’s own Minister of Economy appears to believe that the length of the economic crisis will be determined by the strength of the current technical supports of the market.  Is Pawlak being wagged by his own tail?  Unless, of course, you believe thatPolandwould develop “clever programs” with micro and macro elements for a crisis restricted to stock markets.

Is there a twelve-step program for this?

They call it the Dismal Science, economics. But, as we were convinced in a recent conversation with Monetary Policy Council member Jerzy Hausner in a mountain hideaway, it need not be conducted devoid of the humanist touch.

For Jerzy Hausner has infused his policy view with his poetry. And vice-versa.

The poetry of Jerzy Hausner, quoted below, is an open door to where the humanist soul meets the hard data then faces the simple policy option:  to adjust rates or not to adjust rates.

Forced to turn the baffling plethora of economic inputs into a binary decision, Hausner speaks to the edges of things, tests boundaries, seeks a trigger and asks the timeless questions:  When does a line become a path? When does a signal constitute a message?  And when is it justified to act?

Emphatic in his declaration of the here and now with his mesmerizing repetitive cantata of the current policy bias, Hausner can swing suddenly to flighty musings on how every here and now invariably evokes premonitions of future evolution. Like as the shadow traversing the mountain landscape that day measured an uncertain territory between night and day, so for Hausner economic data, modeled projections and sentiment indicators can carry us through the precarious pauses between a tightening bias and and a neutral policy stance.

The Poetry of Jerzy Hausner

The Signal

This is a signal,
but we cannot react
to a single
signal.
Undeniably
it is an important signal.
One cannot ignore this signal,
but to the question if this signal
is a trend or a certain statistical effect
we must look deeper,
check its origins.
We need deeper analyses
and we will conduct these analyses
before we make further decisions.

Clarity

It could be
in a month,
two months
or even later.

It could be
one hike,
two hikes
or even three.

But I would like to say clearly,
seeing as the council
accepted a policy line
and announced
what that policy line is,
that we will hold that line.

And when we change it,
we will say so clearly.
And we will change it
when the projection signals clearly
that we are entering a different phase
of conducting monetary policy.

Risks & Act-Taking

There are many risks;
that is why we act.
That is why we accelerated.
We wish to avoid them.

The Line that Would Bind

This is a policy line
which the Council clearly supports . . .
Such is the principle,
such is the methodology.
Today I can declare
that the level to which we have worked out this mechanism internally
is such, that I am convinced
that this is just how the council thinks
and how the council will proceed.

Decisions
Decisions follow from a certain policy line
leading monetary policy.

We have defined it,
presented it
and our statements at this point are confirmations
that we continue
with this line.

But this is not a situation
in which a policy line
designates an interest rate path.

Anticipation

In the second half of this year
and next year,
on a four-quarter horizon,
we expect CPI to decline
and come closer
to the inflation target.

As a result, one could say,
that in a certain sense
in anticipation of what will happen
and that what we do will succeed,
we have in our consciousness
the fact
that perhaps
at some point
the phase of monetary tightening
will be finalized.

Subliminal Counterfactuals

Today
we can take into consideration
a situation
a situation in which we will have
a different phase.
A phase in which we will try
to hold interest rates
for some time.

It is something buried
in the back of our minds.

The horizon of completing
the current phase
of monetary tightening
appears
in our reflections,
in our conversations,
in our projections.
It does not yet appear
in our decisions.

???

the question arises:
should we modify
the council line?

I don’t know if this will be the case,
but it seems to me
to be a relatively realistic
expectation.
But it is still
just an expectation.
We speak of that which may happen,
but need not.

Moments in the phase

Every moment
when we receive a quarterly projection
is an important moment.

Some of these moments
are of a nature to signal
the need to adjust our line;
while others,
to continue.

Today we can say
that this could be a projection
giving us a signal
of the need to modify the line
rather than a signal
of the need to continue.

But that is my feeling.

If there will be such signals,
then – in my opinion –
we will first signal
that the end of the policy tightening
is nearing
and later signal
that the cycle has ended
and that we will now be watching to see
if what we have achieved
can be maintained.

