LA FIN DE L'ANNÉE

I finished the old year as I mean to start the new. First, I bashed out the rest of the concrete floor in the barn, so I can lay the second half of the new drain. After that upper body workout, I then went for a last 2011 cycle ride, a short, sharp 20km tour round the town.

The combination has brought me down to 78.4kg, meaning that I may well finish the year under 80kg for the first time in a decade, and within my optimum BMI. I just have to take it a bit easy at my sister-in-law's this evening.

Happy New Year to everybody!

Walter Blotscher

CLEARING UP

Today was a clearing up day. My elder son is going off to Copenhagen tomorrow and then to Hong Kong next week for 6 months. So we had to empty the trailer laboriously brought back last week, wash the clothes he is going to take, store the stuff he isn't, and then fill the trailer up with rubbish from the barn. I will get rid of that at the dump, once I can find a car to pull it.

We also took down the Christmas decorations from the tree, and put them away until next year. The tree had to go out to the compost heap. However, while getting a Christmas tree - safely ensconced in its net, with its branches pinned to its trunk - into a living room is easy, getting one out again is another matter entirely, as the branches stick out at right angles and fir needles end up all over the place. Luckily, I got a new vacuum cleaner as a present this year, so I was able to hoover up afterwards.

We then had the remains of the Christmas turkey for dinner, so that has finally been finished off. Tomorrow will be a sort of fast day, probably combined with a cycle ride if the weather is not too bad. Then it's on to New Year's Eve and a new cycle of festivities starts.

Walter Blotscher

CHRISTMAS SPENDING

Today's the day when everyone can take back those Christmas presents they don't like, and exchange them for ones that they do. You know, clothes that are the wrong size or colour, items that you already have, or things that are just plain useless.

Depsite talk of crisis, Christmas shopping held up well in Denmark. In the first 24 days of December, spending via Dankort (the ubiquitous debit card that everyone uses here) was Dkr24 billion, up from Dkr22.9 billion in 2010. And that was despite the storms and wet weather, which plagued the month. Dankort doesn't cover everything, but it is a pretty good indicator of total consumption.

The most popular day for shopping this year was Thursday 22 December, when an incredible 3.881.778 payments were made through the system. Including some by me.

Walter Blotscher

TEMPERATURE DIFFERENCES

Last year on our Christmas Day walk, snow had been on the ground since November and was almost a metre deep, and the temperature was heading for minus 20C. This year, there has been no snow at all yet, and it was close to plus 10C.

The former was definitely too chilly, while the latter was a bit weedy. Can we please have something in-between for next year, please? 

Walter Blotscher

A LAZY DAY

Christmas Day, being the day after the big party, is a quiet day in Denmark. So up late, breakfast after 12.00 (my children and Chinese guests slept for a long, long time), a long walk en famille in surprisingly mild weather, and not much more. My wife made a delicious Thai soup for supper with some of the remains of the turkey, and that was pretty much it. I am now watching the NFL game, and will go to bed when it has finished.

Walter Blotscher

CHRISTMAS 2011

It's 15.30 and I am writing this while drinking my second Christmas beer of the day. I am alone in the house, as everybody has gone off to church at 16.00, leaving early in order to get a seat, since it is one of the few days in the year when it is full. The turkey has been in the oven for 3.5 hours already, and is looking good. I have showered, and ironed my shirt. We are on schedule for dinner at 6 o'clock.

There will be ten of us this year. My family of five, plus my wife's sister and her two sons, plus two Chinese lads from Hong Kong. They are on my elder son's university course, and will be with him when he goes to Hong Kong on 3 January to study for six months. Instead of letting them be lonely in their rooms in Copenhagen, he has brought them home.

Christmas and its traditions, both religious and non-religious, are so deeply ingrained in Europeans that it is remarkable to meet two well-travelled young people for whom it is not at all part of their cultural background (other than producing lots of toys for us to buy). I think it is the first time that I have had non-family members to share Christmas dinner with me, and I am looking forward to it.

