Scrap crap CAP, carps cross Blair. Chirac crass.

Good for you, Tony. Blair's told Jacques Chirac what we all know: That the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a hypocritical, selfish disgrace. According to the Guardian, last friday,

Mr Blair had bluntly told Mr Chirac that the oft-stated French concern for Africa would sound hollow if it blocked further CAP reform, keeping EU markets closed to developing countries and preventing an effective new round of World Trade Organisation talks at Doha.

Mr Blair passionately expressed his view that the west had a responsibility to open the developed markets of Europe, which would require major reform of the CAP and an end to production subsidies.

And Chirac gets offended: "You have been very rude, and I have never been spoken to like this before," he said, according to the Guardian. Not the wittiest of comebacks.

Continue reading "Scrap crap CAP, carps cross Blair. Chirac crass."

Morrissey meats the New Model Army

Last weekend kicked off with a Morrissey concert. I freely admit I have never been a big fan off his. Until embarrassingly recently I thought the name was Van Morrissey, nor was I sure whether he was a band or a person. I did know Morrissey was responsible for "Girlfriend in a Coma" and other such memorably articulated misery, to which depressed 15-year old vegans mouth the lyrics while clawing at their wrists in a closet. So I was not prepared for the general perkiness of his fans--some were positively chirpy, and many would not have been born when he started with The Smiths 20 years ago (I've been reading up).

I've decided that one must approach Morrissey ironically. Not only does his work then become very funny (I happen to think "Girlfriend in a Coma" is hilarious), it is certain to annoy the hell out of him, because I am sure Morrissey has no sense of humor whatsoever.

Exhibit A: He is a militant vegetarian, and inflicted upon his concert audience a song titled "Meat is Murder":

It's not "natural", "normal" or kind
The flesh you so fancifully fry
The meat in your mouth
As you savour the flavour
Of MURDER

It's a classic. He then told his audience that "All good people are vegetarians," which received little pockets of applause amid an audience otherwise busy digesting the Swedish meatballs they had for dinner.

Exhibit B: By way of introduction to a new anti-English song he's written, Morrissey mentioned how the UK had withstood 3 world wars... including Margaret Thatcher. The song itself berates the Tories, Labour, the Monarchy and Oliver Cromwell. Now which of these is not like the others? If you answered Oliver Cromwell, on account of him having been dead for 350 years, you are correct. Remind me to write a little ditty later lamenting the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, whereby the Scheldt river was closed in order to please the Dutch, depopulating Antwerp and ruining trade there for centuries, until the blockade was lifted in the latter half of 19th century. Antwerp will be forever eclipsed by Amsterdam--now, Mr. Morrissey, why don't you write about that? Here, let me start you off:

It's not "rational", "tolerant" or kind
The tulips you so greedily buy
The trade in your harbor
As you enjoy the ploy
Of the BLOCKADE

Continue reading "Morrissey meats the New Model Army"

If Jesus saves, don't give Orwell credit.

I think Andrew Sullivan's secret is that he wishes he were Christopher Hitchens. But Hitchens is smarter than Sullivanóthe former is anti-religious, the latter Catholic, of all things; the former chooses targets on their merits (Kissinger, Mother Theresa, Clinton, Iraq), the latter chooses targets according to party line (Clinton, Iraq, Krugman, The New York Times); the former writes a book about George Orwell in which he observes that Orwell is all things to all people, the latter obligingly sees all sorts of things in Orwell:

One key shift toward totalitarianism in the novel comes when the old hymn "Beasts of England" gets replaced by Napoleon (the chief pig and Stalin figure) to a more generic song praising "Animal Farm." Orwell's point, I think, is that patriotism is, for all its faults, far more humane and progressive than its opposite. Today's left would do well to remember that, I think.

