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I’l try to cut it short.During Lunch Time : It was hardly a month I joined my company, i was looking down at my phone and had opened Moneycontrol app. My boss was sitting nearby, he saw me and asked do you trade as well ?Me : yes sir sometimes.Boss : Do you get time to do all this ?Me : Sir, i do it only when my work gets finished or when m free.Boss (with a wicked smile) : that's betterAfter 1 month : During lunch time, i was looking for scores in the cricbuzz app on my phone not knowing my boss was peeping into my phone. As soon as our eyes meet.Boss : So, you like cricket as wellMe (very innocently and frankly) : yes sir i have a great passion for this sportBoss : what else do you like ?Me (i thought lunch time is a informal time) : Sir i like partying as well. Music is always good to ears.Now, the thing to be noted here is that when you join a company, your boss would initially try to be informal with you and take out all the information regarding you!This is the time you should be diligent.After 6 months :With the same boss, i had some issues. One fine day he took me to a cabin (so whenever you are asked to go in a cabin with your boss that means your bad times have begun).He was a lot frustrated and started scolding me. Following are the things that he said to me and you would relate to them on your own :(While I would like to mention that there was no other instance other than the ones listed above that showed my likes i.e. Stock market, cricket, partying, music.)Boss : Everday i see you your screen, its green/red (share market window is open)Boss : Every weekend you are not available, you are always partying.Boss : You always have priority for sports than for work. Please maintain a balance between your likes and responsibilities.I was shocked to hear all this.I realised “it's never an informal lunch with your boss” !!Never ever try to be informal with your boss!! Just keep that relation to work only.

The living conditions were changing during that period. They varied depending on where one lived and what status one had.I’ll zoom in on the aspect of housing in Warsaw, where most of my family found themselves after the war.Throughout the postwar period there was an acute shortage of housing, with the most dramatic situation during the first 2 decades.The city was in ruins. The people who were returning to it were looking for any, even barely habitable, shelter.Population of Warsaw in 1939: 1.2 million1945: several hundred1960: over a million, mainly arrivals from other parts of Poland. Imagine housing them all.This is the centre of Warsaw in 1954. The Palace of Culture was built before the residential buildings around it. Symbolic projects came first. In fact 5 just-about-habitable previously elegant streets were demolished to make space for the Palace:1960, a view of the Main Street in Warsaw - Marszałkowska:In the first years after the war the authorities allowed people to take over empty properties and to renovate/rebuild them themselves.The state run projects were taking off more seriously from the mid 1950s-60s onwards.In 1945, my grandmother’s brother, together with several other young people, found a shell of a building which had a roof and fairly solid walls. They were in full time employment six days a week, which was the requirement for everyone under the new regime. After work they were obtaining materials: bricks, cement, pipes, etc, and putting it all together, learning the trade as they went along.Many mishaps along the way. In the meantime they were sleeping on provisional mattresses, thankful for the roof. Between the group of 30-ish + of them, in a few years, they built themselves a small four storey house with two large rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom on each floor. Throughout the Polish People’s Republic period and up until now they have not been connected to the municipal hot water supply or to municipal central heating. Furnace heating only. They were connected to running water towards the end of the 1960s.Over the years some of them moved to new-build housing. Since the end of the war the 4 original families have been passing the residence down to their offspring, paying rent and rates to the local council.The building is still standing. Their right to carry on living in it is now being disputed.Some people were more lucky after the war. My grandmother found a space in a block of relatively undamaged apartments. The drawback was that there were about 10 people per each room in the 6 storey tenement. Water was available at a pump in the street. There was one toilet for all the tenants in the unlit basement. No electricity. The wooden staircase had stairs missing. Some windows were broken. There was no heating. It stayed this way at least until the mid 1960s, when she managed to move somewhere else. How difficult it was to move elsewhere is another story.Upgrading places like this was not a priority for the authorities, who were busy with other projects. Some of these buildings survived in this state throughout the whole period of the Polish People’s Republic.A picture taken last June:Of these two identical buildings one was renovated only this century:These two buildings were in the same condition until the early 2000s, when one of them was privatised:You can see the recent addition of balconies and new windows to the original structure. It happened post PPR.During the times of PPR it would have remained like this one, still waiting for a facelift:After the war the surviving better class prewar apartments were divided up, often with provisional partitions. Each new room was occupied by a whole family. There was one bathroom and one kitchen for the whole floor. As people were moving out, over the years most remaining families were being left with two small rooms. They were allowed to install their own bathroom/toilet in this space, if they had the knowhow. Few had the money to employ someone else to do it for them, even though they were in full employment (men and women).This art nouveau building was used as communal housing, with the spacious prewar apartments inside divided up into several small apartments permanently.Now some renovation work is about to start outside. Inside it’s past rescuing. The artist who designed the features must have had a