GlobLog - November 2006
A direct link to each entry is obtained by using the button below the entry.

16:22 - SWEDEN SECOND WORST IN THE EU: 

Pär Ström reports that Privacy International and Electronic Privacy Information Center just published a new detailed survey on the protection of personal privacy around the world.

The result surprises me in a bad way. It turns out that the Swedish obsession with security has led to a very high degree of surveillance as well. Sweden turns out to be the second worst-performing country in the EU, second only to the UK (and we are the worst when it comes to "systematic failure to uphold safeguards").

When we look around the world, Sweden is in a tie with Israel, a country that suffers violent attacks daily. And this is today. I don´t dare to think about what will happen when Sweden becomes the victim of a terrorist attack.

14:39 - SINCE MANY OF YOU HAVE ASKED: 

1) No, I have not seen the third episode of Planeten yet, since I´ve been abroad.

2) No, SVT has not invited me to debate the series.

14:11 - ET TU, TAX BOARD?: 

When journalists asked me about ministers who had bought services on the informal market, I asked them to conduct an experiment that would prove my point that the tax rules had lost the respect of most Swedes: I asked the journalists to call the local offices of the tax board and ask them where to send the information that your neighbours´ daughter has received some money for being your baby sitter.

My guess was that something like 50 percent of the offices would say that you can skip that. To my knowledge, none of the journalists called. But Aftonbladet reports that the new site Grannar.se just did.

I was wrong. 92 percent of the local offices advised the caller to ignore the law and skip it.

(Thanks Martin)

09:07 - (S) EMOT LAS, MANPOWER FÖR: 

Även socialdemokraterna har nu förstått värdet av flexibilitet på arbetsmarknaden, åtminstone när det gäller en svensk arbetsgivare: Socialdemokraterna. Som Åsa Larsson, chef för s-riksdagsgruppen, motiverar varför de måste komma runt LAS när de ska avskeda personal.

"Det är viktigt att vi bygger ett flexibelt kansli. Vi behöver kunna anpassa oss allt eftersom."

Men i Dagens Industri läser jag att LAS fortfarande kan räkna med åtminstone en stark anhängare:

"Regeringens besked att det inte ska bli lättare att säga upp och avskeda personal gläder bemanningsföretaget Manpower. ´Det betyder att företagen drar sig för att anställa när de behöver extra arbetskraft. Då vänder de sig hellre till oss i stället´, säger koncernchefen Jeff Joerres.

Statsminister Fredrik Reinfeldt har förklarat att lagen om anställningsskydd blir kvar oförändrad även under en borgerlig regering.

´Vi trivs bäst i länder där arbetsmarknaden är hårt reglerad. Frankrike är vår största marknad´, säger Jeff Joerres på besök i Sverige.

13:30 - IT COULD GET WORSE: 

Some say an authoritarian leader was needed to combat Russia´s extensive corruption. But a report from the OECD and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development says that corruption has grown under Putin´s rule. FT writes:

"The pervasive nature of corruption in Russia means that it affects every aspect of everyday life from renewing a passport to dealing with traffic police, according to the report.

As one Russian observer put it: ´In the past you had to pay the bureaucrats to bend the rules. Now you have to pay them to do their job´."

16:17 - THOU SHALT NOT STEAL: 

The US Supreme Court´s decision last year ("Kelo vs New London") that the government can expropriate people´s property and give it to private developers was a way of insulting the Founders retroactively. So I am very happy to see The Economist reporting that this insult made Americans aware of the abuse of expropriation, and might actually strengthen property rights in the long run:

"Kelo provoked a backlash. Most Americans are repelled by the idea that the state might take your house and give it to Donald Trump. (This is not rhetoric: New Jersey once tried, unsuccessfully, to seize someone´s home because The Donald needed somewhere to park limousines outside one of his casinos.) Since the Kelo ruling, no fewer than 34 states have passed laws or constitutional amendments aimed at curbing the abuse of eminent domain. At the mid-term elections, voters in ten states approved measures curbing politicians´ power to seize private property, all by wide margins. Only two ballot initiatives failed, in California and Idaho, and that because they clearly went too far. Re-worded, they could easily pass.