So let me get that straight--Stalin was not a patriot? And what is the opposite of patriotism anyway? Buying Japanese cars? Going on holiday in France? And aren't Saddam Hussein's bodyguards true patriots? Should we perhaps reinstate that verse in the German national anthem? Hitchens, of course, has a more nuanced apologia for the hard line on Iraq, one that steers well clear of tests for patriotism and instead homes in on the concept of the West's role being that of choosing the lesser evil. But there is more Orwell fun from Sullivan:

I was also struck by the sense that the apotheosis of Animal Farm makes it no worse than its human-run neighbors. Orwell's distrust of capitalism was as intense as his loathing of Stalinism. I think he was wrong there - and guilty of moral equivalence. But I also think that it does no justice to him, as Hitchens argues, to ignore this and co-opt him for the right - even the neo-liberal right of today.

So Krugman doesn't stand a chance, if even Orwell's cautious approach to a received wisdom is painted with the broad brush of partisanship. Question the Catholic Church's excesses, as Sullivan allows himself, and that is a moral duty; but question capitalism's excesses, and that is a moral flaw.

At the risk of starting a whole new tangent, it's a funny thing, this predilection among the conservative religious in America to equate capitalism with morality. Jesus was if anything the opposite of capitalist--indeed, the way in which the Old Testament God interfered with the affairs of us humans is as far away from laissez-faire as you can get, and a darn good blue-print for enlightened despotism.

Continue reading "If Jesus saves, don't give Orwell credit."

Krugman, continued.

The Krugman article I blogged just below has elicited this response, from an anonymous economist, on Andrew Sullivan's letters page. Because this page is not static, here is the salient part:

The importance of incentives to innovate comes up in evaluating Krugman's comparions between the U.S. and countries like Canada and Sweden. Comparing the bottom decile in America to the bottom decile in Sweden is interesting, but fundamentally it cannot tell us what would happen if public policy in America took a hint from the Scandinavians. That's because America--more accurately, the existence of an enormous, relatively free marketplace for new products--has been responsible for much of the innovation that has made living standards elsewhere so high. The median Swede might lose some of her wealth and longevity if it weren't for America's big-winner system producing new computers, software, pharmeceuticals, and other technology that make an hour of work buy a lot more stuff today than it did, say, in 1970. Even if some of those gains come from the minds of non-Americans, we have to ask how many of them we would have seen if it hadn't been possible to sell beneficial new products in such a great big market.

I assume what she is trying to say is that if it weren't for low US taxes the US market wouldn't be as big as it is today and hence not as big a consumer of Volvos? The corollary of that argument is that Sweden is holding back US growth by taxing its citizens out of being able to afford Cadillacs. And indeed, a US foreign policy objective implies this. From The National Security Strategy of the United States of America comes this tidbit:

We will use our economic engagement with other countries to underscore the benefits of policies that generate higher productivity and sustained economic growth, including:

* pro-growth legal and regulatory policies to encourage business investment, innovation, and entrepreneurial activity;

* tax policiesóparticularly lower marginal tax ratesóthat improve incentives for work and investment;

The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg dismisses this as "your doctor's names for tax cuts for the rich and environmental laxity". (Thanks Felix for those FedExed back issues).

So who is being the parasite, then? Sweden, benefitting from American demand created by a huge market wrought through low taxation and income inequality? Or the US, exploiting an underclass for cheap labor while polluting the environment with impunity?

I believe it's neither. The anonymous economist's argument is bunk: Yes, the US has been responsible for much of the innovation that has raised global living standards. But so has Sweden. If there were such as thing as a statistic for innovation per capita, I reckon the 8 million swedes would be well ahead of the US--they are punching way above their weight.

Furthermore, it's one thing to suggest that economies (and their markets) grow faster if tax rates are low. But she mistakes growth for absolute size. The US market is huge through historic accident--because the US states came together in a federation. The EU is huge for the same reason--and is about to leapfrog the US when it welcomes 10 new members in 2004. This did not happen because the EU lowered its taxes.

Continue reading "Krugman, continued."

Money Money Money

Economic laissez faire apologists seethe whenever Paul Krugman engages them with facts. He must be on to something, because the conservative blogosphere feels the need to counter his every utterance. His latest piece in the New York Times Magazine, about income inequality, has a long but interesting take on the differences in wealth distribution between the US and Sweden:

A few months ago the conservative cyberpundit Glenn Reynolds made a splash when he pointed out that Sweden's G.D.P. per capita is roughly comparable with that of Mississippi -- see, those foolish believers in the welfare state have impoverished themselves! Presumably he assumed that this means that the typical Swede is as poor as the typical resident of Mississippi, and therefore much worse off than the typical American.