A happy Christmas to all who read this.

Walter Blotscher

 

A TRIP TO COPENHAGEN

I said in my tweet above that I was off to Copenhagen to pick up my sons. It was supposed to be a pleasant trundle over with a trailer to load up my elder son's stuff. He is going off to Hong Kong for 6 months and then America for 6 months, and so is giving up his room in Copenhagen. We chose to do it today, so we could coordinate with my younger son's arrival from Basel. It turned out to be a bit of a nightmare.

On the other side of the Great Belt bridge the car went dead on the motorway. That meant a call to the breakdown people Falck, but also a wait of two hours by the side of the road in pretty cold weather. When they arrived, my wife also arrived with a borrowed car from home, and we swapped roles. I continued to Copenhagen with the trailer, while she went with her car to the nearest garage (chances are that it will have to be scrapped).

Cold and tired, I then had to go up and down five flights of stairs for two hours with bed, desk, bags, and other packages. It's a tradition that poor students live in garrets, and it is also true for my son.

When everything was finally packed on the trailer, we went off to the airport to pick up my other son. Airport drop-off and arrival areas are not designed for trailers; and this problem was made worse by the system's accepting my credit card to get in, but rejecting it repeatedly when I tried to get out. Having blocked the exit, I had to find a supervisor to get him to open the gate. He turned out to be Swedish, which made communication a bit tricky; though we eventually managed it.

Arriving back home at 8.30pm I was knackered. But at least the family is all here for Christmas.

Walter Blotscher

THE LOCAL CINEMA (5)

Tonight we had our last Board meeting of the year at the local cinema, followed by Christmas drinks for all of the volunteers.

2011 has been a good year. We managed to raise the kr.500.000 needed to purchase digital equipment, and it was installed this week, ready to go live in the New Year. Both the picture and sound quality are better, and there is much less fiddling around splicing bits of film together; the whole thing is built up at the click of a mouse.

We also managed to make a small profit, which is an achievement in these straightened times. True, we inherited a building and have free labour. But even so; we still have to get the punters in to watch.

After ogling at the new equipment, we had mulled wine and various other Christmasey things. Then I said a few encouraging words and sent them off into the night, all fired up for a successful 2012, starting on 2 January with the next instalment of the Twilight saga.

Walter Blotscher 

IRAQ (2)

The Americans left only two days ago, but already Iraq seems to be falling apart. The Vice-President, who is a Sunni Muslim, is wanted on anti-terrorism charges and is in effect hiding out in the Kurdish region in the north of the country. He says that the arrest warrant is part of a plot by the Prime Minister, a Shia, to discredit him and grab power. In other words, Iraq's Sunni/Shia divide, which the Americans tried so hard to bridge, is in great danger of fracturing, as soon as they are no longer there to hold the ring. Given Iraq's history before, during and after the war, this is very worrying.

Walter Blotscher

KIM JONG-IL

North Korea's "Dear Leader" has died, plunging the region into uncertainty. The uncertainty comes from a combination of two things. First, North Korea is one of the most closed countries in the world. Even in this internet age, we know almost nothing about what goes on there, which is remarkable in itself.

Secondly, the little information that does come out of North Korea is often fantastical, if not outright barmy. When I lived in Tanzania, the local North Korean Embassy would, on the occasion of Kim Jong-Il's birthday, take out double page adverts in the local papers, extolling his almost superhuman virtues. It was like reading a Marvel comic.

The Dear Leader's third and youngest son, Kim Jong-Un, has apparently been groomed to take over as the third generation Kim in charge (though, like all else, we don't really know). However, the man is in his twenties, and looks more like a cuddly teddy bear than the leader of a Communist Party. So even if he is officially leader, there will be other powers behind the throne.

Walter Blotscher

FISH

This week's annual negotiations in Brussels over E.U. fishing quotas for 2012 produced good and bad news for fishermen. The good news is that many of the quotas were raised, reflecting the better state of fish stocks. The bad news is that the number of days at sea allowed in order to catch those fish was reduced.