Public revulsion against such seizures is visceral and nearly uniform: polls find between 85% and 95% of Americans are opposed to them. Political affiliation makes no difference. Republicans hate to see property rights violated and individuals bullied by the state. Democrats hate to see the state´s coercive power hired out to big corporations, and worry, correctly, that the chief victims of eminent domain abuse will be the working class and ethnic minorities."

15:55 - MOSCOW - BACK TO BASICS: 

In Dagens Industri today (as usual only for subscribers), I write about the new, aggressive Russia. My question is this: If Putin supported the old Ukranian rulers that poisoned a presidential candidate, why would he hesitate to treat an ex-spy in London in the same way?

I also question Russia´s economic progress. Andrei Illarionov, Putin´s former economic adviser, has pointed out that Russia´s total economy should have grown by around 15 percent last year, only due to higher oil prices. And yet, it only grew by 7 percent. A massive destruction of capital takes place beneath the surface as government companies (that are incometent compared to for example Yukos) take control of the economy.

If you want to read more about this, Edward Lucas writes about how to respond to Putin in Times. (Thanks Philippe)

13:48 - TROUBLE AHEAD: 

Now I see the FT story that more than half of the top business executives surveyed think that protectionism is on the rise in developed countries.  One in five said that protectionism had blocked a foreign investment deal in the last three years.

Even more worrying is that only 36 per cent of these influential people thought that trade barriers in their own countries were too high. A quarter of them wanted to block sales of domestic companies when "national economic interests" were at stake.

As Milton Friedman often pointed out, not all capitalists are in favour of capitalism.

06:13 - BEST ARTICLE TITLE EVER: 

"How Milton Freed Man"

- The Economist

15:40 - FREE SPEECH UNDER FIRE IN TURKEY: 

Professor Atilla Yayla is one of Turkey´s most important intellectuals, deeply respected around the world. He is a very intelligent and energetic thinker in the liberal tradition that I have had the pleasure of meeting and working with.

It says something very troubling about Turkey´s failure of reforming that Yayla is now under attack for having "insulted" Ataturk and the Turkish Republic, because of a speech he made one week ago about the importance of democracy, individual rights and limited government, which concluded that Kemalist ideology did not promote this.

Since then Turkish media, supported by right-wing nationalists, has attacked Yayla as a "traitor" in a nation-wide, aggressive campaign. Gazi University has started an investigation and has forbidden him from lecturing until it is finished.

I don´t know what will happen to my friend Attila Yayla. I do know that Turkey´s international reputation has already been harmed.

In other news: The Egyptian blogger Kareem has been detained for another 15 days for his views on politics and religion.

14:04 - QUI S´EXCUSE, S´ACCUSE: 

The assassination of the former KGB-spy Alexander Litvinenko in London is a shocking indication that the new Russian rulers don´t want any opponent anywhere to feel safe. The murder of the Lebanese minister Pierre Gemayel is also tragic, but not as shocking. The Syrians systematically murder Lebanese politicians who threaten their influence.

But in both instances a new way of claiming innocence is interesting. Moscow and Damascus say that it would not be in their interest to murder their enemies since they know that they would be blamed for it. In other words: Everybody knows that our motive to kill them is so strong, so we could not have done it...

But sometimes the person with the motive to murder someone is the killer. And sometimes authoritarians don´t act in a rational way. And sometimes these security forces act independently - it´s enough that they get a hint that the government wants someone dead. But their excuse shows another thing: They will act like this in the future if they are not blamed and discredited for it.