But life expectancy in Sweden is about three years higher than that of the U.S. Infant mortality is half the U.S. level, and less than a third the rate in Mississippi. Functional illiteracy is much less common than in the U.S.

How is this possible? One answer is that G.D.P. per capita is in some ways a misleading measure. Swedes take longer vacations than Americans, so they work fewer hours per year. That's a choice, not a failure of economic performance. Real G.D.P. per hour worked is 16 percent lower than in the United States, which makes Swedish productivity about the same as Canada's.

But the main point is that though Sweden may have lower average income than the United States, that's mainly because our rich are so much richer. The median Swedish family has a standard of living roughly comparable with that of the median U.S. family: wages are if anything higher in Sweden, and a higher tax burden is offset by public provision of health care and generally better public services. And as you move further down the income distribution, Swedish living standards are way ahead of those in the U.S. Swedish families with children that are at the 10th percentile -- poorer than 90 percent of the population -- have incomes 60 percent higher than their U.S. counterparts. And very few people in Sweden experience the deep poverty that is all too common in the United States. One measure: in 1994 only 6 percent of Swedes lived on less than $11 per day, compared with 14 percent in the U.S.

The moral of this comparison is that even if you think that America's high levels of inequality are the price of our high level of national income, it's not at all clear that this price is worth paying. The reason conservatives engage in bouts of Sweden-bashing is that they want to convince us that there is no tradeoff between economic efficiency and equity -- that if you try to take from the rich and give to the poor, you actually make everyone worse off.

And yet, I have already heard here in Sweden about one person's 38-year old roommate, a "teacher", who hasn't had a real job his entire life because he hasn't found exactly what he is looking for, career-wise. Meanwhile, he gets unemployment benefits. It is clear to me that what this guy needs is a good dose of New York style 'work-fare', where he gets a uniform and a brush and a street to sweep in return for his check. My guess is he'd be teaching by next week.

So Krugman's last paragraph puzzles me. Surely, liberals can concede that a society with higher income redistribution does suffer from a less efficient engine for economic growth. Such a society will also have a more equitable distribution of wealth, however. What liberals and conservatives can disagree on is the value of this equity to society. Both extremes are discredited: In a society that values equity above all else, everybody will be equally dirt poor--witness communism. And a society with unbridled capitalism is in danger of succumbing to crime and unrest--witness post-communism. Anybody who's ever played Civilization knows this in their bones.

So the ideal society lies somewhere in the middle. And it clear to me that different societies can legitimately differ as to where that middle is, depending on how much they value equity. So perhaps the Swedish model and the American model are both uniquely adapted to their respective national dispostions.

Continue reading "Money Money Money"

The faint praise I have ever heard

The IHT's People section today carries a quote attributed to David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, about his fiction and literary editor Bill Buford, who will be quitting at the end of the year. Buford was "one of the great fiction editors that The New Yorker has ever had," says Remnick.

Did the editing go awry in Remnick's head, or in the head of an IHT copy editor, as I suspect? Or perhaps Remnick meant exactly what he said?

Swedish lessons, continued

Some Swedes' mastery of the English language is a bit frayed at the edges. I've been apartment hunting, and today I found a lovely place. But the owner--a pleasant if somewhat Teutonic dot commer moving to Hamburg to try his luck there--is going to show it to a few more people and then decide whom he likes most. He wanted to find out more about me--through an interview of sorts--so he asked me on my way out, "Are you pedantic?"

I had to think fast, as the place is newly renovated with brushed aluminium kitchen things like in the magazines and with hardwood floors, and I now had so say convincingly whatever he wanted to hear in order for me to get it.

"Me, no, I'm laid back, and easy-going about things."

He looked crest-fallen. "Oh. because I am pedantic about my apartment."

Shit. The word for 'pedantic' in Swedish must have positive connotations, or maybe he means 'meticulous' or 'scrupulous'. Better make it obvious to him that of course I am pedantic, but in a good way.