Fishermen, if not angry, were at a minimum puzzled. More fish can be caught, but you can't go out and catch them. I am not a fisherman, so I am not angry. But I admit to being puzzled.

Walter Blotscher

CLIMATE CHANGE (3)

After the pre-conference hype and eventual failure of Copenhagen two years ago, climate change as an issue seems to have disappeared from the headlines in recent times. That doesn't mean that the world has suddenly stopped warming; nor does it mean that we are managing the process any better. It is just that in these straightened times, other issues seem more pressing.

But if climate change as an urgent political issue has gone away, the climate change circus most definitely has not. Last year it was in Cancun in Mexico; and this year it met in Durban in South Africa. What emerged, some 36 hours after the conference had closed, was an agreement to agree a legally binding deal by the end of 2015, to come into effect by 2020. According to the Chairman, the conference had "saved tomorrow, today". The announcement produced lots of applause.

Hang on a second. As any lawyer will tell you, an agreement to agree is not an agreement. Besides, the whole point of Copenhagen was to produce a legally binding agreement, and look what happened there. Two years later, there is agreement - in effect - to try again. That effort should be applauded, but it hardly merits the headline above. After all, there is no guarantee that it will get anywhere.

The conference did some useful things like working out the details of climate aid to poor countries. But they were counterbalanced by Canada's subsequent decision to drop out of the Kyoto process. Furthermore, it is not details that are required, but major changes in countries' policies and individuals' behaviour.

All in all, the climate change conference was a bit like climate change itself; lots of hot air. 

Walter Blotscher

LOCAL RULES (2)

I knew that the requirement to put up a new letter box was a big thing; but not exactly how big.

It turns out that there are 775,000 houses that must change their letter box by 31 December in order to comply with the law. That is a fair number. You can ask your local kommune to make an exception, because you have difficulty walking or because of physical problems on the property or whatever; and 21,000 have so far obtained a dispensation. However, that in itself is revealing. Some kommuner investigate each request individually, some (Århus, for example) simply approve every request, on the grounds that an individual investigation of thousands of requests would simply take up too much time (and so cost).

In other words, bureaucratic entities have refused to enact bureaucratic reforms, because it would be too (well) bureaucratic to do so. I told you this was a big thing.

Walter Blotscher

THE EUROPEAN SUMMIT (2)

Last week's European summit produced a political split between the U.K. and the other 26 Member States. But did it save the Euro?

The 17 Euro countries, and some - perhaps all - of the rest (when they have seen the details), will sign up to a new "accord". In being outside the current treaty structure, this can be done quickly and without the need for potentially difficult things such as referenda. It will limit structural deficits to 0.5% of GDP, and bring automatic sanctions for Member States that have budget deficits greater than 3% of GDP. In order to help ensure that these things don't happen, national budgets will be submitted to the Commission, who will have the power to request that they be changed.

It's important to understand two things about this deal. First, it's a longish-term plan to try to stop a crisis happening again in the future. Secondly, it represents the German view of the world, namely that the current crisis occurred because of Member States' profligacy in the past. No profligacy in future means no future crisis. Furthermore, there is neither a need for joint Eurobonds (because everybody will obey the rules) nor a desire for them (since that would simply let the existing wastrels off the hook).

But what about the short-term? Well, the deal does again buy some time, which I have always argued is worth something in a financial crisis. Nevertheless, it is trite economics to point out that reducing Governments' budget deficits from their current bloated position to that required by the accord will - in the absence of anything else - inevitably reduce aggregate demand, and thereby make it more difficult to service the current levels of high public debt. The possible "anything else" to counterbalance that effect is a revived private sector, revived by the stability brought about by the accord and by existing rock-bottom interest rates. But the links are tenuous, particularly when compared with the certainty of lower public demand. European leaders are of course hoping that the European Central Bank will ride to their rescue, once it sees the progress that has been made. That is not assured; but on balance, I suspect that they have done just enough.

