Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I lived throughout the disintegration of the Polish economy in the 1970s. As many Americans now, we often were saying that it was already so bad that it was hard to imagine that it could be worse. Reality proved us wrong over and over again.

Said that I do not share your pessimism. I was among a small group of political writers, who despite having all political forces against us, were trying the herald the message what should be done. Practically we did very little. But it was enough to allow Poland to navigate throughout the crisis without bloodshed. The Soviet Union was destined to fall, but it tripped over Poland. Reagan helped, leveraging what we were doing. The rest is history.

We face a similar situation here and now.