13:42 - DEN SYNLIGA HANDEN - UTAN STYRKA: 

Det kom ett mail apropå min förundran över att frihandelslandet Singapore är världsledande på att dra till sig utländska företag, men får fram så lite av inhemska entreprenörer, trots (eller tack vare) ambitiösa nationella strategier, statlig vägledning och rejäla subventioner:

"Jag var för två år sedan med i en paneldiskussion för att prata om industriell mobil/trådlös utveckling och hur Singapore skulle kunna bli ledande inom området. Det som var lite fascinerande, ur ett svenskt perspektiv, var att ett land och en regering som vill och gör så mycket för att bli industriellt ledande åstakommer så litet. Det här bekymrar Singapore och man var mycket öppen för råd och rekommendationer. Trots en intensiv diskussion under dagen kom vi väl inte närmare någon förklaring och lösning.

Under middagen fick jag dock en trovärdig förklaring av min bordsgranne och värd. Allt är ´Government´ i Singapore, om du frågar dina värdar var dom jobbar så finns det alltid en Government-koppling i toppen, prova får du se. Det här leder till att landet har en extrem ´civil servant´-kultur. Studenter med toppbetyg öronmärks tidigt för en ´Government´-karriär vilket är det finaste som kan hända en Singaporian. Du kan tänka dig hur det går med entrepreörsandan."

- Bengt

17:11 - BY THE WAY: 

In 2011 Singapore´s GDP per capita (PPP) will be higher than Sweden´s, if present trends continue.

17:08 - SINGAPORE´S STRENGTH: 

The government is very intrusive in Singapore. But it has avoided several important areas of the economy, like the labour market. A salesman of Swedish design here told us that his biggest mistake when he started his business here was that he was stuck in a Swedish mentality, and still thought that the most dangerous thing imaginable was to hire someone - with all the risks and costs it results in.

After a while he realised that you can hire and fire people in Singapore. To employ someone is to give them a job, not a legally enforcable right. And so he began to hire and expand.

Singapore´s unemployment rate is 2.9 per cent.

10:31 - SINGAPORE´S PARADOX: 

I am in Singapore for the first time. A wealthy country that is a paradox. The world´s most globalised economy, the country where it is easiest to do business, with an economy that is less corrupt than Sweden´s and Switzerland´s. And yet, it´s an undemocratic country with government control of the courts and the media, where opposition figures are bankrupted by absurd legal processes. That paradox in itself makes it worth studying.

With unilateral free trade and liberal rules, Singapore has succeeded in becoming a meeting place, a regional hub for global businesses. But as other countries liberalise their economy and attract the same companies, can Singapore really encourage local entrepreneurship and innovation, while at the same time discouraging people from thinking for themselves and acting in strange, unpredictable ways, that are not welcomed by the establishement?

The jury is still out.

06:05 - SVAR DIREKT OM MINIMILÖN: 

Jag lyfte fram Per Skedingers statistik om att majoriteten av de amerikaner som lever på minimilön gör det mindre än ett år. Jesper Bengtsson svarade då att det förmodligen berodde på att många tvingas ta ytterligare ett jobb eftersom lönen är så dålig.

Per Skedinger svarar direkt här på bloggen:

"Jag ser på din blogg att du refererat till min DI-artikel och att det uppstått en diskussion om minimilöner.

Jag skulle vilja passa på tillfället att kommentera diskussionen. Jesper Bengtsson ställer en högst relevant fråga när han på sin blogg undrar om lönerörligheten uppåt beror på att många måste skaffa ett extra jobb. Men studien jag refererade till avser timlön, inte inkomst. Alltså hade 60 procent högre timlön året efter. Och den genomsnittliga ökningen av timlönen bland dem som fick högre timlön var 20 procent (vilket inte fanns utrymme för att nämna i artikeln).

Den grupp som låg kvar på minimilönen efter ett eller flera år var till stor del personer som saknade high school-examen och jobbade deltid. Lösningen för den gruppen tror jag snarare handlar om mer och bättre utbildning, än om högre minimilöner.

