When China is no longer self-sufficient in basic agricultural products, how will the work look like?
New book argues the rise of the west was not due to superior institutions as it was due to rent-seeking behaviour that plunders the world’s physical and human resources.
Goodness in one compartment of life coexisted with violence and cruelty in another in Howard’s End, just as Edwardian sincerity and righteousness coexisted with moral doubts and ambiguities in E.M. Forster’s life.
There’s been a lot of talks over our “inequity aversion”. How interesting that on our path to pursue this ever-so-illusive, one side of the ocean choose fairness, the other equality.
We blame German’s aversion to stimulus spending on its hyperinflationary episodes in the last century. Now this obsession with Internet privacy, what is it this time, memories of mass deportations?
What does a “golden age” for biopharmaceutical sector in China look like? A hundred biotech parks up and running.
Message behind the burqa ban: We are finally free, now you have to be too.
The winner-take-all world of supermodels, where fuzzy values like beauty and edginess is about as stable as that “gut feeling” on Wall Street.
An interesting discussion on the use of colons. On a related note, I recently discovered that in Dutch, colons are applied differently. Their specific SOV (subject-object-verb) sentence constructions make many of their sentences appear longer. And since colons make scarcer appearances, sentences can appear run-on to English speakers. For example, sentences can very well start with “also” followed immediately by another sentence, with multiple “and” peppered in a sentence running over two to three lines long, all without pause. I’ve never thought about how the use of punctuations can vary with languages. But that makes more sense the more I think about it.
And awesome sign of the day.
The pipe dreams of an Exxon-BP merger. Great, an even bigger conglomerate to look forward to.
The young, educated, affluent, and tech-savvy Chinese are, forgetting how to write Chinese.
Facts can potentially make misinformation stronger. So when what we think we know is actually wrong, there’s no hope in correcting that misconception no matter how much facts get thrown in our faces.
Inequality seems to attack our health above more material differences. But if economic growth merely reinforces inequality, there’s not much hope there is it?
Are universities responsible in serving economic objectives?
Belly buttons, race, centre of gravity, hidden height, and success in sport. It’s all related!
Thirty percent of medical practitioners in the UK are non-UK trained. Thus when patients die at the hands of a foreign-trained doctor, the question of language competency comes to the forefront.
Another Middle Eastern country modernizing under the radar.
Not to say looking dowdy and boring is the way to female empowerment, but busting out a glamour calendar might not be the most effective method of celebrating Czech female MP’s political clout.
There’s no corner of the world where China hasn’t made significant investments in, Africa, Latin America, corners of Europe where nobody else wants to touch – Iceland, Greece. It’s just a matter of time before its economic interests drag it into local politics.
How even a Kindle is too distracting a device for long-form reading.
Who isn’t the ticking bomb nowadays?
Will the Saudis halt their oil exploration activities before the rest of the world gets a grip on their oil dependencies?
Long term unemployment hits the older and more educated most.
While immigration to the US flat-lined during the recession, it sky-rocked in some of the hardest-hit places in Europe.
All adult picky eaters like fries and chicken fingers.
“A Freudian slip, for example, is when we say one thing when we mean a mother. Another. You know what I mean.”
How squirrels are surprisingly similar to primates, including the act of greeting each other by nuzzling each other’s cheek and lip that look like a kiss.
If evolution favours meat-eating primates, then there’s no evolutionary support for veganism?
The nineteenth-century German politician Otto von Bismarck was hardly anyone’s idea of a nanny, but he constructed the world’s first nanny state for the sole purpose of making German citizens so codependent on the German Reich that they would never think of rebelling against it. By offering Germans a prototype of the modern welfare state, Bismarck’s goal was not improving the common man’s lot—it was his way of inducing the common man, when faced with personal difficulties, to expect the state to look after him, instead of relying on himself to deal with his own problems.
Ironically, Bismarck launched the first welfare state because he feared the influence of Karl Marx on the German working class. Marx opposed the welfare state precisely because he recognized that it would create a population codependent on the ruling elite in charge of the German Reich. It would tend to make them more docile and helpless, less self-reliant and rebellious. Today’s European socialists, along with America’s welfare statists, are not the descendants of Marx; they are the great-grandchildren of Bismarck.
A rather cynical take on the social psychology behind the construction of a welfare state nowadays.
But as paranoid as some Libertarians may sound, there exist throngs of well-meaning politicians and policy-makers with intentions to improve the general well-being of citizens, but inevitably cultivate a culture of dependence and co-dependence. The spirit of independence might be the de facto norm in many lands, but the zeal to defend it is hardly universal.
Germany is likely the only country in the world where Ricardian equivalence — the theory that the government cannot stimulate private consumption by cutting taxes because rational actors know that taxes will eventually have to rise again and therefore put aside savings — actually holds true.
As for reasons behind Germany’s obsession with savings? Other than the demographic pressures and a cultural of frugality?
History plays a role:
Whereas the Anglo-Saxon world is characterized by what one could call pragmatic optimism, Germans instinctively think about the long term, and they aren’t disposed toward cheerfulness. Whereas America’s recent history teaches hope, Germans see in their history the need to be cautious: In the last 100 years, Germans have experienced two currency reforms and the rise and demise of three regimes.
A distinctly German view on economic activity and the role of trade:
It’s an economic model that traces back to the beginning of the postwar period, when booming exports were the backbone of the Wirtschaftswunder, or economic miracle — the period of strong growth in the 1950s that transformed the destroyed country into a major world economic power. When Germans saw Volkswagens on roads all over the world, it wasn’t only a source of income, but proof that the country was once again an accepted member of the international community. Add Germany’s traditional obsession with engineering and its distaste for the service sector, and it may become clearer why the country is prone to mercantilism.
