Poland makes headlines again :D

[Martinus]

WARSAW—Poland's conservative opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski on Thursday used technology to sidestep a legal loophole when he became the country's first politician to play a speech to parliament from an iPad.

This move circumvented a legal restriction that prevented his candidate for prime minister from speaking in the house.

Piotr Glinski, Mr. Kaczynski's candidate, isn't a legislator and house rules prevented him from speaking from the podium. Instead, he spoke an hour before the debate in a different room in the parliament compound.

In February, Mr. Kaczynski's opposition Law and Justice party filed a no-confidence motion against the government led by Donald Tusk, saying it was failing to deal with rising unemployment and the outward migration of younger Poles. The party offered Mr. Glinski, a sociology professor, as its candidate for prime minister.

The move is largely symbolic because other parties in the house have pledged to vote against Mr. Glinski, but his real mission was to present the conservative party's agenda and criticism of the current governing camp, which holds a majority in the Sejm, the lower house.

Mr. Kaczynski came to the podium in parliament Thursday to present the party's no-confidence motion. In a brief introduction, he explained that, in his view, Mr. Glinski wasn't allowed to speak. He then pulled out an iPad and turned on the recording of Mr. Glinski's speech from earlier in the day. Because he represented the authors of the motion, Mr. Kaczynski couldn't be stopped or interrupted. He then continued to speak for more than an hour.

It was an unprecedented move. No speech had ever been delivered in Poland's lower house from Apple Inc.'s iPad tablet. Polish parliamentarians each received their own iPad in the beginning of the current term that began in 2011, although Mr. Kaczynski, who a few years ago admitted he didn't have a bank account, was never seen as particularly tech-savvy.

[Razgovory]

Donald Tusk sounds like a real bore.

[Camerus]

How could anyone other than a transient function without a bank account these days?

[Eddie Teach]

How could anyone other than a transient function without a bank account these days?

The same way the transient functions.

[Camerus]

How could anyone other than a transient function without a bank account these days?

The same way the transient functions.

A glib response, but it ignores the realities of this guy's life.  He's the leader of the government opposition... presumably he draws a salary by virtue of being a member of parliament.  Also, to get to this position, he must have gotten paid / had some money of his own in the past.  Does he just give it over to his wife or keep it under his mattress?

[Tamas]

it was clearly a case of national emergency that all MPs get their hands on ipads.

[Syt]

How could anyone other than a transient function without a bank account these days?

There were some articles recently that the EU is moving towards a "basic right to a bank account". It seems that in places like Romania or Bulgaria only about half of the adult population have an actual bank account. In other countries it can be difficult to open a new account if you have no regular income or if you've defaulted on your debt. In Austria there's some special banks taking in those people.

Additionally, some are in a bit of a spiral: no job - no bank account. No bank account - no job (I'm not aware of any employers who pay out in cash or cheques).

[The Larch]

How could anyone other than a transient function without a bank account these days?

The same way the transient functions.

A glib response, but it ignores the realities of this guy's life.  He's the leader of the government opposition... presumably he draws a salary by virtue of being a member of parliament.  Also, to get to this position, he must have gotten paid / had some money of his own in the past.  Does he just give it over to his wife or keep it under his mattress?

IIRC, and Mart can shed some further light into this, his mother handled his finances.

[Martinus]

His mother died few months ago. He never had a wife nor a girlfriend that anyone knew of. In one interview he once said that he was in love with someone once but remained friends with "that person".*

*Which is a clear code word, no?

[Martinus]

How could anyone other than a transient function without a bank account these days?

There were some articles recently that the EU is moving towards a "basic right to a bank account". It seems that in places like Romania or Bulgaria only about half of the adult population have an actual bank account. In other countries it can be difficult to open a new account if you have no regular income or if you've defaulted on your debt. In Austria there's some special banks taking in those people.

Additionally, some are in a bit of a spiral: no job - no bank account. No bank account - no job (I'm not aware of any employers who pay out in cash or cheques).

Poland is not one of these countries. Banks market very aggressively. My unemployed friend has four bank accounts. He opened one to get a free modem.

[Ed Anger]

A new 1200 baud modem.

[Eddie Teach]

A glib response, but it ignores the realities of this guy's life. 

Clearly it doesn't. 

I don't know of any brick and mortar stores that don't take hard currency.