"No, no, I mean I am very fastiduous about keeping things clean, but I don't get stressed about it. I live, how shall we say, ecologically, with a small footprint." (Where the hell did that come from?) "But it's not like I'm anal about it or anything."

"Oh, because I am kind of anal about my apartment, I suppose."

As I did not want to go into a discussion about all the possible connotations of being anal, I guess I'll just keep my hopes in check about this apartment.

But, dotcom owner, if you googled my name and you find this blog, as I suspect you will, please let me have the apartment? As this post shows, I can be very pedantic if needed.

The agony and the ecstasy of a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed piece

An extremely silly opinion piece in today's Wall Street Journal argues against the legalization of soft drugs such as ecstasy on the grounds that--get this--new studies show it may be bad for you if you take a lot of it.

Yep, taking an overdose of ecstasy not only leads to a whole lot of euphoria in the user, but possibly an increased likelihood of depression and Parkinson's disease in later life. Here is the damning nut graph:

Unlike cocaine or heroin, ecstasy isn't at the heart of street crime, gangs or Third World drug cartels, but that doesn't make it safe.

OK, stop laughing. What this amounts to is a wonderful argument for banning smoking and drinking.

First off, lung cancer and liver cirrhosis have much higher levels of mortality than a bout of not remembering that you're feeling sorry for yourself. Second, second-hand ecstasy is much safer than either alcohol or cigarettes: whereas all that an ecstasy user wants to do is hug you, a drunkard will just as likely hit you. And whether or not it causes cancer, second-hand smoke does gets in your eyes; all that ecstasy users cause is is longer queues at nightclubs.

A more cynical view of the rhetorical public health policy question that is asked ("Are we spawning a new generation of people who will struggle with depression over their lifetime?") is that the problem with ecstasy is precisely that it doesn't kill you. Smoke too many cigarettes and you get lung cancer, die and stop bothering society. But take ecstasy, get depressed and live till 90; now that's selfish of you.

I propose giving ecstasy users subsidized cigarettes. Studies show that nicotine alleviates depression and helps prevent the onset of Parkinson's. And they'd die sooner.

What will actually happen, I can almost guarantee it, is that next year you will see ecstasy/nicotine combo pills on the market. In fact I think I might go look for some VC funding.

Continue reading "The agony and the ecstasy of a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed piece"

Bin Laden's plan

I was never really sure until this weekend whether Al Qaeda had it in for Americans or for the West. I have always suspected that Bin Laden is anti-Western (for want of a better word) rather than anti-American. It's a distinction that has so far been lost on many Europeans, who have found it easier to compartmentalize what happened in New York as a kind of pay-back (deserved or not) for the perceived arrogance of the US as a superpower.

It was possible, I thought, that Osama Bin Laden was naive or insane enough not to know the difference between anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism. Or perhaps he is "just" anti-American, but showed a serious lack of judgment (in addition, if that's possible, to the lack of judgment displayed by engaging in terrorism in the first place) in targeting New York, the world's most international city. He managed to kill scores of nationalities, and the outrage in capitals around the world led to a wave of sympathy for the initial phase of the US' response.

The question was, had this been intentional? Because there are two possible goals for Osama Bin Laden: engage the US, or engage the entire Western world. Either work towards building a cleavage between the US and its traditional allies over the differences in their approach to the Muslim world (including their stance vis-a-vis Israel), or look to pick a fight with everything that is not pure Muslim, in his eyes.

His rhetoric has always implied the former goal. And it is echoed even today. But Al Qaeda's actions over the past week point to a grander ambition. By bombing a French oil tanker and by attacking tourists in Bali, the group is helping diminish what hesitance there may be on the part of the non-US West.

This will turn the tide of opinion in Europe towards a harder line against terrorism, and it will help harden the line against Iraq. This time, I am sure it's what Al Qaeda wants.

Continue reading "Bin Laden's plan"

More coincidences

The suspicion that my presence in New York is a prerequisite for the Yankees doing well in the post-season was strengthened by their untimely exit this year.

