A revelation

There is something that should not be hidden by me, but it will be hidden nevertheless, as I do not know it.

Thanks for nothing

In the small village where my grandmother grew up, there lives an author, Bobby Brown.

Bobby had published a theatre play when he was only 17 years old, and it was widely regarded as one of the worst plays ever written in that part of the country. The plot was complex but yet boringly obvious. It would have lasted at least five hours, if there had been a theatre group reckless enough to perform it.

Bobby had paid for the publication himself, but the only copies that were ever sold, were ones he had smuggled onto the shelves of the local bookshop, where a few tourists by mistake bought some. (All copies were later returned, including one bought by an old lady who was almost blind. Her heirs found it in her library, covered in dust 15 years later. When they opened the book and realised the bad quality of the play, they promptly returned it. She had used it as door stop.)

When he turned 30, the local newspaper had a story about how lucky the town had been that Bobby had never since published anything. It then became a recurring theme to thank him for not publishing.

This weekend he turned 90 and the village council organised a party to celebrate and thank him for his long abstinence from any further production. As a sign of gratitude he got an eraser in gold.

You can fool all of the people all of the time

In my long series of idiotic things wise men have sad, we today come to the second one. Abraham Lincoln may once have said "You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you cannot fool all of the people all the time", but no one knows when, where or why he said it.

Nevertheless the saying is clearly false.

A saying only has a meaning if it can be verified or falsified. The only way to falsify the saying would be to find something which really fools everyone all the time. But as soon as you realise it is fooling us, there is someone who has realised that it was foolery. As there is no theoretical way of falsifying the saying, it must be void.

And what does "all the time" mean? If it means "during the full lives of a generation", then we actually do have an example of something that fooled all of the people all the time: the saying itself. People have believed it for well over the lifetime of several generations since Lincoln died.

A paradox is a statement that can be neither true nor false. Lincoln's saying is not even a paradox, because it is false. And as he probably did not say it, it is not even a saying.

Anyone who believes the opposite is fooled.

The economy of more immigration

The International Herald Tribune has an article about immigration as a means to solve economic problems. Lant Pritchett, who puts forward the ideas, is no idealist. He thinks with a purely economic mind. How much money do "rich countries" earn by letting in more immigrants, and how much money do "poor countries" earn by sending surplus labour abroad? Both sides win, so let's do it, is his credo. However, he is willing to accept that the workers are denied the right to bring their families and the hope to ever get citizenship.

He points out that incomes in the rich countries today are about 50 times those of poorest ones, but in the late 19th century, the ratio was only 10 times.

Regardless of his other opinions, that seems to be the crux. As the richer countries keep the people who happened to be born in poor countries out, the differences increase. The bigger the difference, the worse the conflicts when they happen.

If the difference had stayed at a 10 to 1 ratio, would thousands of people have died trying to reach Europe the last few years? If the difference increases above 50 to 1, how many people will die in the future? How desperate measures will they be prepared to take?

The really ridiculous thing is that the real difference actually is smaller than 50 to 1. Prices in rich countries tend to be higher than in poorer countries, so even if you have a higher salary, you are not necessarily much better off.

That is why opening the borders may be such an efficient solution. Prices go down in the rich countries. Salaries go up in poorer countries. Prices may also go up in poorer countries and salaries may go down in richer countries, but it is not certain. What is certain is that the differences would diminish, and with them much of the current tension and the risk for future conflicts.

An empty space

I just learnt that Povel Ramel passed away yesterday at the age of 85 years.

It is usually silly to talk about "the greatest artist of all" or "absolute geniuses" in art, as the perception of literature, music and art are so personal. However, if someone were to claim that the four greatest artists all categories were for example William Shakespeare, Johann Sebastian Bach, Pablo Picasso and Povel Ramel, I would have a hard time finding any arguments against Povel's place in that list.

Povel is an excellent example of how a great artist can be constricted to relative obscurity in the world, as the tool he uses to express himself is a fairly unknown language. Rowan Atkinson, Mike Myers, John Cleese and 大山 (Dàshān) are able to make audiences of more than a billion laugh in English or Chinese. Povel reached less than 10 million Swedes.

His music was great, his shows and films very amusing. But his verbal virtuosity was unmatched as far as I can tell.

It has been said that it is worth it to learn Russian in order to experience Pushkin's (Александра Сергеевича Пушкина) poetry in original. Likewise, it is worth it to learn Swedish just in order to experience Povel Ramel.

It is really a sad day, or as Povel himself put it:

Laj dadaj dadaj uti den korpsvarta natt
dajda hm de dystra toner dm daj di daj...

No one left in the office

There has been trouble at my sister's company again. At the annual shareholders' meeting last week, the board was sharply asked to improve efficiency.

The CEO, a young chap called Bob, then decided to lay off the entire work force to employ new people, who better would fit into the company culture. The problem was that the CFO, a vile bloke called Pete, discovered this was going on, so he laid off the CEO. As the CEO laid off everyone except himself and the CFO laid off the CEO, there was no one left.

Apparently Bob and Pete met at a pub to discuss the issue, each bringing the few legal papers they had managed to get from the office, before it was sealed off. It turned out that all their actions had been legally valid. There really was no one left working at the company - not even themselves.

An additional difficulty was that special regulations forbid the owners from meddling into the business of the company between the annual meetings, so no new board can be appointed before next year, and no one can be employed before then.

However, it seems to be no big problem for the company. It will continue to receive licensing fees from its customers for a long time.

There will not be any problem for my sister either. She anyhow wanted to take some months off to try to understand my blog.

It may be more difficult for Bob and Pete. It turned out that their severance packages consisted entirely in the right to additional unpaid holidays.