Vänliga hälsningar,

Per"

10:30 - DON´T PRICE THEM OUT OF THE MARKET: 

No, Jesper Bengtsson, I am not saying that "some have to be poor to make the society work". That´s a mirage resulting from your static view on the economy. The point I tried to make with my statistics is that even those who are less productive and experienced must be allowed to enter the labour market in order for them to increase their skills, and so increase their wages and so stop being poor.

(By the way, here are some facts about having two or more jobs.)

(By the way again, why am I the "neo-liberal right"? What would the "neo-liberal left" be?)

09:42 - SWEDISH MEDIA ON FRIEDMAN: 

It´s interesting to see the Swedish reactions to Milton Friedman´s death. In several papers there is nothing but the brief TT version of Reuters´ story - but adjusted to tell us that he was "controversial" and only cared about economic freedom "at any cost" (via Sänd mina rötter regn). In some versions he is said to be controversial because of his influence on US and UK policies in the 1980s. They don´t care to remind us that these policies transformed these countries from decay and rapid inflation to economic powerhouses.

And of course, in the limited space they have few fail to mention Augusto Pinochet. But Friedman condemned dictatorship and contrary to many other economists he pointed out the necessary link between economic and political freedom. He said that one of the reasons to advocate economic liberal reforms in Chile was so that it would create a foundation for rebuilding democracy (and he also happened to be right). He also promoted economic liberal reforms in China, and that doesn´t make him a Maoist.

To explain this in a way that even those who disagree with economic liberalism should understand: If a scholar holds a few lectures in Myanmar or Libya, and explains that an impartial judiciary or a free media is good and will build a foundation for democracy, that doesn´t make this scholar a supporter of the dictatorship in Myanmar or Libya. Ok? 

And if an apolitical scientist tells the Chinese leaders that they must deal with its environmental problems not even this makes him a supporter of China´s dictatorship. Or is he? In that case there are a lot of supporters of tyranny out there.

You can see the double standard here, right? The latter happens all the time, but no one would accuse such a scholar or scientist of being a supporter of the communist regime (or whatever regime it was). It´s Milton Friedman´s economic views his critics hate, but because they don´t know how to falsify them, they make up bizarre accusations about Pinochet that they would never dream of using against anyone whose views they share.

23:46 - MILTON FRIEDMAN (1912-2006): 

This bad picture is from the one time I met Milton Friedman, in Stockholm 2001. I picked him and his wife Rose up at the hotel for a lecture that he gave for young Swedish liberals and libertarians at Timbro. He wanted his life´s love and partner on most important projects to share the stage with him. Rose wasn´t very interested but Milton insisted. 

Now that Milton Friedman has just died, many point out that he was rhetorically gifted, intelligent and incredibly influential. They are correct. But that´s not the first words I think of. What struck most of us was how incredibly humble and nice this (short) giant was. He downplayed his own influence on economic and political thinking, and combined his sharp mind with a smile and a sense of humour that charmed everybody.

And he was constantly accumulating knowledge and satisfying his curiosity. At the Q&A he turned turned the tables and begun to ask us in the audience about Swedish politics, our school voucher system and other things.

Several times Rose interrupted him with an opposing view. She turned out to be more hardcore in her views than he was.

22:17 - PATHETIC PLANET PART II: 

I wrote about the first epsiode of  Planeten (”The Planet”) here. In the second episode tonight:

…the persons interviewed were once again anti-capitalist environmentalists like George Monbiot, Lester Brown, Vandana Shiva and Kenneth Hermele, who told us that economic growth is the problem – and once again, not a single contrarian voice was heard.

…we heard that there is that the population explosion will destroy the world, despite the fact that we will soon face the problem of a reduction in population.

…we were warned that 20 percent of the world’s population lives on less than one dollar a day. And they didn’t tell us that this is a smaller proportion than ever, and a reduction by half in 20 years.