So did they save the Euro? Just about, would be my verdict. But there is still a long way to go. In particular, I would bet that joint Eurobonds will eventually be part of the solution, though not for some time.

Walter Blotscher

THE HILL

Sean Connery is most famous for playing James Bond, but his best performance in my view came in the 1965 film The Hill. Set in a military prison in North Africa during the Second World War, Connery plays a tank sergeant-major who is disciplined and sent there for striking his superior officer. It's a classic prison drama, with the authorities trying to break the prisoners down by making them run up and down the hill (a man-made mix of stone and sand) in the blazing sun in full kit. Needless to say, one of the guards is sadistic and goes over the top, leading to a crisis.

So, not a hugely original story. But what makes the film so good is the quality of the acting. Not only Connery himself, but stalwart British actors such as Harry Andrews, Ian Bannen, Ian Hendry and Michael Redgrave.

I watched it on Turner Classic Movies this evening and was reminded of how good it is, despite its being shot in black and white.

Walter Blotscher

THE EUROPEAN SUMMIT

There is both an economic and a political element to last week's European summit. More on the economics another time; first the politics.

In wielding a veto on treaty changes that will see future collaboration on economic matters by the other 26 Member States (the 17 that have the Euro and the other 9 that don't) take place outside of the existing E.U. treaty structure, the U.K.'s David Cameron has in my view crossed a Rubicon, whose effects will be very difficult to undo. Like any other club, it is difficult to be a member of the E.U. if you disagree with everybody else. True, some of the other Member States - Denmark, for example- probably have more sympathy for the U.K.'s position than they are letting on (at least publicly). Nevertheless, and this is the crucial point, when push came to shove, none of them were prepared to let that sympathy spill over into a veto. They all wanted to be part of the majority, even if it is not at all clear where and how that majority are heading.

Mr. Cameron and his defenders say that it was necessary for him to wield the veto in order to protect the City from future E.U. (over)-regulation and a possible financial transactions tax. Yet future regulation is, well, still in the future; and Mr. Cameron could veto any concrete proposal as and when it arose. On the other hand, by sitting on the sidelines, the U.K. risks being marginalised in any economic discussions, which fall short of a formal proposal not open to a veto. That can't be in Britain's long-term interests, even if it remains outside the Euro zone.

Conservative backbenchers disagree with me, and are celebrating Mr. Cameron's supposedly firm stance. But at least one person does think that this is a mistake; namely Nick Clegg, Mr. Cameron's partner in the coalition government, who has already said that the veto is "bad for Britain". Alhough he also blames intransigence from France and Germany, it is difficult to accept that line, when 23 other countries didn't.   

The U.K. has been threatening to disengage from the rest of the E.U. for some time. Now it has. It's a terrible strategic decision, that it will regret. Not now, and not in 5 years' time, but in 50.

Walter Blotscher

VISITORS

I have visitors for the weekend from England, so no blogging. That would be rude.

Walter Blotscher

IMMIGRATION AND INTEGRATION (2)

The progressive tightening of immigration laws under the previous minority Government turned Denmark during the noughties from a liberal to an illiberal country. This change was the price paid by the Government for the steadfast support of the right-wing Danish People's Party; but it should also be pointed out that it was a price they were willing to pay.

The core of the tightening was the so-called 24-year rule, first introduced in 2002. The rule prevents married couples, where one of the partners is from outside the E.U., from being issued with a residence permit in Denmark for the foreigner unless both of them are 24 or older (i.e. the marriage is recognised, but with adverse practical consequences). The professed aim of the legislation was to reduce forced marriages. Subsequent E.U. court decisions produced a loophole, whereby a residence permit would have to be issued, if the couple in question had already settled in another E.U. country first (the judgment was based on the free movement of people principle). But it still severely restricted the ability of young Danes to marry whom they would like.

