Jacob Christensen

I never expected to see scenes like these (a long queue of people waiting to withdraw their savings from a Northern Rock branch office) again. On the other hand, Swedish banks went through a period of extreme upheavals during the early 1990s and the banking system suffered some severe blows.

• ZEIT online – Arbeit essen Seele auf
  Psychische Probleme sind die häufigste Ursache für Berufsunfähigkeit. Auslöser ist oft zu wenig Anerkennung von Vorgesetzten
  (tags: labourmarket psychology sociology journalism germany)
• Fryer/Levitt: Hatred and Profits: Getting Under the Hood of the Ku Klux Klan
  we find that individuals who joined the
  Klan were better educated and more likely to hold professional jobs than the typical American.
  Surprisingly, we find few tangible social or political impacts of the Klan.
  (tags: politics politicalscience extremism usa research economics)
• Ministerbarometer september 2007
  (tags: sweden politics opinionpolls tv4 journalism)
• Presentation Zen: Gates, Jobs, & the Zen aesthetic
  Steve Jobs, allows the screen to fade completely empty at appropriate, short moments while he tells his story.
  (tags: presentation powerpoint visualization presentations design keynote teaching)
• What makes a terrorist? | vox – Research-based policy analysis and commentary from Europe’s leading economists
  Terrorists and their organisations seek to make a political statement; terrorists arise when there are severe political grievances with no alternatives for pursing those grievances.
  (tags: economics islam terrorism research academic)
• Economist’s View: “If The Uncertainties Are Not Small, Standard Cost–Benefit Analysis As Applied To The Economics Of Climate Change Becomes Incoherent”
  Partha Dasgupta reviews Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming, by Bjorn Lomborg (via email):
  (tags: economics environment research reviews)
• Science Journal – WSJ.com – Most Science Studies Appear to Be Tainted by Sloppy Analysis
  There is an increasing concern that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or even the vast majority of published research claims
  (tags: research statistics methodology)
• Pia Kjærsgaards tale ved DFs årsmøde 15. september 2007
  (tags: denmark politics danskfolkeparti piakjærsgaard speech)

This is just to note that The New York Times covers the recent arrests in Copenhagen of a number of young men on terrorism charges and the investigations of extremist groups in Denmark

I’ve tried to come up with a worthwhile contribution to this post about economists and European welfare states but haven’t really hit on anything original. Not this weekend, anyway. The point that there isn’t a European welfare state has already been taken.

On a humouristic note, I will instead remind readers that the bumblebee (occasionally used as a metaphor for the neo-classical economics-defying welfare state) can indeed fly.

I’m not sure whether or not this ruins a lot of academic in-jokes.

Volvo is the ultimate family car … but, but, but…