For now we consider
how to conduct policy well
in this phase,
a phase of policy tightening.

The phase has not ended.

All quotes culled from the authorized interview transcript for PAP published May 27.

The media continues to live and breathe trumped-up hopes that a Pole will replace the tarnished Strauss-Kahn at the IMF, gleefully building on the extremely shaky foundations that got the story going in full.

To recall:  the local media built a thoroughly irresponsible news spiral on a blog entry from the WSJ calling NBP chief a good man for the IMF job, recasting it into a strong candidacy to be pressed behind big European closed doors (my post). Belka put paid to the claim in strong terms & the local WSJ authors protested, but to no avail.  The benediction of Polish aspirations by a foreign press name will run its course.

And now you identify the point at which the joke starts to be on the media.

By the time of the evening news Wednesday, three Polish candidates were lined up for the IMF top post.  The three B’s:  Marek Belka, Jan Krzysztof Bielecki and Leszek Balcerowicz. An evening news journalist with known political preferences tipped her hat to Belka and Bielecki (need to know who he is, by chance?), but focused on the glorious and all-knowing Balcerowicz, author ofPoland’s transformation and source of all wisdom. How could the IMF have overlooked him to begin with?  Well, you get the idea.

And the race is on.  Expect the question to be put to the Prime Minister, the President, the opposition leaders, the pundits, the man on the street:  which Pole ought to lead the IMF?

If you haven’t said the jokes on us by now, you missed your cue.  Or you’re not the type to get a laugh from a dog chasing its tail.

Deputy Prime Minster and Minister of Economy Waldemar Pawlak proved media-savvy and caught on quickly.  When the microphones were jammed at his mug this morning, he added a “maybe Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski?”

If you still haven’t said the jokes on us, you’re proving a rather sober type. But don’t fear, there may yet be opportunities for those more moved by farce.

On that note, tell them that I can’t take the IMF post. Personal reasons. Or wait for the part when the next IMF chief is selected in European salons just as the local debate over which Pole is best reaches its pinnacle and the tone shifts to blame-laying.  Who is to blame for allowing this post to escape?

Unless some shiny object shows up somewhere to distract the ADHD media herd.

Based on a BLOG entry, Poland lived and breathed its hopes that NBP chief Marek Belka, a former IMF heavyweight, might take the post.  At the same time, Poland may have set a new record for the fetishization of foreign opinions concerning Poland. Just don’t tell them the authors are two Poles from the home team in a three-person Dow Jones correspondent bureau.

The all-business news station TVN CNBC couldn’t repeat it enough, nor could sister station TVN24.  “The Wall Street Journal says . . . ” “The Wall Street Journal says . . . .” sounds just too sexy.

Do the google news search:  it made it online for daily papers:  Gazeta Wyborcza, Rzeczpospolita, Puls Biznesu, and forsa.pl, to all of the main Polish portals (thanks in no small part to the media wing of my own agency), and in Polish state radio and state television.

Then do the google translate:  Belka went from being what WSJ considers a good man for the job, to a candidate whose name is being pressed behind various closed doors.

People!  It came from a Blog! Written perhaps with a bit of excess grandeur, it purports to be nothing more than the opinion of two Dow Jones (WSJ) correspondents that Belka has what it would take.

One of the authors, a journalist who has long worn her admiration for Belka publicly, spent some time online trying to clear the record. “This is what you call heating things up!” she wrote on Facebook. “WE DID NOT WRITE that Belka is running for IMF chief, only that HE WOULD FIT THE BILL WELL. And we did not quote NBP CO-WORKERS, but only ‘people who know him.’  It’s just a bit of difference.” (translation mine)

So did Belka.  He called the talk “from another planet.”

“Speculations that a Poles could be the IMF director are entirely unjustified,” he said for . . . TVN CNBC, which continued to press the story and its WSJ credentials for much of the day.

Poland ought to get over its obsession with how outsiders see it or present it. Having the Wall Street Journal – respectable as it is – promote a Polish issue is not reason enough to put aside journalism principles.