premonition:Initially larger buildings were requisitioned from the owners to house a number of people, with the obligation on the owner to renovate and to finance the renovation, without receiving the rent. In return the owner could keep the rights to the property, at least temporarily.Where there was no owner the authorities were leaving the surviving buildings to the inhabitants’ own devices as they focused on building new blocks of apartments. Broken staircase or a leaky roof? Do it yourself. No electricity or running water? Join the party and we’ll move you to a better, modern place like this:How good was the new-build housing?The quality was different for communist party members than for non-members.For the masses: the housing was built fast. Quantity over quality. A clever technology was developed to compress existing rubble (there was plenty of it) into concrete sheets which were assembled quickly. Cracks, leaks and other faults were often appearing soon, sometimes even before the building was given over for use, especially in tall tower blocks. The apartments were small: two rooms per family of four. There was no concept of a separate bedroom. Folding wall-beds were the norm to allow more space during daytime.A typical folding bed-shelf (tapczan półka):A space saving unit, with various folding accessories. Folding up the table creates extra space:This is the size of a typical new-build kitchen:People from all walks of life lived in these. In the 1960s my blue collar grandparents lived in a block of 60 small apartments alongside accomplished people such as an opera singer with a dog, an army general with his family, a diplomat who had just returned with his family from ambassadoring in Cuba, and a physics scientist (with family), who used to give guest lectures in the USA. Out of the 60 apartments the physicist was one of the only two tenants with a car. He bought it in the US and used it for going anywhere, even to the shop a few hundred meters away. My granddad was the other person with a car. In his spare time after work he used to buy various bits and he built his own cars, one at a time. They looked odd but they worked, at least some of the time. The first hybrid cars in the original sense of the word, I guess.There were no parking restrictions in the streets afaik until the 1980s.Although all the kids went to the same school they clustered together according to the social status of the parents. There were strong class distinctions. There was snobbery and a sense of superiority even under the conditions of forced mixing of all. Although all schools were state run, some were seen as academically better than others, depending on the concentration of intelligentsia in the particular area.As time went by, even with intensified building schemes in place, the new housing block estates were not keeping up with demand. Young people had nowhere to move to. When they themselves started a family they were still living with their parents in the two rooms - now 6 or more family members. It was common for the newly weds to hope to move to the grandparents’ flat when it became available..., in their frustration wishing for it to happen soon.After a while, people moving into Warsaw had to be registered officially as residents. To get the residence permit one had to be registered as employed locally. To get local employment one had to have a permanent address locally.Residence permit:This cunning regulation restricted mobility and the influx into Warsaw. Still, shortage of accommodation remained a nationwide problem during the PPR period, not only in Warsaw.Population of Poland 1946: 24 million.Population of Poland 1980: 36 million.(This happened without immigration from outside.)In the 1960s the “communist” authorities revived the prewar initiative of a housing fund aimed to enable the poor to buy their homes. The government encouraged people to pay monthly amounts to the Fund - Spółdzielnia Mieszkaniowa. Initially the waiting time for an apartment was 15-20 years (after the completion of payments, which constituted 1/4 of the building cost), so one would be saving for their children’s future apartment. During the boom years of building faster in the 1970s the promise was that the waiting time would go down to 6 years. As years went by the government’s promise was waning, until some time in the 1980s they announced that they could no longer deliver on it. The money deposited with them for years could be claimed back, afaik with some limiting stipulations which were due to the fact that the country was broke financially.For many people saving any amount was a struggle in spite of being employed. The wages were so low that it was hard to make ends meet.On the plus side, if one did get allocated a new-build, there was central heating, running water and mixer taps. Popular TV serials were sweetening the grimness of the life in the blocks by setting comical situations on the estates.This mural on a smartened up block is a reminder of one of the more popular serials - “Alternatives”:Of course it was different for the communist party members.Out of the population of 36 million in 1980 - 3 million were communist party card holders, some genuine believers, others using the membership card as a way of getting by.I live in an area which was built in the 1960s for the State Security officials. Even here the hierarchy was reflected in the standards of accommodation.2 rooms per apartment was still typical in all of these but the rooms were bigger than in the tower blocks and more solidly built.The lower ranks of officials lived in these:Higher ranks had slightly more space and balconies. At the time the buildings were grey instead of the frivolous pastel colours:The more important functionaries lived on the other side of the Main Street. Their blocks look unpretentious but the apartments inside are 50-60 square metres instead of 40-50 square metres. See the sloping roofs on these? It meant that top floor tenants didn’t have leaks through the ceiling when it rained or snowed.This one stands out a bit on the estate. It must have been for the higher ranks:1954:These days it looks like this:Most blocks had basements with small numbered storage spaces allocated for each apartment.The officials higher up in the ranks lived in places not normally in the view of ordinary folks, usually