…interviews and signs implied that we have growing problems of giving the world population food and water – without telling us that more people have access to this than ever, and that we have reduced hunger by half in 30 years and reduced lack of water access in 15 years.

…Vandana Shiva – a person who thinks that the Green Revolution (that saved more lives than anything else in world history) was a bad thing – told us that developing countries shouldn’t export agricultural goods to wealthy countries.

…we were told that mankind must have a smaller ecological footprint, and then the show complained about poverty in Kenya, without telling us that this is how they want us to live, since Kenya is one of few positive examples according to the WWF’s measurement of ecological footprints.

…Jared Diamond (a person whom I really respect for his great book Guns, Germs and Steel) once again said that the environmental collapse of Easter Island was a metaphor for the modern world – without telling us that the Easter Island was an exception since it was dependent on the slow-growing Chilean palm tree (which takes 40-60 years to mature). There are 10 000 Pacific islands, 12 of them have undergone declines or collapses. Why are those 12 more representative than the 9 988 others?

…we once again heard about several real problems, like the collapse of fish stocks around the world. And once again, these truths were lost in uncritical scaremongering.

If SVT doesn’t show a series about the benefits of economic growth and technology after this, it is a clear violation of their claims of being objective and impartial. The least I expect is a serious televised debate about these issues straight after the series, where people who are not anti-capitalist environmentalists are also represented.

09:57 - HOW THE MINIMUM WAGE HURTS: 

Even though I like divided government, it´s sad to see that many new democrats in Congress are centrist in precisely the wrong way, they combine the worst from the republicans (anti-gay marriage, anti-immigration) and the worst from the democrats (economic ignorance, protectionism).

And they all agree on increasing the minimum wage to help the working poor. Well, would that help?

In Dagens Industri today, Per Skedinger explains that 60 percent of Americans on minimum wage have increased their income next year. After three years, only 15 percent still lived on minimum wage.

That´s interesting. Around 5 percent of the American workforce live on a minimum wage (30 percent of them are teenagers). So only 15 percent of them - 0.75 percent of the workforce - still have no more than the minimum wage three years later. So the idea is to increase their wage at the cost of increasing the barriers around the labour market for the great majority who use the low entry wage as a springboard.

Sounds like way of turning the working poor into the unemployed poor.

20:34 - BIG BROTHER AS INNOVATOR: 

As you know I love technology. But we should keep in mind that Big Brother is also an innovator, constantly developing new methods to control and spy on the citizens. As the government defends freedom from terrorism and organised crime, we must be very cautious so that it doesn´t become the biggest threat to freedom itself.

So who watches the watchers? Pär Ström.

He has just published Med storebror i uppfinnarverkstan, a report on 22 new surveillance technologies and its quite shocking. Some of it we already know about. Printers put individual signatures on all printouts, so that they can be traced.  Automatic face recognition and tracking of mobile phones mean that it will be difficult to take a walk in the future without ending up in a few databases.

But did you know that American military scientists are experimenting with insects merged with technology that carry sensors and can be remote controlled to a specific location? Or that there are methods to identify a computer on the Internet by its internal clock? Or to read someone´s emotional state via their voice over the phone?

Be afraid, be very afraid.

16:27 - THE 75%-RULE: 

Have you also heard people who think that Europe doesn´t need rapid constant restructuring of the economy since we have big export companies based on superior R&D?

They forget that those companies are equally dependent on constant restructing and innovation. I just learned that 75 percent of ABB´s revenue comes from products developed in the last five years.

16:20 - PROGRESS IN SPANISH: 

If you read Spanish, here is a translation of my view on progress and why it´s always underestimated, from ContraPeso.info.

10:45 - ÖVERDRIFTER UNDERMINERAR: 

"De apokalyptiska budskapen riskerar att slå tillbaka. Vi har inte råd att få en rekyl på grund av att vi använt de allra mörkaste allvarstonerna.

