GlobLog - July 2004
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12:24 - EXTREME MAKEOVER: Just as Bush has been flip-flopping on free trade (he was for free trade before he was against it before he was for it), Kerry has been flip-flopping on Iraq. The republicans just made this very amusing and disturbing video to document Kerry´s changes.

10:32 - INTELLEKTUELL SOMMARTORKA: Under sommaren har Expressen publicerat en ovanligt fördummande artikelserie om Sveriges fattiga barn. Strunta i den. Läs i stället Sveriges främsta anti-snällist Hanne Kjöller, som effektivt plockar sönder dumheterna. Som hon uttrycker det:

”Att fembarnsfamiljer inte har råd att åka på semester beror på att föräldrarna skaffat fem barn.”

09:52 - BUSH OR KERRY?: So now John Kerry has spoken, and we know the strong, ideological differences between the two candidates, right? One of them wants to expand the military and emphasises national security: "I will never hesitate to use force when it is required … I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security”, and the other emphasises general public spending and the need to protect workers, ´´We believe strongly in free trade. We just want to make sure that free trade is also trade in which all parties are treated fairly.´´

But hold on, things aren´t exactly what they seem. The first quote is from Kerry, and the second is from Bush…

I find it impossible to embrace Kerry. He has spoken in favour of more protectionism, he wants to increase public spending and he might not hesitate to change the constitution to force his moral agenda on the states. In other words: He might be like George W Bush, who has used his first period to introduce tariffs on steel and textiles and signed new super subsidies to agriculture; to increase federal spending more than either Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush senior or Clinton; who is in favour of a constitutional amendment to stop states from abolishing discrimination against gays in relation to marriage.

I can’t help but agree with George Will that “What is strange about politics today is not just that it is so passionate … but that the passions seem displaced”, and with Nick Gillespie that ”you´ve got to belong to the two men´s cults to care overly much about the fine points of their respective theologies”.

15:33 - NOT A TOURIST SEASON: The socialist Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson warned that we are naïve allowing people from Eastern Europe to "work for peanuts and giving them access to our social benefits". He lost in parliament, and Sweden never introduced any restrictions on their movement. So what has happened? How many welfare tourists from the new EU members have come to Sweden in the first three months to parasite on our unemployment benefits? The answer: Zero.

14:58 - TRAVEL REPORT: As some of you have noticed, I am back from Vietnam (Even though I still don´t keep up with my e-mail since I need time to write). This time I saw the Northern half of the country. We had a great time in big cities and small villages. The Vietnamese are extremelly friendly to foreigners, and most kids I met wanted to try their English by discussing the efforts of the Swedish soccer team in the Euro 2004 games. Many westerners ask me if there is a lot of hostility towards Americans since the war, but even though it still exists (most families lost fathers in the war) it is surprisingly small. I saw several women in Hanoi wearing the American flag as a scarf, and in the toy store you couldn´t buy Vietnamese toy soldiers, but you could buy American toy soldiers and tanks!

One reason is that Vietnam has not merely fought against the US in the last 60 years, but also against Japan, France, Cambodia and China. The US was just another foreign army to fight off. Another reason is that the hostility towards foreigners has been dwarved by the hostility the Vietnamese have felt towards their own communist rulers since the war. The communists murdered hundres of thousands Vietnamese and destroyed the economy. In the mid-80s 75 per cent of the Vietnamese lived in absolute poverty and the country experienced hunger.

Then the government started liberalizing the economy. Suddenly private businesses were allowed, and the economy opened up to trade and investments. This transition was further stimulated by America’s decision to lift the embargo against Vietnam in 1994, and a free trade agreement in 2000. When initiative and ideas were no longer punished, things began to happen. In the mid-1980s, a hungry Vietnam had to import rice. But then, they allowed private farms and profits, and in 1997 Vietnam was suddenly the world’s second biggest exporter of rice, after Thailand!

I am sure that Vietnam can become a strong economic power. In the last decade it has seen one of the fastest growth rates in the world, and everywhere we saw houses and roads being built. In ten years the economy has doubled and the proportion of absolute poor has been cut in half. With a population of more than 80 million (yes, it´s true), and with their wonderful combination of working hard, and having a very relaxed and friendly attitude, it is a great place to invest. Foreign investment used to be 4 percent of GDP in 1990, now it´s more than half.

Personal and religious freedom, and the freedom to criticise policies and to discuss corruption has grown in Vietnam. But the dictatorship is still around and you are not allowed to challenge one-party rule. And while we were there two persons in a neighbouring village were imprisoned because they were too outspoken about the relationship to China - a country many Vietnamese fear. And it didn´t take us a long time to experience the inevitable corruption in an authoritarian state (Travel bureau 1: "Sorry, it´s impossible to get tickets to that train." Travel bureau 2: "Yes, we can get you tickets whenever you want, we have good connections with the railway company.")

Another problem is that other countries are not too happy about Vietnam´s economic success. While we were there, the US Commerce Department ruled in favour of a 93.13 per cent tariff on Vietanamese shrimps. An even more bizarre example is the case of the American fishermen´s fight against the delicious Vietnamese catfish. In 2001, USA forced the Vietnamese to rename catfish as "basa" and "tra", because (in the words of one congressman) it was a bottom-feeding, smooth-skinned fish "no more related to a catfish than a cat is to a cow". But what´s in a name? The American consumers loved their basa and tra. Therefore the American fishing industry changed the complaint from saying that it was a totally different product, to saying that it was exactly the same, but the Vietnamese competed unfairly with their low prices! And the USA implemented a 64 percent tariff penalty, which destroyed the succesful exports industry.