Other countries looked at the Danish experiment, and decided to copy it. One of those was the U.K., which raised the age limit from 18 to 21. That decision prompted various court cases, and in October the Supreme Court, the country's highest judicial body, gave a ruling (in the the so-called Quila and Bibi cases). By 4-1 they ruled that the two decisions in question (concerning marriages to a Chilean and a Pakistani respectively) had breached the U.K. partners' human rights; furthermore, although being asked to decide only on the cases before them, they could not see how any similar decision would not breach the U.K. partner's human rights.

Interfering with people's human rights - as restricting their ability to marry clearly is - is allowed under human rights law. But it can only be done if the objective is clear, and if the means of carrying out the objective is proportionate. It is on these grounds that the U.K.'s blanket policy broke down.

The official objective, as in Denmark, was to limit forced marriage, where one partner (usually the girl, and often, though not exclusively, from the Indian subcontinent) is forced against their will to marry someone else. This is a legitimate objective. But no research was carried out to confirm whether the objective was indeed being met, other than anecdotal discussions which resulted in vague answers. On the other hand, it was easy to quantify the number of people who had been turned down because of age in their applications for resident permits for their partners; this was in the thousands. If the benefits were uncertain (and, to the extent that they were not, they were under a hundred) while the disbenefits were in the thousands, then the policy could not possibly be proportionate. Either in these two cases, or any other.

Indeed, the evidence mirrored quite clearly the Danish experience. Here, concrete evidence of supposedly prevented forced marriages is thin on the ground. But what is known is that, for example in 2007, more than 1,000 Danes aged 18-24 moved to live in Sweden, most of them just across the water to Malmo, from where they commuted back to their jobs or studies in Copenhagen. Everything pointed to the reason being Sweden's more liberal immigration policy with respect to marriages with people from outside the E.U.

Might Denmark's rule also be struck down?  At one point it looked as if the new Coalition Government would do just that. However, the original rule was supported by the then opposition Social Democrats, who were at the time desperate not to seem soft on immigration. It did not, therefore, survive the Coalition negotiations earlier this autumn, though it may be struck down by the European Court of Human Rights, if a challenge eventually gets that far.

Walter Blotscher

HANDEL'S MESSIAH

Handel is one for my favourite composers, better than Bach in my view. The latter is too fiddly, and lacks the sunny side of Handel's music.

The Messiah is a great work, with some terrific arias. It's really an Easter piece, but for some reason it has become popular to perform it in the run-up to Christmas. Anyway, tonight I went to see it with my wife, daughter and 1,000 other people in Odense Cathedral. It was wonderful.

Walter Blotscher

SPIN DOCTORS


Spin doctors are much in the news here at the moment. Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt is married to a Brit, Stephen Kinnock, who has tended to work abroad in recent years, most recently in Switzerland. In the summer of 2010, when she was leader of the Opposition, a newspaper alleged that he had not being paying taxes in Denmark. Although working in Switzerland fom Monday to Friday and coming home at weekends, he was technically still resident in Denmark, and so should be paying taxes here as well.

If true, this would have been a major blow to the Social Democrats, who at the time were advocating more taxes in order to stimulate public spending. So the outcome was of crucial importance to both the Opposition and the then Government. As it turns out, Mr. Kinnock had not spent enough days in Denmark to be classed as resident. Reading between the lines, I think it was a close-run thing; but the end result was that he (and his wife) were in the clear.

In recent weeks, some murkier things have emerged. Decisions of this kind are taken by the relevant local tax office; and neither politicians (eg the Tax Minister) nor the senior management of the Revenue are allowed to get involved. Yet it appears a) that the head of the Revenue chaired a number of meetings at which this particular case was discussed, and b) that the Minister's spin doctor tried to leak the whole of the 9-page decision to the press instead of the headline "he has done nothing wrong" which Ms. Thorning-Schmidt originally published. If true, a is at the least bad practice, which could cost the top civil servant his job; while b would be a crime. Investigations, by independent judges and the police, are being set up; but it all points to a coordinated attempt to smear Ms. Thorning-Schmidt in the run-up to a close election.

