Jacob Christensen

By none other than Niels Krause Kjær, former Conservative advisor and author of Kongekabale. Could be interesting, especially if we get some insight into the policies of mayor and later minister Løkke Rasmussen.

Did you catch it? If not, the camera’s site is here.

Ezra Klein on the games of shifting costs between individual companies and state governments in the US:

Dunkin Donuts — the worst offender — does not subcontract out with the government to push care towards employees. Rather, it 1) doesn’t give its employees affordable health care options and 2) pays employees little enough that they qualify for state plans meant to help low income residents. Voila! State steps in! And Dunkin Donuts is, in effect, subsidized.

Danish radio had an interview with a linguist who has studied the language of Swedes working in Danish shops (if you visit the Field’s shopping mall there is a pretty big chance that you’ll be served by a Swede).

Given that spoken Danish and Swedish are fairly different, the subject is pretty interesting – speaking from personal experience the other way around, I would say that getting the words right is fairly easy. The Swedish “r” is tricky and Swedish also has an sh/ch-sound which is difficult for Danes and getting the tone and melodic accents right is almost impossible.

Oh, and in case any old students wonder – yes, I did write my emails in Danish on purpose.

The entire programme (in annoying Microsoft Audio format) is here.

• Region Focus Summer 2007: Christopher Ruhm Full Interview – Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
  Ruhm is known for his research on what might broadly be called “work/life balance.” …Much of his recent work has involved tracking the academic, health, and behavioral benefits of attending preschool.
  (tags: economics labourmarket publichealth education)
• Todd Purdum – The Comeback Id: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com
  Exploring Clintonworld, the author asks if the former president will be consumed by his own worst self.
  (tags: billclinton politics usa journalism)

Just in case anybody wonders, I am perfectly aware of the bombing of the Danish embassy in Pakistan (A bombing in Pakistan? How un-surprising). The only observation is that Søren Espersen of the Danish People’s Party gave this comment:

Det bærer alle indikationer på islamisk terrorisme. Det kan næsten ikke være andet. Det viser igen, hvor fuldstændig vilde disse islamiske fundamentalister er.

A slip of the tongue or a sloppy journalist or did Espersen actually say Islamic (sic!) terrorism?

Transport economy really isn’t my specialist field but Paul Krugman raises in important issue in his blog today: The collapse of rail freight in Europe.

An excerpt from the paper, Krugman quotes in his post:

A little more than a 20 percent of the gap cannot be explained by these inherent differences and is presumably due to public policies including priority of passenger service, lack of interoperability at borders, and incentives of the rail operators. We estimate that if that policy gap were closed railroads’ share of freight in Europe would almost double, increasing to 15 percent.