Sweden: The new Philippines

According to a new study, published in a Swedish daily a few days ago, 70 000 Swedes now work in either Norway or Denmark. This number doesn’t include seasonal workers. If you couple that number with the 50 000 Swedes who live and work in London and probably another 20 000 or so who work in the rest of the UK, with the 10 000 or so who work in Ireland and the all the people who work in smaller numbers in other countries, it would seem that about 200 000 Swedes have gone abroad to earn their living.

What is concerning about this number is that so many of the Swedish ex-pats leave simply because they can’t find employment in Sweden. This is especially true for the ones who leave for Norway and Denmark. In some regions in Sweden, the government employment centres even pay the expences for unemployed people to go look for work in the neighbouring countries.

From being a country that imported workers because of labour shortages just a few decades ago, we are now exporting people because we can’t employ them. This is exactly what the Philippines have done for decades. So when our politicians claim that Sweden ranks among the best in fighting unemployment, we know they are lying or maybe I have just uncovered the heretofore completely unknown fact that the Philippines is one of the havens of employment in the World.

Less is more at the World Cup

Last night we played our opening match at the 2006 World Cup against the "Soca Warriors" of Trinidad and Tobago. T 'n T is the smallest nation, with regards to population, ever to compete at the World Cup.

This is the third consecutive World Cup where this record has been broken. In 1998 the "Reggae Boyz" from Jamaica, a country of 2.5 million inhabitants, provided lots of excitement and colour but little in the way of soccer knowledge. In 2002 Slovenia, population 1.8 million, came to Korea with high hopes but left with zero points, zero hope and zero unity. This year it's Trinidad and Tobogo, population 1.1 million, that carries the torch of the small nations. Maybe they can do better than Jamaica and Slovenia.

However being small geographically isn't enough for the Caribbeans. They are widely considered as being the worst team in the year's tournament. That is why it was so nice to see that they could salvage a point already in their opening match, even though I would have prefered a Swedish win. With the yellow shorts accompanying the yellow jerseys, the Swedes looked like spring chickens. Come to think of it, they played like it too.

Now that I see virtually no hope of Sweden progressing to the knock out stage I will be cheering for the "Soca Warriors" to show that less is more in Germany.

ESC: Open to anyone

Lordi's surprise victory in the Eurovision Song Contest signalled that the contest is no longer as predictable as it used to be. Among the more unconventional entries this year were, apart from the Finnish monster rockers, a country tune from Germany, a soul and R n' B song, partly sung in Hebrew!, from Israel and some Latino rythms from Moldova. These entries coupled with the highly political protest song that Ukraine competed with at home last year basically signal that the contest is now basically open to any artist representing any musical genre.

It didn't used to be this way. In the 80's and 90's the ESC was made up of mainstream ABBA style pop numbers, ballades and the occasional freak show, usually from Germany. Ireland won the ESC seven times with the kind of song that this year only finished in tenth place. Progress has been made!!

Speaking of freak shows, Germany used to provide them in the 90's but now it seems that Lithuania has picked up where the Germans left off. This is the the second time in only six years that they have sent a really odd entry. Five years ago, the Lithuanian song started off just being boring when a curly haired woman sang "you got style" about 74 times but then the number completely fell apart when a dude with dyed blonde hair and wearing Ali G style sun glasses started rapping in Lithuanian. I thought that that was an unbeatable low but having seen this year's entry, the 2001 anomaly suddenly seems like a distant dream. I was hoping that the long haired singer would get stuck in the blow dryer, that the bald guy would break a leg rehearsing his ridicilous dance, that the man with dyed blonde hair would lose is megaphone and that there would be a sudden power outage. The boos that greeted LC United when they came on stage were fully deserved. The fact that "We are the winners" could place as high as sixth just shows that the ESC has become so popular that it now attracts a considerable number of protest votes.

By the way, who would have thought that we would ever hear from extreme one hit wonders Las Ketchup again? If the ESC is going to be a forum for re-launching dead and buried careers, maybe Vanilla Ice could compete for Poland next year. After all, the Poles do seem to like sending rappers to the contest.

Anyhow, I'm thrilled that the country of my ancestors finally won the contest in its 40th attempt. Before this year Finland 's best result was a sixth place and they finished last eight times. See ya in Helsinki in '07.

We are number one

So Sweden now sits on top of the hockey world and Canada isn't in the top four. That's gotta hurt. Oh well, I have a feeling the Canucks will be back in force in Vancouver in 2010. Who knows this fiasco may spark an extra desire for revenge. I doubt people will party in Stockholm in February 2010 for this was the curtain call for the golden generation that has finally lived up to its billing.

The beginning of a new era?

So a conservative minority government has been elected. What does this mean? A lot of people are predicting yet another election before too long. I’m not so sure. The fortunes of the Harper government could go in one of three directions.