However, what is really interesting is the political fall-out. The average Dane thinks it is highly unlikely, if not impossible, that the then Tax Minister Troels Lund Poulsen would not have been informed about these events by either his top civil servant or his spin doctor. Indeed, they might have been working on his orders, a view reinforced by the fact that Mr. Poulsen has now taken unpaid leave from Parliament. Furthermore, he was a big cheese in the Venstre party, big brother in the former minority coalition Government. So the question then becomes what party chief and ex-Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen knew, since it has emerged that his spin doctor and Mr. Poulsen's at the least exchanged notes. When pressed on this issue yesterday in the form "have you in Venstre ever had any party meetings to discuss Ms. Thorning-Schmidt's tax case", the usually unflappable Mr. Rasmussen looked decidedly evasive, to say the least.

The irony is that the prime Sunday evening television programme this autumn has been the second series of Borgen (the slang word for Christiansborg, the Parliament building), a drama series which charts the ups and downs of a female Prime Minister running a coalition Government, in close collaboration with her spin doctor and lead adviser. Oscar Wilde once said that "life imitates art"; Danish politics appear to be doing just that.

The big winner in all this of course is Ms. Thorning-Schmidt. Her first couple of months in the top job have been underwhelming. But now she can just sit back and watch the Opposition, previously riding high in the polls, wriggle and squirm.

Walter Blotscher 

THE HABSBURGS

The family who, more than any other in Europe, came to epitomise the concept of dynasty, took their name from the Castle of the Hawk (the "Habichtsburg"), a white tower above the river Reuss southwest of Brugg in what today is Switzerland. The various counts made money from the tolls extracted on the Alpine trade routes between Italy and Germany, and used their income to curry favour with the Holy Roman Emperors. Their big break came in 1273, when the Electors made Rudolf of Habsburg Emperor after a long interregnum. However, although the imperial title carried prestige, and eventually came to be indelibly associated with the family, the reality was that it carried more obligations than assets. The real break was that Rudolf was able to give the Duchy of Austria to his son and successor Albert, after the death of the last Babenburg duke had left the title vacant. Whatever the ups and downs of the Empire, the Habsburgs held Austria continuously for the next 650 years, until the collapse of Austria-Hungary at the end of the First World War.

Yet if they came from Switzerland and held Austria all of this time, it would be wrong to think of them as intrinsically "German" or "Germanic". At various points in time, the family ruled Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, their American territories, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, plus Northern Italy and parts of Germany, France, Switzerland, Poland, and the Balkans. In 1500, Charles V was born Duke of Burgundy in Ghent, and grew up speaking French and Flemish. By the age of 16, he was King Carlos I of Spain and learning the language which he would habitually use thereafter, even though some three years later he succeeded his grandfather Maximilian as Archduke of Austria and Emperor of an essentially Germanic empire. His brother Ferdinand, who was born and brought up in Spain, became Charles' lieutenant in the Empire, succeeded him in Austria and as Emperor, and inherited the thrones of Bohemia and Hungary. They didn't meet until Charles was 17, and it is unclear how they communicated, since Charles hardly spoke Spanish and Ferdinand nothing but. But it didn't matter; they were related and blood was all-important.

Indeed, at a time when primogeniture was becoming the norm in the European aristocracy and especially ruling houses, the Habsburgs continually divided their inheritance, and then reassembled it through the dynastic device of marriage. Rather like a Mafia family, it didn't seem to matter which Habsburg ruled and what it was they ruled, so long as it was a Habsburg and they were in charge. Even as Charles was inheriting the largest collection of territorial rights since Charlemagne, he was negotiating with his brother to split it up; and when he unexpectedly abdicated in 1555, the Empire and Austria went to Ferdinand, while Spain and the Netherlands went to his son Philip II.

Marriage could be a powerful weapon; but repeated marriages between Austrian and Spanish Habsburg cousins nearly proved disastrous to both. By 1666, there were only two male Habsburgs left; the Emperor Leopold, who was sickly, and Carlos II of Spain, who was so severely handicapped that he was not expected to survive childhood. Leopold married his own niece, a desperate measure that failed to produce a male heir (though he eventually managed it via his third marriage). But when Carlos died in 1700 without an heir after a surprising 35 years on the throne, the result was the War of the Spanish Succession, in which Habsburg Austria and allies (including Britain) were pitted against Bourbon France and allies. In the resulting compromise, the Bourbons got Spain while the Spanish Netherlands were transfered to Austria. Thereafter, there was only one Habsburg branch, in which the most remarkable aspect was its fecundity. Habsburg Empresses regularly gave birth to a dozen or more children.

For the remaining 200 years of their dynastic power, the Archdukes of Austria had to contend with the creeping development of nationalism. In the great struggle with Napoleon, they managed - just - to end up on the winning side; and as part of that process replaced their quasi-hereditary title of Holy Roman Emperor with the fully-hereditary (but more legally dubious) one of Emperor of Austria. However, "Austria" was a territory, not a nation, and adding Hungary to the mix merely made things more complicated. True, neither Italy nor Germany existed as nations; but when they eventually became one in the nineteenth century, the first under the leadership of Piedmont and the second of Prussia, the Habsburgs were left ruling a patchwork of peoples with nothing in common except that their rulers all had the same surname. The construction limped on for some time, but could not withstand the arch-nationalist forces of the First World War; defeated in 1918, it then splintered into its myriad parts.

For years afterwards, and particularly when it was shown what could happen when nationalism ran amok, there was a nostalgic wish in some quarters for a return to the old days of Mitteleuropa, with peoples of different nationalities living in peace under the Habsburg umbrella. Otto von Habsburg, son of the last Austro-Hungarian Emperor and head of the house, who died earlier this year aged 98, was said to be fluent in Croat, English, French, German, Hungarian, Spanish and Latin. A member of the European Parliament, he was an avid promoter of the European Union, a sort of modern version of the Habsburg idea. If we ever get to the point where the E.U. elects its own President, then a Habsburg candidate might not be such a bad idea.    
 
Walter Blotscher 

SMUG BUILDER (3)

An update to let you know that the smug builder project is continuing (the building part, that is; I think we can take the smugness for granted).

Here is a picture of the coming entrance to the garage, all rendered. I am particularly pleased with the step, since the ground falls away to the left into that drain, and it was tricky to get it level. All I need to do now is plane the door slightly so that it fits perfectly, and then paint the whole thing next year.

While we are on the subject of building, here are two further pictures. First, the house, with the gutters de-leafed and the yard swept clean .....

... and the new postbox, which the postman has (so far) accepted as being in the right place.

Walter Blotscher

AUTUMN TASKS

After an unusually wet summer, we had an unusually dry November. So I have not been able to complete my autumn tasks until now.

The biggest autumn tasks are sweeping the leaves from the yard, and clearing out the guttering. There is no point in doing this when it's dry, since the leaves simply blow around to a different place. But after a couple of days of rain, they are now nicely soggy, and can be easily swept, put in the wheelbarrow and carted away. I did the yard this morning, and my daughter will help me tomorrow morning with the guttering by holding the ladder so that it doesn't slip.

Leaf-clearing is cold, messy work. But I was comforted by a major breakthrough in my eternal battles with the Mole Army. I seem to have stumbled on a major supply route, since not only have I bagged three moles in the last four days, but all in exactly the same trap, in a bank near the new kitchen garden. Moles love banks, since they are inevitably above the water table, which they don't like. Anyway, the Mole Army high command has taken a big hit, since the three in question were all bigg'uns. A good start to the winter campaign.

