Kaiser Bauch

Publishing on Substack

[Kaiser Bauch @KaiserBauch]

Follow my work on Substack !

https://t.co/GypxOadApX

It will be my main platform from now on!

[Kaiser Bauch @KaiserBauch]

@PetrosKecyaPoli @petr_zabza https://t.co/lENwNasc4g Česko je jedna ze 6 zemí z 34 zkoumaných kde víc lidí hodnotí kapitalismus pozitivně než negativně. Češi mají kapitalismus "raději" než kterákoliv západní země s výjimkou USA a Polska.

[Kaiser Bauch @KaiserBauch]

@texaggie9325 I do not think that is really what soft power means

[Kaiser Bauch @KaiserBauch]

This is indeed true—US soft power has declined over the past decade or so. America's allure is now very much confined to economics. That's still a hugely important and powerful area, and Europeans are usually in denial about the growing gap between the US and Europe. But you can often talk to people who go to America to make a lot of money and achieve business success despite the way life in America is, not because of it.

[Latte @Ichbins8]

For all the hysterical discourse, people in Europe saw the US *way* more aspirationally when I was a child.
This aspect has been continuously declining my entire life.

[Kaiser Bauch @KaiserBauch]

@ConcaveMMT It is a matter of scale. 5000 fans look like a lot whe they are on one place, but it is miniscule part of population of any state. Also there is load of Bosniaks in Western Europe with higher incomes.

[Kaiser Bauch @KaiserBauch]

Europe is a continent that holds about $104 trillion in private wealth—roughly 23% of all private wealth on earth—and has 750 million people. Germany alone has more private wealth than all of Latin America. Europe could decline economically for another century and still have no trouble generating a few million people to travel to the World Cup, the Olympics, or any event you can imagine anywhere in the world. There are fans traveling to the World Cup from Senegal and Uzbekistan. It's retarded to draw conclusions about countries based on that, in either direction—good or bad.

[Urban Immerser @Urban_Immerser]

Maybe "Europe" is not as poor as the propoganda and GDP per capita implies!

[Kaiser Bauch @KaiserBauch]

For people who are into demographics, go listen to @MoreBirths on the @razibkhan podcast—great episode with a lot of interesting information.

[Marcin Piatkowski @mmpiatkowski]

Updates on the idea of „bringing the manufacturing jobs back to the 🇺🇸:

„US factory employment has fallen by 77,000 jobs since the president’s second term began, according to official data, while private spending on manufacturing construction fell in April to $15.2bn, down about 16 per cent since January 2025.”

US manufacturing jobs fall at fastest rate since the pandemic https://t.co/gPOmDgDD8g via @ft

[Kaiser Bauch @KaiserBauch]

This post is to a certain degree correct, yet also a little misleading. Houses like the one depicted in the picture are indeed very common throughout Poland and most of post-communist Europe. Yet it is important to acknowledge several things. First of all, a significantly lower proportion of the population resides in single-family houses in Poland than in the USA (43% versus 66%). Moreover, the prevalence of single-family houses in Poland is very much influenced by the country still having a relatively low urbanisation level (60% vs. 80% in the USA). Significant proportion of single-family houses are in villages that are relatively isolated from the main urban areas, and many of them indeed do not look as tidy as this one. And while I am no expert on the Polish real estate market, judging from the Czech situation I would say that having a house such as the one in the picture — located in one of the big dynamic cities (Prague, Brno, Warsaw, Wrocław, Gdańsk, etc.) or in their close proximity within a comfortable commuting distance — is definitely more of a well-to-do thing that is not particularly attainable for the majority of people. American with income level comparable (in relative terms) to Pole able to afford such house in major metro area would have much more luxurious house. All in all, while houses like that are indeed not a rarity, they are much more affordable for the median American than for the median Pole or Czech, especially in the suburbs of dynamic cities.

[legal YIMBY alien @YIMBYPoland]

Do people on this app really think that spacious houses, multi-car garages and BBQs in the backyard are some unique American things?

This is a typical middle-class house in my home village in the Polish Rust Belt. Not only is there a BBQ range, you can also see they clearly have AC which, I'm being told, is supposedly completely unknown in Europe.

The house is 140 sqm (1500 sqft). There's a one-car garage and a carport for the second car, plus space for two other cars if needed. Setbacks are mandated by law and are much bigger than setbacks in track housing in the US. If you live there, you don't need to spend money on private kindergarten or school for your kids - it lowers the GDP but does it actually lower your standard of living? I'd argue the opposite.

This being a village, transit options are mid, however good enough that your kids don't need a ride (or a car) to get to school or even for you to get to work (provided you work in the city) - again, lowering the GPD but I think elevating your standard of living if anything. There are two supermarkets within walking distance, plus a doctor's office - which does not have any deductibles or co-pays. Crime is non-existent there.

I'll also add that while the house might be a little smaller than a new build in America, the quality is much better. One of my closest friends live in a "luxury" new development in Phoenix, their house is worth $2.4M but the doors and walls in their house are literally hollow. You go to the bathroom and you can hear people talking in the living room, and they can also hear you peeing.

This - meaning grand at first side, kinda cheap when you look closer - extends to other areas, too. For example, a 2015 Volkswagen Jetta was built in Mexico for both American and European markets. However, for the American market, the suspension was less sophisticated, interior materials were cheap plastic, the computer and its screen was simpler, and I'm yet to see any US market Jetta with an automatic AC.