The evidence is circumstancial but copious: I have lived in New York for two 6-season periods: from 1976 to 1982, and from 1996 to 2002. In the last 40 years, it's only during these times the Yankees have won the World Series. What's more, they only ever win if I'm paying particular attention. In 1977, for example, I was glued to the television as Reggie Jackson hit three homers in Game 6 against the LA Dodgers. But last year, September 11 was still too close for me to focus properly on the Yankees, and they lost the series to the Diamondbacks.

When I'm not in New York at all, such as from 1982 until 1996, and again now late in 2002, the Yankee game simply collapses.

My parents, on the other hand, have a different effect on the place they live. Wherever they happen to be, it's the political situation that collapses. Moscow in 1991, Pakistan in the late 90s, Israel in 2001... And then today I noticed this news item.

Autumn reading list

The past few months have seen some fascinating new cleavages emerge in the post-September 11 policy community. I hadn't chronicled them here through sheer being on vacation-ness, but it's time to catch up. I expect all future fellow disputants in matters political to have read up.

The most recent was the very public split between Christopher Hitchens and The Nation. Hitch is his usual articulate self as to the reasons why, but by being relatively polite by his own standards, he is actually trumped by this piece in the New York Observer by Ron Rosenbaum.

Rosenbaum did not need to bring up Enron and Bush's intelligence, in part because lefties do have a point in both cases, albeit an irrelevant one in the context of how to act post-September 11. These are diversions from an otherwise excellent polemic; the piece makes me wish I had had a subscription to the New York Observer when I lived there. I suspect it and the New York Review of Books are two publications I will slowly ease into over the coming years.

The must-read foreign policy article of the summer was Robert Kagan's piece in Policy Review. Fareed Zakaria issues a rebuttal of sorts in the New Yorker, but with the American left too much in disarray to offer a credible contribution to the debate, the disagreements that are left are more about degree than kind.

If anybody has any other candidates for must-read policy articles from past few months, especially from the left (European or American), I'd love to hear about them. I'm still digesting the implications of the conclusions these articles draw.

Continue reading "Autumn reading list"

Fun facts about the Swedish language II

In Swedish, a little means a lot. If you say, "I have a little pain" (Jag är lite ont) you are in fact saying you have a lot of pain. Apparently, Swedes are a very modest people, and if you truly have a little pain, then its not worth mentioning, so there is no way of expressing it.

Osten means "the cheese". So next time you write an email to Östen, don't forget the dots. Pity that email addresses don't support dots.

A lot of Swedish words are very similar to English, especially if you say them aloud. To prove this, I have written a little story in Swedish that everybody should understand:

Telefoner ringer.
--"Inspektör Poot här."
En extra elegant blond kallar in:
--"Hjälp! Hjälp! Jag (I) bakar en kaka, men (but) den choklada såsen kryper av."
Det är hård, men jag är hungrig:
--"Fryser kakan; jag kommer."
Jag går till blond; hon är naket. Jag löser min bälte, och jag äter kakan.
--"Kakan är god, jag är glad."
--"Vill du har sex?"
--"Sex kakar? Ja!"
--"Jag är vild och rå men du är slö och dum och hopplös. Gå hem, idiot!"
Jag går hem.

Translation in the comments section.

Oh, and Björn Borg means "bear fortress." And they have candy bars here called Plopp and Japp. I wonder why those have never conquered the world market.

Continue reading "Fun facts about the Swedish language II"

Mission Antarctica: Winning the War of Meaning over Consumerism

Felix has put up a page for his sister Rhian Salmon, who is going to Antarctica for a year or two, in part to get away from it all. He suggests a book club to keep in touch. Here are my recommendations:

Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism by Sean Hanitty

Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right by Ann Coulter

Mission Compromised: A Novel by Oliver North

I imagine there is nothing like these books to get your blood boiling when it's -80 degrees outside.

From the Amazon.com page for the book by Sean Hanitty:

18 people recommended Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right in addition to Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism

15 people recommended Stupid White Men ...and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! instead of Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism

Continue reading "Mission Antarctica: Winning the War of Meaning over Consumerism"

Media watch: Somebody please shoot the messenger

The World Health Organization put out its first annual World Report on Violence and Health last week. Reuters used the data annex to construct this "graphic". Take a good look at it. How many things wrong with it can you find?