in villas with gardens, a bit out of the way, among other people in the same position in the hierarchy. Their houses looked more or less like these:Back to non party members:At 508 metres long, this building in the Praga district is one of the longest in Warsaw. High capacity blocks were promoted with pride.In 2008 the Sausage Dog housed more than 1200 people. In the times of the Polish People’s Republic there was a neon light along the roof, flashing through the night, annoying the frustrated tenants of the top floors unable to block the light out and sleep. The neon proclaimed some communist “brighter future” slogan.Since upgrading existing prewar housing was going slowly, the Sausage Dog served as an effective screen hiding the dilapidating tenement blocks of Szmulowizna from the gaze of the travellers getting off at the newly built Eastern Railway Station on the other side of it.Szmulowizna https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szmulowizna was a district which had survived the war, looking like this throughout the PPR period:Until this century the living conditions there were as they had been before the war.This is central Warsaw. The dark prewar tenement has only become vacant in the recent years. The outside of it is a reflection of the very basic conditions inside during the PPR period and after.This prewar tenement off Marszałkowska St is still inhabited. It was up to the inhabitants to make it comfortable for themselves inside. The cream one next to it was renovated this century.The prewar buildings in Warsaw remained very neglected during the days of PPR. Even the original elaborate architectural details were somehow obscured for years by the grey colour which uniformly dominated the streets.These photos were taken last month. All the renovation inside and outside is taking place now for the first time since the war:The dark grey was the result of the war fires, not car exhaust fumes:When they do it up it will look like a few other ones in the same street, which were renovated in the last few years:Environmentally friendly electric trolley buses and trams operated many routes in the PPR, alongside buses. Trams still do.1960:In the 1970s they remained overcrowded, but hanging out on the outside was no longer allowed.Postwar culture, health service and education were a continuation of the interwar policies and intentions.Cultural life in Poland was less restrictive than in some other countries of the EE bloc. Western films, music and literature were available on par with the home grown or with the EE equivalents.Regarding health service:Already in 1920 the obligatory health insurance scheme was introduced for wage earners - Kasy Chorych, with a cover for 39 weeks.The last decree signed before the war (spring 1939) by Poland’s President Mościcki introduced the plan for the comprehensive health service.In the postwar period the situation was much better than before the war, although not instantly. The new cadres were educated on an adequate scale by the 1960s. Local clinics, with specialist doctors, were appearing from then on. Continuing the interwar tradition, special attention was given to children and to prevention rather than cure. Similarly to the interwar period, school health inspections were regular. Additionally, full time in-house school nurses and sometimes dentists were employed at some stage, for several years.Education:Free and compulsory education was introduced in 1919 for 7-14 year olds. It later included plans for extending it to free university education. By 1939 90% of children were attending school. The post war system improved the situation further and eliminated illiteracy completely. Many spacious schools were built, with large windows, sports halls and playing fields.In 1929 social services were established in Poland, focusing primarily on the welfare of children and on alleviating homelessness.The interwar strategy of welfare changes was intended to avert communism by disarming the communist argument.The post war welfare reforms had their roots in the prewar plans and actions.

No doubt my answer will be “buried” under the plethora of opinions.Today, Friday, April 28, 2017 the Ontario government (Canada) published their “Budget Highlights 2017”.The “Hospital expenditure cost per capita” is $1702 CDN. That is, the cost for each of the 14M people of Ontario to staff and operate the hospitals in Ontario amounted to $1702 per person.Everyone, whether they are ill or perfectly healthy needs the infrastructure and skills afforded by a hospital at some time. The $1702 CDN per person is the cost of operating/maintaining that infrastructure.Would you, as an American, refuse to pay your taxes because you haven’t yet driven across the Golden Gate Bridge, received electricity from the Hoover Dam, benefitted from flood control of the Tennessee Valley Authority, driven on an interstate freeway, or have a child in public school?It is all infrastructure for the benefit of all citizens, or please explain where the “dividing line” is and, for whose benefit that arbitrary demarcation exists.EDIT: “Lack of Transparency” of Healthcare costs is the root cause of the opposition by the US general populace. The is an adage in business — “If you don’t know what your costs are — they are out of control.”The Province of Ontario’s 2017 Budget is available online. Please note, that the dollars quoted are in Canadian dollars (of course) so:“Hospital expenditure cost per capita”$1702 CDN x $0.73 = $1242 USDSimilarly. I often use the weekly updated “CIA World Factbook”, available online, as a primary, unbiased resource.The two categories available in the drop down menu per country that are relevant for this discussion:People and SocietyEconomy - overviewThe USA GDP per capita is $54,800. US Healthcare costs (2016) are 17.1% of GDP. $54,800 x 17.1% = $9,370 per person.The Canadian GDP per capita is $46,100 USD. Canadian Healthcare costs are 10.4% of GDP$46,100 x 10.4% = $4,794 per person USD.Canadians live 2 years longer than Americans (81.9 yrs vs 79.8 yrs). And, the “hospital expenditures” per capita ($1242 USD) are approx. 25% of the overall ($4794 USD) Healthcare costs per capita.I will not and do not have access to a computer for another week. I am reliant on the small screen of a Smartphone. So, I am unable to “spoonfeed” answers.