But if Vietnam can deal with foreign protectionism by gaining membership in the WTO, and with their own dictators with more domestic reforms, "Made in Vietnam" will soon be on everybody´s lips.

10:44 - GOOD NEWS: According to a report on Kulturnytt today, Sweden will soon get a new newspaper in English, written by American expats - Stockholm Spectator. It is already available on the internet, and it is a great media watchdog, examining and questioning where the Swedish media tells the same story and takes all their prejudices for granted. For example in contrast to everybody else it takes the time to look at sources noone questions, and exposes plagiarists in the Swedish press. If this works out Stockholm Spectator will not merely be a valuable addition to Swedish media. It will be the most valuable part of it.

10:13 - THE DEFINITE GUIDE TO MOORE´S MYTHOMANIA: Here is the best and most detailed examination of Michael Moore´s new film, Fifty-nine deceits in Fahrenheit 9/11, which also includes and answers Moore´s defence of his points. It is written by Dave Kopel, a left-wing reserarcher who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. Just like me, he agrees with some of the criticism against Bush (for example about the cosy relation with the Saudis and the Patriot Act), but think that criticism should be based on facts, not distortions. There is a four-page summary if you don´t have time to read everything.

17:20 - A CLASH OF PHILOSOPHIES: Many people think that the world is experiencing a clash of civilisations, where Christianity is opposed to Islam. They are wrong. It is as usual a fight between enlightenment ideas and religious fundamentalism.

Yesterday, Swedish television showed a strong documentary about how the Christian government could organise the massacre in Rwanda in 1994 by painting the Hutus as the chosen people and by using God’s aggressive words in the Old Testament to stimulate hatred and murder. Shockingly it got political and economic assistance from the Christian Democrat International (to which it belonged). The Catholic Church and Western Christian democrats supported the murderous regime before and during the massacres - especially the Belgians and their prime minister (until 1992) Wilfried Martens.

The Christian fundamentalists lost power in Rwanda after the death of almost a million, but Christian terrorists are still around in Rwanda, murdering civilians. And the Christian Democrat International still deny that they did anything wrong.

16:26 - IT´S THE ECONOMIC FREEDOM, STUPID: While I have been in a country that is rapidly improving its economic freedom, Economic Freedom of the World 2004 has been published, ranking 123 nations according to 38 variables. It confirms a lot of things we already know. The economically freest countries are Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Ireland, and Luxembourg. Most unfree are Congo, Zimbabwe and Myanmar.

The figures convincingly show that developing countries need freedom to fight poverty. Economically free poor nations had a growth rate of 5.2 percent 1980-2000 compared to 1.7 for the middle group and 0.6 percent for the least free group. This year’s index highlights investments. Free economies attract $3,117 of foreign direct investment per worker, compared to $444 for the middling group and only $68 for the least free nations. And the productivity of investment is 70 percent greater in economically free nations than in unfree nations.

This index is the eight edition, as usual published by Canadian Fraser Institute in cooperation with independent research institutes (including Timbro) in over 60 nations. Even though I also find the Index of Economic Freedom from Heritage/Wall Street Journal helpful, I prefer this index because of the detailed analysis and the sophistication of the variables.

In case anyone is interested, Sweden is on 22nd place (in a tie with Chile, Germany, Hungary and Taiwan).

11:48 - A WORSE REASON TO GO TO VIETNAM: Next month, American government officials are coming here to Vietnam, to gather information before the final ruling on the 93 per cent tariff on Vietnamese shrimp. So far, the Americans think that the Vietnamese are guilty of unfair competition because their shrimp is cheaper than shrimp from Bangladesh. They don´t seem to realise that this is a stupid comparison, since the technology used in Vietnam is more efficient, and that the natural conditions are superior. In other words, this examination is an excellent and representative demonstration of how anti-dumping policies work.

03:24 - BRAND SPOTTING: Two multinational brands are available everwhere in Vietnam, from the poorest villages to the tourist districts - naturally Coca-Cola, but also Procter & Gamble´s hygiene and cleaning products. Lipton tea is available almost everyw­here. In the future, look out for Trung Nguyen coffee. Their nice highland arabica coffee is already conquering Tokyo.

13:44 - THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING IS THE PROTECTION: The shrimps here in Vietnam are very tasty and cheap. Do you know how you can tell, if you don´t trust your own taste? By the fact that the US Commerce Department just ruled that the US will introduce a 93 per cent tariff on Vietanamese shrimps.

10:43 - ON THE SUBJECT OF GLOBALISATION: Now we have just returned to Hanoi after a few days in a tiny northern mountain village by the Chinese/Vietamese border. It is ten hours north by car, on small, unsafe mountain roads. This is the poorest part of Vietnam, and judging by the stunned looks they gave us on the Sunday market, people there had never seen blonde Swedes before. Nonetheless, we woke up in the middle of the night by the sound of karaoke machines, and cheering families, sitting by their TV sets (they spell it Ti Vi), watching Greece beat Portugal in the Euro 2004 final! By the way, gambling is outlawed in Vietnam, but the official newspapers have reported the unofficial betting rates on the different soccer teams every day...