How government sees its place in macro-economic policy-making:
Germany simply does not have a tradition of macroeconomic policy, at least not in the American sense of managing aggregate demand. Contemporary German economics has its roots in Ordnungspolitik, a unique school of thought that emerged in the 1940s and for which there is no English translation. Ordnungspolitik accepts that government intervention is necessary for the economy to function properly, but the role it assigns to the state is fundamentally different than in the Anglo-Saxon tradition. Whereas most American macroeconomists believe in discretionary intervention in the way of countercyclical monetary and fiscal policy, German economists encourage the government to only alter the framework within which economic agents interact. Read more...
Flemish art has a pretty religious slant and violent undercurrent to it. This one, Last Judgement, visited by Colin Farrell and Brandon Gleeson in In Bruges, by Hieronymus Bosch.
The Judgment of Cambyses, story from Herodotus where the corrupt judge Sisamnes, guilty of taking a bribe, was taken and skinned. His son takes his place as the judge, with his father’s skin draped over the chair. Charming tale.
- The city has some serious history. Some of the buildings are close to 900 years old. Buildings rightly expose the histories behind them, e.g. drawings depicting medieval torture methods such as chopping off prisoners limbs, which the Belgians incidentally later took to the Congo, and which later spread to other parts of Africa.
- It’s not a city many non-Europeans might have heard of, but the place is bustling. Schools are out, and many people are vacationing. That, combined with the summer sale – which the Belgians formally announce and market (July 1-7 in case you are interested), has the shopping streets jam packed.
- The whole city is on construction. One of the large pleins is completely squared off for renovation, almost every single church in the city has some part of it worked on, every second or third houses you see around the city centre has a painter or scaffolding in front of it. Quick round-up of the skyline totals at least 20 cranes. Apparently much of the city’s sewage and phone line system’s getting a makeover. The city is very old and beautiful, but some parts do need some serious work. Infrastructure, gentrification or fiscal stimulus, the construction sector’s keeping a lot of people employed.
- Ghent has a castle smack in the middle of it. A real, gigantuan castle.
- Housing looks much more spacious than the NL, with houses in the city center with built-in garages. Prices are much lower too. There are also a lot if for rent and for sale signs all around the city. In comparison, the Dutch housing market has all but frozen up in the last half year in anticipation of less favorable changes in mortgage interest subsidies.
- Ghent is for the most part, Dutch speaking. In my limited interaction with the service industry however, a high proportion of those are French-speaking. Perhaps better economies and better pay up north? Read more...
I’m taking a short break away from the Lowlands, which gives me a good chance to reflect on the driving habits of my current compatriots.
There’s no doubt that the crowdedness of the country contributes to the overall feeling of aggression on the road. Behaviours such as tailgating, switching lanes with no signaling, not keeping to the right, relatively frequent use of the middle finger, all adds up to a pretty harrowing experience.
Taking into account the prevalance of biking as a serious mode of tranportaion in the country, perhaps this should not e a surprise.
Compared to the 2 cars per family (if not more) of more spacious lands, most Dutch families, when possible with work, make do with one car. That means a large portion of drivers on the road use cars only very occasionally.
I think of it this way: all those times much of North America spends on the road, driving to and from work, to the grocery store, going to movies, picking up kids from school; the average Dutch spends that time honing his ability to tackle various obstacles placed in front of his bike.
It would seem to me that as trivial as driving might be as a task, there is something to be said about practice. In my two years here, I have witnessed some truly mind-boggling driving behaviors that I can only attribute to time substituted on the bikes. In all fairness though, I’m also only on the road on the weekends too, so the sample is probably slanted towards the more amateurish set of weekend drivers. Alas, irony strikes as cloggie land mandates very expensive driving schools (around three thousand euros). And perhaps recognizing a rather unfortunate deficiency in manners, there are now discussion on driving exam touch-up when people renew their driving licences.
FT- It is quite clear that an isolated discussion of the need to reduce fiscal deficits will not work. …
oecd.org- Since 1990, the number of people worldwide living in absolute poverty has fallen by about half a billion. What’s changed? In large part, China. …
spiked-online.com- If growth scepticism were to be summed up in one phrase, it is “I’m in favour of economic growth, but…”’. …
WSJ- Danone is among a vanguard of Western multinationals staking much of their future on the world’s poor. …
thegreenskeptic.com- Drive 100 miles and you need to charge up, and there is currently very little infrastructure to support electric vehicle charging. …
Voxeu- Do buyers discriminate based on race? …
eurointelligence.com- If excessive austerity is imposed on Spain, the result will be even more miserable than for Korea, with at least as bad international impact. …
NY Times- Ireland is pinning nearly all its hopes on an export revival to lift the economy. …
blogs.telegraph.co.uk- Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says the Fed is slowly losing its marbles. …
tnr.com- “Is this revolution a creature of globalization, or does global capitalism owe some of its energy and resilience to global English in all its manifestations?” …
theatlantic.com- A paternal contribution may not be as essential as we think. …
telegraph.co.uk- Women’s bodies have become so associated with sex that now a mothers’ magazine has called breast-feeding ‘creepy’. …
Dan: This is very narrow minded. Just like Scott said. I have been there for 5 months.... 
Janet Hooten: Dana, I found your blog very interesting regarding how some would argue that the West cannot... 
Beatrice winnberg: I like scandinavian food. They are more tasty and soft than... 
Ginny: Hi Gaurav, Both you and Dana have made valid points. We need to really ask ourselves, why is there such... 
John: I really liked watching the bug zapper video! I have to get one of those myself! Wow! ZAP!