Kerstin Anér framhöll redan på sjuttiotalet att det är ett pedagogiskt problem att ägna sig åt undergångsförkunnelser. Risken är att skräckvisionerna nöts ut och att folk blir passiviserade genom att de känner sig maktlösa.

Till det kommer att icke uppfyllda förutsägelser om katastrofer ger belackarna och skeptikerna ammunition att skjuta tillbaka med.

- Miljövännen och klimatforskaren Björn-Ola Linnér varnar för medias miljööverdrifter i Svenska Dagbladet.

15:18 - WHEN THE MEDIA CAMPAIGNS: 

In my Dagens Industri column today, I examine what happens when the media stops reporting and begins campaigning, like Aftonbladet and SVT does about climate change right now. Suddenly critical examination is replaced by missionary zeal. Yes, global warming is happening, but that does not justify that the media gives us a distorted view of it by uncritically embracing the worst nightmare scenarios.

Here is a nuanced look at the latest science of global warming by Patrick J Michaels, that they should have a look at. If they are interested in the science, that is.

08:43 - NEW PAPER ON HAPPINESS: 

Yesterday I presented my new paper Happiness Paternalism : Blunders from a New Science at CNE in Brussels, my most detailed criticism of the political interpretations of wellbeing research so far.

Richard Layard and other popularisers use this science to say that growth does not contribute to happiness and that we need higher taxes, a less flexible economy, a national system of values education and government control of television and advertising, to promote better values and role models.

This perspective has a strong influence on European politics right now, and I am certain that it will grow, as economic criticisms of the free market have fallen out of fashion. And that is why it’s important to look at it critically. My paper explains why their interpretation is not supported by the data, that the liberal market economies are probably the happiest societies ever, and that much of what we know about wellbeing suggests that more government intervention would undermine it.

Download it here.

15:24 - THE GLOBAL TOP TEN: 

Foreign Policy and A T Kearney has published their annual globalisation index, measuring the economic, personal, technological and political links a country has with the rest of the world. So here are the world´s most globalised countries, compared with last year´s scores:

1) Singapore (-)

2) Switzerland (+1)

3) United States (+1)

4) Ireland (-2)

5) Denmark (+2)

6) Canada (-)

7) The Netherlands (-2)

8) Australia (+4)

9) Austria (-1)

10. Sweden (-)

Like last year, Sweden just made it into the global top ten. And just like last year, Iran is the least globalised of the 62 countries measured.

09:14 - HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD: 

In Sydsvenska Dagbladet today, Henrik Bredberg recommends people to read the new UNDP report to understand the problem, and my book to find the solution.

16:50 - BUREAUCRATS AND BRIBES: 

Transparency International recently published its annual report. So Christine Bowers took a look at possible connections between corruption and business regulations (as measured by the Doing Business report). And her graph reveals a strong correlation. Only the most economically free countries are free from corruption (close to 10). Bureacrats with power result in more bribes. No surprise there, but a million implications.

09:17 - AN EYE FOR TRADE: 

Fascinating. As you know, we humans have a big white part of our eye surrounding the iris, whereas the scleras of other primates are so dark that they almost camouflage where they are looking.

Scientists now point out that those with eyes that made it easy for others to see where they were looking made it easier for others to understand them and to cooperate with them. Another proof that division of labour and voluntary cooperation is part of human nature...

(via The Economist)

21:54 - PATHETIC PLANET: 

I just saw the first part of a TV-series on the environment that claimed that the animals will die as mankind expands - AND complained that all the nature films filled with exotic animals are actually filmed right besides human settlements (so they apparently survive our presence after all...). It claimed that our bodies are being filled with poision and pollution and that get increasingly unhealthy - AND blamed this on a bigger population, due to longer life expectancy (a proof that we are more healthy).

Planeten ("The planet") is one of the biggest documentary series in the Nordic countries ever. So far, it is not the most serious.

