Period!

Whenever I read a posting on the web that contains the single-word sentence "Period.", I stop reading and go elsewhere. The phrase is an excellent indication that the author is too lazy or daft to apply logical reasoning, and that he is delusional enough to believe that other people would be interested in his unfounded assertions. Reading such an entry is always a complete waste of time. Exclamation mark!

One Past - Many Futures

There is only one past but there are an infinite number of futures.

Isn't that unfair?

The Story of a Picture in Public Domain

About five years ago, I submitted a photo of an orca to Wikipedia, suggesting that someone might want to add it to the English page about orcas. No one did, as far as I could tell. I forgot all about the picture, until today, when the owner of the site Animalandia sent me a nice mail thanking me for having released the photo to public domain.

I then accessed the photo's page at Mediawiki  and discovered that the photo actually is used in Wikipedia articles in Arabic, Breton, Spanish, Hungarian, Korean, New Norwegian, Norwegian, Polish, Slovak, Swahili, Vietnamese and Chinese. It is also used in some articles in English, but not the one about orcas, which I had intended it for. In the Spanish Wikipedia, it is even used as a "Medalla de Orca saltarina" for editors who have made important contributions to Wikipedia.

What about the rest of the internet? I googled around and quickly found several pages where the picture is used:

• http://drumm.wikispaces.com/TandavaJ+-+SelinaF 
• http://www.xray-mag.com/node/42 
• http://nellybarbe.blogspot.com/2009/12/orca.html 
• http://www.herradurasport.net/2008/12/la-orcaballena-asesina.html 
• http://www.marefa.org/index.php/%D9%85%D9%84%D9%81:JumpingOrca.jpg 
• https://www.facebook.com/pages/Orca/110393985655465?sk=wall#!/pages/Orca/110393985655465?sk=info 
• http://lasaventurasdevitinho.blogspot.com/2009/08/tecnicas-de-caza-de-las-orcas.html 
• http://babybel.over-blog.com/article-29016565.html 
• http://blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=han1344&logNo=120126839994 
• http://wiadomosci.ekologia.pl/ciekawostki/Orki-inteligentni-lowcy-dziesiatkuja-wieloryby,13888.html 
• http://www.gofeminin.de/my-world/silver21031/comment-1.html 
• http://meeres-bucht.over-blog.de/article-31746356.html 
• http://herramientas.educa.madrid.org/animalandia/imagen.php?id=29988

To me this, is how public domain should work. A simple picture is released and dozens of people who happen to need such a photo simply use it. No hassle. Just use it.

That Nobel Prize Winner is an Idiot

The Nobel memorial economy prize laureate Paul Krugman yesterday wrote that one should not apply austerity measures in an economic crisis - a theme he often comes back to.

The problem with the whole article, as with many of his articles, is that he does not set any criteria. He claims that the problems in Portugal, Britain and Ireland have become worse because of slashed spending. That may be true or not. However, even if it were true, there clearly is a limit as to what a country can afford. If there is no money, there is no money. You can go out and borrow to some extent, but not infinite amounts. There must mathematically be a limit.

Personally, I could easily take a loan to buy a Toyota Yaris for €10 000. However, no bank in their right mind would lend me €200 000 to buy a Bentley. I would not be in my right mind myself if I applied for such a loan, even if I needed that particular car for some good reason. The economic potential is not there. Somewhere there is a limit.

If I had to go through some expensive medical treatment, I might need €10 000 000. Does that mean that I would pay for it? No. The money is not there. I might need it, but I could not afford it. Would that be a tragic situation? Yes, but there would be no way around it.

Likewise for a country's economy. Increased spending or quantitative easing may be the right measure in some situations: When the conditions allow it. If the conditions are not there, increased national bond yields and unemployment will unfortunately follow, but there is no way around it.

Increased spending cannot always be good for all economic situations. It may have been the way Britain should have gone (something I'm not convinced of), but that would not mean that it necessarily has to be the way the US should go. They are two different countries. The conditions are different.

If Krugman can provide data that shows that the US currently is in the kind of situation where increased spending makes sense, by all means, that is the way to go.

However, the argument that increased spending always makes sense for all countries in all situations does not work.

Computers and Skilled Jobs - Who is Skilled?

In a New York Times article called Degrees and Dollars, Paul Krugman writes about how computers may be able to replace a lot of activities that traditionally were considered skilled labour, like some of the things lawyers and engineers do.

There is a twist on that subject. Traditionally, corporations set "measurable" targets for their employees. That means that they put more weight on a task like "sell x number of units" than on "gain an understanding of customer needs". The former can easily be measured. The latter cannot.

Now, the "skilled" activities a computer can perform are repeatable and easily measured. In other words, the traditional company prioritises tasks that computers can do over humans. