Jacob Christensen

Let me just note that it is all well and fine that you (i.e: I) can report your (i.e: My) expected income via the website of the Danish IRS (which in the modern newspeak tradition of new public management pretends not to be a public authority) – but if you (i.e: I) have income from several countries, you run into real trouble.

First, the form doesn’t like it if you have income from more than one foreign contry (it can be circumvented, sort of).

Second, the site triumphantly announces that I’ve tried to deduct foreign taxes without reporting foreign income after I have duly reported my foreign income.

Finally, the system wants me to manually report my Danish income, which is reported automatically to the system, but which I obviously cannot fetch from the database.

Never mind capitalism or government interventions: The real reason behind the present financial crisis is an overflow of testosterone.

Now we only have to explain variations over time in the frequency or selection of males with high testosterone levels to banking jobs.

• Arbejdsmarkedskommissionen fremlægger delrapporten ”Arbejde, vækst og velfærd”
  Kommissionen foreslår blandt andet, at dagpengeperioden bliver sat ned fra fire til to år, at den aktive beskæftigelsesindsats fremrykkes og målrettes, samt at de planlagte forhøjelser af efterlønsalderen indfases allerede fra 2009.
  (tags: denmark labourmarket publicpolicy)
• Bertelsmann Stiftung | Nachrichten
  Muslime in Deutschland sind sehr religiös und orientieren sich auch im Alltag an ihren Glaubensvorstellungen
  Hohes Maß an religiöser Toleranz – Wenig Einfluss auf die Politik – Große Vielfalt zwischen Glaubensrichtungen und Herkunftsländern
  (tags: germany religion islam surveys)
• CiteULike: Everyone's library
  (tags: writing web2.0 tools reference)

This is almost too cruel, but … I really have to get my unemployment insurance transferred, but now I also have to decide if a) it is likely that I would retire at … euh … 60 or 62 and b) it is likely that the present severance pay system will exist when I’m 60. Or 62.

There is real money involved – my unemployment insurance will be at 1100 DKK/quarter without the severance pay contribution and 2300 DKK/quarter with the severance pay included. (Tax deductible, but still an annoying issue).

1. I think it is safe to say that Danish party conferences are no longer forums for debate between the party leadership and party activists. They are now primarily a vehicle for promoting the image of the party leadership. (Some reservations with regard to the Social Liberal Party)¹
2. Subtlety may have been a Danish virtue in the past but these days it is quite ok to introduce the party leader with Richard Strauss (Danish People’s Party) and Tina Turner (Conservatives) at their most bombastic.
3. The Social Liberals are still the brains of the outfit (if you ask them). Which other party would have its candidate for the European Parliament use “because I know something about the European Union” as her main argument?
4. The Social Liberals are also still very much the State Party where people with degrees in public management move effortlessly between political and bureaucratic offices.
5. Generally, the selection of candidates for the European Parliament looks less than inspiring this time as well with a selection of former party leaders, loose cannons and less than well-known backbenchers. In a way, the Danish People’s Party deserves some cudos for coming up with Morten Messerschmidt. But somebody might want to instruct him in which songs are no-nos in Germany.

1. Also some reservations for conferences dedicated to election party leaders [↩]

• CEPR – The Reagan Question: Are You Better Off Now Than You Were Eight Years Ago?
  The table below updates Reagan's question by comparing the state of the economy in 2000 and 2008. We use 25 indicators of economic well-being and economic performance and find that 23 of the 25 indicators are worse in 2008 than they were in 2000. Click here for a list of the sources used.
  (tags: politics economics usa reference)
• Lene Espersens landsrådstale
  (tags: denmark speech konservativefolkeparti leneespersen)
• Towards evidence-based reform of European universities | vox – Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists
  (tags: education university academic europe)

No, not in that way. We are talking a different kind of sordid stuff here as it turns out that I’ve managed to completely miss that Austria has extended suffrage to 16- and 17-year olds.

NRC Handelsblad, of all sources, reminded me.

• Politireform skal gennemgås
  Justitsminister Brian Mikkelsen har bedt politiets og anklagemyndighedens ledelse om at udarbejde en samlet redegørelse om politireformen.
  (tags: denmark publicadministration politics police)
• Policies to improve individual investments in higher education | vox – Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists
  OECD governments spend a lot on education, but are their investments paying off? This column analyses how public policy affects individuals’ decisions to invest in education and identifies opportunities for reform.
  (tags: education economics oecd)
• New MU study finds value differences within Republican party and similarities between both parties
  “The one thing that struck me the most was that the value differences were rather small – really, people were more alike than different, in that almost everybody favored intrinsic values more than extrinsic values,” Sheldon said. “It was just a small relative difference between the two parties. Still, these data suggest that economic conservatives have been ‘drafting’ on the values of religious conservatives, using conservative Christians’ willingness to care for less fortunate others as a cover for their own willingness to exploit the situation.”
  (tags: research psychology sociology)
• Pew Research Center: Cell Phones and the 2008 Vote: An Update
  Yet a virtually identical pattern is seen across all three surveys: In each case, including cell phone interviews resulted in slightly more support for Obama and slightly less for McCain, a consistent difference of two-to-three points in the margin.
  (tags: usa politics elections surveys phone)

• Ny i Danmark – Politisk aftale mellem regeringen og Dansk Folkeparti
  (tags: denmark politics immigration)
• Barry Eichengreen – Anatomy of the financial crisis | vox – Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists
  The crisis solution depends upon its causes. Here one of the world’s leading international macroeconomists explains how the world got into this mess. This is the ‘Director’s cut’ of his 18 September 2008 column on Project Syndicate.
  (tags: finance economics monetarypolicy)
• DeLong: The Evolution of Central Banking – Brad DeLong: Notes
  (tags: banking economics monetarypolicy)

The BBC has a pretty strong brand. And so, I couldn’t help noticing that both Berlingske Tidende (article not on the web) and Politiken reminded us that the BBC produced and screened the TV series Brideshead Revisited back in the early 1980s.

All very good.

Except the series was produced by Granada and screened by ITV. (And here’s the Wikipedia entry about the 1981 series)