One of few hard facts was the comparison of pictures of European glaciers one hundred years ago and (much smaller ones) today - even though the film-makers must know that the glaciers were unnaturally big in 1900 after 400 years of a cool climate. This trend would result in water shortage. "One billion people already lack access to water", the documentary explained. The "already" is a claim that this is a growing number. And that is untrue. It was 2 billion two decades ago.

Only the biggest doomesday sayers were interviewed - combined with anti-capitalists like George Monbiot and Lester Brown, introduced as "experts" rather than propagandists. Not a single scientist with another interpretation of the facts was interviewed. Not a single one.

Of course the show also had good points, for example about rain forests and overfishing. But they were lost in the general doomsday propaganda. This was nowhere close to the scientific pretensions they talked about before the show. This wasn´t fact-finding journalism, this was classical thesis-driven agitation.

This is what the TV license tax funds.

17:46 - MORE PEOPLE THAN EVER HAVE SAFE WATER: 

The new UNDP report highlights that one billion people around the world lack reliable access to safe water. Since the report does not show the historical trend most who read it or the newspaper reports about it will think that the problem has increased.

That´s the wrong impression. Since 1990, access to safe water in developing countries has increased from 71 to 80 percent, and access to improved sanitation has increased from 35 to 50 percent, according to the UN.

09:39 - FREE KAREEM: 

Some people wonder why universities in Egypt fail to impress. Could it be because they don´t encourage creative and intelligent students, but report them to the police?

When I was in Cairo the last time I met and was impressed by 22-year old Abdelkareem Nabil Soliman, who promotes women´s rights and freedom of religion on his blog. Earlier this year his university expelled him for hiw views, and now he is arrested, awaiting prosecution for using his freedom of speech.  

Daily Star writes about the case and you can sign a petition for his release, and show that the rest of the world cares about Abdelkareem and human rights in Egypt.

08:32 - A HEALTHY RESULT: 

On the whole, I think it´s a good result from the US. Divided government is always good for checks and balances, and it´s especially important with a criticial Congress when we have a president who expands the executive´s powers like there is no tomorrow and increases spending more than anyone since Lyndon Johnson.

At the same time, everybody knows that this is a result of discontent with George W Bush, the incompetence of the Iraq war and the corruption of the congressional republicans, so it´s not a positive mandate for the stupid new democratic preference for higher prices for poor Americans (symbolised by the opposition to Chinese exports and Wal-Mart).

One of the biggest problems in the US is how the party´s extremists (trade unions or the Christian Right) control the candidates, and "purify" the party by getting rid of the moderates. But with big swings like this we see many new congressional democrats with a wider variety of views on the issues (and Lieberman made it through the back door). That´s important for the future of the party.

15:37 - ECIPE LAUNCHED: 

At last free trade has an organised presence in Brussels. The launch conference of the new European free trade think-tank ECIPE takes place right now.

I started off by presenting a prognosis of the next 15-20 years of globalisation. The very brief version is that extreme poverty will be abolished and virtual reality will dominate international service trade. Another theme at the conference has been the limitations of preferential trade agreements.

How timely the subjects are is indicated by how they are constantly changed by ongoing events. The American election today removes the last chance that the US would show leadership in the WTO negotiations until they have a new president, and during a morning session we got the news that Vietnam—one of the world’s fastest growing economies—had just been approved as the WTO’s 150^th member.

10:14 - HOW TO GET A BMW: 

After four lectures in one day (I think it’s a personal record) I was driven to Baku airport in the middle of the night. The strange thing was that the traffic lights kept stopping us – all the time – even though there were no pedestrians out.

The person who drove me explained that the Azeri traffic police had repeatedly vetoed a more rational system, because you have to pay them an $80 fine if you drive against a red light (and the temptation to do that is almost irresistible after a while). And if you pay cash you make them even happier and you only have to pay a third or half.

And when I began to look for them I saw the traffic police behind a lot of crossings and corners. They distinguished themselves by driving BMWs…