When I moved to America, I had to learn to never buy anything that's under the average price for a category. In Europe, the cheapest stuff still maintains quite good quality and as you move upmarket, stuff just gets nicer. In America, the cheapest stuff is vile and even stuff slightly below average in price is bad. European IKEA is the quality of Crate & Barrel, for example.

I don't mean to belittle America. It's a fantastic country, and if you are upper middle class or upper class, you can have a fantastic life there. And indeed, you make way more money than in Europe. But to maintain the same standard of living in your everyday life, you also need to spend more, so the difference - while massive in nominal terms - is actually not that big. It only shows when Americans travel to Europe or vice versa. I'm in Poland now and I feel rich. But in America, I feel I live a similar lifestyle to my brother who lives here.

[Kaiser Bauch @KaiserBauch]

@mike_saru I wish you all the best in this effort! Yet it is much easier said and done because it is mainly about having economic structure with enough companies doing R&D. Discussing it happens in Czechia as well :D

[Kaiser Bauch @KaiserBauch]

I hope this proves to be true, and I wish Poland all the best. One of the things Poland seems to be doing absolutely brilliantly is national PR — there appears to be a never-ending stream of content hyping it up.
Nevertheless, if we actually look at the "startup" scene, there is not much to boast about. According to Dealroom, the value of the Polish tech ecosystem stands at 60 billion dollars — 4.6 times less than that of Sweden, a country with a quarter of the population. Estonia's ecosystem is valued at 40 billion dollars, two thirds of Poland's figure, despite Poland having thirty times Estonia's population and 22-times higher GDP. In 2025, more venture capital was invested in Portuguese startups than in Polish ones. Swedish startups attracted almost ten times more investment than Polish ones. When it comes to startups, Estonia is the real success story in CEE, and increasingly so is Lithuania. Poland, not so much. Poland also spends only 1.4% of GDP on R&D, which is simply far too low for a truly technologically sophisticated economy. Hopefully that will change.

[Maciej Szymczyk @szymczyk06]

Poland is on the very beginning of the curve. The amount of great talent and techno-optimism in Warsaw is astonishing. Only now are we seeing first unicorns producing future founders and pouring the exit money into startups. Many more to come!

Next 5-20 years will be legendary!!

[Kaiser Bauch @KaiserBauch]

@AngeloR_98 sure, true

[Kaiser Bauch @KaiserBauch]

Not true. Czechia was an industrialised and almost universally literate country from the end of the 19th century, and as such it was truly set back by communism — that is not Czech chauvinism, it is simply a fact. Hungary and Poland, however, compared to Western Europe, were definitely poor, comparatively much more illiterate and largely agrarian economies before communism, and that had been the case for many centuries. The level of development of almost all of post-communist Europe — the part that is now in the EU — relative to the West is by far the highest it has been since we have any solid estimates, and possibly the highest ever.

[Paul Novosad @paulnovosad]

Central European countries were always rich countries, they were just temporarily held down by occupation and communism.

[Kaiser Bauch @KaiserBauch]

@PaleoWenus This is of course great! I am not a doomer.

[Kaiser Bauch @KaiserBauch]

India is at peak emigration pressure — the 29 million Indians born in 2001 are now at prime migration age, the largest cohort in Indian history. Indians with college degrees are expanding rapidly. Approximately 140 million adults aged 25–64 in India held college degrees in 2025. The labour market cannot absorb them — Close to 30% of young university graduates were unemployed in 2024. The Indian government actively facilitates this, as remittances — $129 billion in 2024 — are a core part of its economic model. The post-COVID pressure to reignite economic growth in The West amplified this on the receiving side.

[Lyman Stone 石來民 🦬🦬🦬 @lymanstoneky]

the entire world has seen a sudden influx of Indians in the last 10 years

really remarkable. i don't think i've yet read a good explainer. everybody focuses on receiving-country dynamics.

why did south asia's emigration rate suddenly go BOOM after 2015?

[Kaiser Bauch @KaiserBauch]

This is of course a truism on both sides — this whole dick-measuring contest between the continents is mostly a terminally online phenomenon, and normal people on either side do not spend much time thinking about life on other continents. Yet judging from the online debate, in which Europeans are very often dishonest obnoxious as hell and deserve a lot of the trash talk they get, Americans definitely do not come across as indifferent to the comparison either. When you see the never-ending stream of posts trying to convince everyone that the US is without a doubt superior, it looks more like an attempt at self-reassurance than anything else.

[Pincher Martin @PincherMartin8]

I don't think you appreciate that most Americans don't give you any thought at all. They can't envy what they never think about.

[Tony Annett @tonyannett]

I’m not sure this is true. Before the war, Czechoslovakia was the only country with a well developed industrial base.

[Marcin Piatkowski @mmpiatkowski]

Actually, Central Europe was never rich. To the contrary, it has been underdeveloped relative to the West since the beginning of their history. It is only after 1990 that CE countries have largely caught up, for the first time ever. Their Golden Age is now👇.

[Kaiser Bauch @KaiserBauch]

@gpjanik Yes, especially in the 1980's it did. But Poland was simply poor even before communism. The post was not meant to deny that communism is retarded

[Kaiser Bauch @KaiserBauch]

@MrCharvik you those are the two possible exceptions apart from Czechia