Walter Blotscher 

THE LIMITS OF CULTURE

Last night I organised a new event at the local cinema. A French evening; two French films plus free wine in the interval, all for the bargain price of kr.100 (the normal price for a film is kr.60, though some films are more expensive). And on a cold, wet Thursday (i.e. not clashing with badminton, or good things on the television).

Although both films were good (La Potiche and La Vie en Rose), I had no idea in advance how many people would show up. I wrote to all of the local schools' French teachers, and offered them a discount for students (kr.70 + free soda instead of wine). I also wrote to the local paper, asking them to put a plug in this week's edition. Plus it was highlighted in the flyer we distribute in people's letterboxes every 8 weeks or so.

In the event, there were eleven of us; of whom three were me, my wife and my daughter. The local paper didn't print the plug, and no student came. So, on that basis, it was a bit disappointing. I enjoyed it; but you can't run a cinema for my personal benefit. Not yet, anyway.

I have discovered the limits of culture in my local town.

Walter Blotscher 

PENSIONS (3)

Pensions are probably the most difficult financial thing for people to get their brains around. The core problem is that they require you to take a view of events 20, 30 or even 40 years hence; and although you can get an actuary to help you, predictions that far into the future are tough. 40 years ago, when I was 12, there were no computers, mobile phones, i-pods, internet, blogs etc etc, so you get my point.

There are essentially three types of pensions. The first type are work-related, where they are, economically speaking, deferred pay. In bargaining between workers and employers (including Governments as employers), workers accept less money today in return for money when they stop working. This is true, whether the pension is contributory or non-contributory, that distinction merely changes the amount of the deferral, not the principle itself.

Adding to the complexity, Governments (at least in rich countries) bolt on minimum pensions in order to protect old people from becoming destitute. In general, these are not deferred pay, but welfare payments; though access to those payments may or may not be dependent on previous work. Finally, there are private arrangements made by individuals who save money today in return for (hopefully) more money tomorrow. Often it is attractive to save in the form of a pension, since many Governments give tax breaks for that kind of saving.

Yesterday, at least 1 million (and possibly more) public sector workers went on strike for a day in the U.K. in protest at proposed changes to their pensions. The details of those changes are complicated; but the basic features are that employees would have to work longer, and pay higher contributions than under the old system. Was it reasonable for them to go on strike?

The first thing to note was that this action was about the first type of pension, namely ones where the U.K. Government (or its agencies) is the employer. The affected workers are teachers, doctors and nurses, local government employees, civil servants etc. As such, the second thing to note is that the U.K. Government, as employer, wants to change the details of the employment contract it has with its employees, in particular cutting the amount of current pay (since contributions will rise). Thirdly, although the cut in current pay is clear and definite, changes in the deferred pay element are not clear and not definite, since they depend on a host of assumptions about the future, and the particular circumstances of the individual employee.

The employees are saying that without more clarity about the future, the proposals amount to a unilateral pay cut, and that ain't on. The U.K. Government says that it has to make these changes, since public sector pensions will otherwise become unaffordable. However, the main reason for that is a decision made by successive U.K. Governments in the past not to set money aside in order to pay for these contractual obligations, but to fund them out of general taxation (the so-called pay-as-you-go method). Companies are not allowed to do this, since there is no guarantee that they will have sufficient future revenues in order to pay as they go; but Governments can get away with it, since they have the unique ability to tax people. In other words, the U.K. Government has blurred its roles as employer and welfare provider, and given itself a problem.

It is not alone in doing this (U.S. states have terrible problems in this field); and it is also commendable that it is at least making a start in trying to disentangle this blurring. Having said that, I can understand the frustration and opposition of the employees. Changes to employee contracts should be a matter for negotiation; and they should not be unilaterally enforced merely because the employer happens to have more clout than a single company. That is particularly true, when - as now - the changes will involve a current pay cut. That is, in general, only accepted when the situation is really dire (eg looming bankruptcy). The U.K. has economic problems, but they are not yet in that league.

Walter Blotscher