First off, the statistics in the upper half of the graphic are not per 100,000 deaths, but per 100,000 people, per year.

Second, comparing the European region to the region of the Americas might lead you to conclude that Europe and America have similar rates of violent death. But if you read the report you'll find that the statistics for the European region include all of the former Soviet Union, while the Americas includes all of Latin America.

What are the statistics for the US vs. Western Europe, then? The WHO does not break down the figures according to region, but according to income, into high and low/middle subgroups. The high income subgroup for the Americas includes only The Bahamas, Canada and the US--basically, the US. The high income subgroup for Europe is pretty much just Western Europe.

Suicide in the rich Europe stood at 10.5 per 100,000 people per year, vs. 10.6 in rich Americas. On the graphic, it appears that a lot more Europeans than Americans are offing themselves. Apparently, this is because in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe it's the done thing. In South America, however, a strongly Catholic ethic against preempting the Lord seems to prevail. This explains the discrepancy.

Regarding homicides, rich Europe killed at a rate of 1.0 per 100,000 people per year, vs. 6.5 in the US. The rest of Europe murdered at a rate of 14.8/100,000/yr, while the rest of the Americas shed blood at the rate of 27.5/100,000/yr.

Combined figures how that in the US 17.2/100,000/yr die through "intentional injury", vs. 11.5 in Western Europe. (Deaths caused by war were negligible in both regions).

So here is some news you can use: You are 50% more likely to die a violent death in the US than in Western Europe. However, if you do kill someone in Western Europe, the victim is 10 times more likely to be you than somebody else. Now that's civilized.

Continue reading "Media watch: Somebody please shoot the messenger"

No really, some of my best friends are French

The French government has banned my iPod from store shelves because it's too loud, according to French Law. I'm only allowed to hear up to 100 decibels of music in France, as opposed to the 104 my iPod can muster, and the caring French nanny state has decided my ears may not take that kind of abuse. Never mind that European law says it's perfectly fine (they have a law about this at all? Do they also cap the noise level at hard rock concerts? Silly me, they soon will). Never mind that the noise level depends on the impedance of the headset rather than the iPod. So Apple will have a software fix in place next week that will bring the iPod back in line with fragile French sensitivities. But who took the time to go test an iPod in the first place?

Yes, the French government has been on a roll lately when it comes to annoying people. As for the Common Agriculture Policy championed by the French, it is simultaneously the EU's biggest single expenditure at 45% of its total budget and its most anti-free market, anti-capitalist, anti-third world, market-distorting, anti-competitive embarrassment. But at least the French and their cronies have begun to feel the need to justify this obvious swindle. In a letter to European newspapers 2 weeks ago (noticed and skewered by this week's Economist) the French agriculture minister defended CAP not just on the grounds that he wants to preserve the inefficient ways of small farmers, whose sole contribution to society is to make the French feel warm and fuzzy about themselves in their belief that they are all quaint rural types deep down. They also defend it on the grounds that the third world should be dissuaded from growing the kinds of crops that EU farmers grow because, well, you figure it out:

Some also claim that the CAP is responsible for hunger in the third world. Nothing could be further from the truth. Agriculture in a number of these countries, particularly in Africa, is primarily concerned with promoting self-sufficiency in food. This is seriously undermined by the destruction of traditional agriculture, which encourages an increase in imports and in the indebtedness of these States.

In other words, We the EU are slapping all these tariffs and quotas on your imports because we believe you are making a terrible mistake in trying to develop. Wow. The audacity of these poor people, trying to weasel their way into our markets.

Continue reading "No really, some of my best friends are French"

New phone number

My new permanent number is +46 70 611 5711. I wanted to get a 555 number to freak out Felix but they were all taken, I'm afraid.

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Fun facts about the Swedish language

The alphabet goes from A to Ö ; there is no W, but after Z we get an Å (oh), an Ä (ay) and finally the Ö (the French euh). That's in addition to A (ah), E (eh), O (ooh), I (ee), Y (eeh-ye) and U (The French uu). No wonder Swedish sounds the way it does.

There is no word in Swedish for "Please". You have to get all passive-aggressive and say something like "Can I have that, thanks."

Continue reading "Fun facts about the Swedish language"