The first possibility is of course that the Bloc, the Liberals and the NDP seize the first available opportunity to pull the plug on the Harper regime. I don’t believe this will happen for one very simple reason. The Liberals do not have a strong leader as Paul Martin has resigned and plenty of other prominent party members were unseated so finding new leadership will take considerable time and the Liberals are surely in no mood to go to the polls without strong leadership. Besides, after two campaigns in just over 18 months, all parties are probably somewhat cash strapped and thus economic realities may trump the willingness to bring down the government. In order for Harper’s government to fall quickly, he has to make himself unpopular fast. Unless he governs like Jean Charest in Québec, he should be able to avoid that.

The second possibility is that Harper brings about the collapse of his own government. Considering the deep mistrust for the liberals and the big contrast in style between Stephen Harper and Paul Martin, the odds of Stephen Harper becoming a fairly popular PM are pretty good. The fact that he only has a minority should prevent him from trying to pass some of his party’s more extreme policies like eliminating gay marriages and opting out of the Kyoto agreement. If Harper does become a popular PM, he might be tempted to bring down himself in order to try to gain a majority at the polls. Such a manoeuvre is, however, not done overnight and it would probably take at least two years for such a scenario to play out.

The third scenario can basically be summed up as neither of the above. Polls may indicate that another election would bring about a new Harper minority in which case no party, except perhaps the Bloc, would be too eager to go the polls. The government and the other parties would simply have to find a sort of modus vivendi and the minority government could survive a long time. This scenario seems quite likely. The Liberals are going to need a long time in order to regain the confidence of the voters and all parties are aware that the electorate is very election fatigued. The arrival of the Conservatives as a credible force in Québec may even deter the Bloc from conspiring excessively against the government.

In closing, to me it seems unlikely that another election is imminent and this may be the start of a new era in Canadian politics.

Arbetsmarknaden måste avregleras nu

Så har det kommit ytterligare ett förslag som försvårar bekämpningen av arbetslösheten: Rätten till heltid. Detta dåraktiga förslags försvarare hävdar att deltid är en kvinnofälla. Det tycks inte ha fallit dessa debattörer in att arbetslöshet också är en kvinnofälla.

Det torde säga sig självt att arbetsgivare blir mindre benägna att anställa om man gör det dyrt, krångligt och riskabelt att anställa. Detta tycks dock inte regeringen med Hans Karlsson i spetsen begripa. Medfinansieringen av sjukförsäkringen och den höga arbetsgivaravgiften gör det dyrt att anställa. Blir någon sjuk måste arbetsgivare dels betala en ersättare och dels hosta upp stora slantar för den sjukes tillfrisknande. Lagen om anställningsskydd, LAS, gör det smått omöjligt att avskeda någon man är missnöjd med. Detta gör att man drar sig för att anställa. Konceptet lätt fånget lätt förgånget tycks inte Hans Karlsson begripa.

Eftersom det tydligen tycks vara så svårt för vår regering att förstå att en avreglerad arbetsmarknad leder till att fler anställningar så skulle de kanske vända blickarna mot omvärlden. Spanien, Storbritannien och Danmark är länder som alla lyckats bra med att skapa jobb. Dessa länder har alla det gemensamt att arbetsmarknaden är hyfsat avreglerad och rörligheten stor. Tittar man på USA och i synnerhet Canada så ser man samma tendens. Tittar man däremot på länder som Tyskland och Frankrike ser man två länder som liksom Sverige brottas med en arbetslöshetskris, och med sönderreglerade arbetsmarknader.

En avreglering av arbetsmarknaden är alltså ett måste. En sådan borde innefatta avskaffande av LAS, korta uppsägningstider, en kraftig sänkning av arbetsgivaravgifterna, avskaffande av medfinansieringen i sjukvårdsförsäkringen, avskaffande av förmögenhetsskatten, införa en lagstadgad minimilön och skrota kollektivavtalen som utestänger folk från arbetsmarknaden samt kasta idén om rätt till heltid i papperskorgen. De ovannämnda reformer som kostar pengar kan finansieras genom fler karensdagar och en kraftig reduktion i det på tok för stora antalet högskolestudenter. Med en avreglerad arbetsmarknad kan även mängder av arbetslösa akademiker lättare hitta jobb, i synnerhet om man minskar deras antal.

Den enda förändring som kan leda till fler jobb tycks vara att två personer blir arbetslösa 2006: Göran Persson och Hans Karlsson. Tyvärr tycks oppositionen bara förespråka vissa av mina förändringar men lite är bättre än inget alls.

Recently got married

I recently got married. On September 24th in fact. I know it's two months ago. I should have written about it sooner but I mainly reserve this blog for disparate thoughts about things I don't really control. Anyway. My wife is Michelle Newman from Innisfail, Canada. I am currently in the process of applying for immigration to Canada but it's a bureaucratic process so it will probably take six months or so before I can go. Going there for the summer anyhow. See ya later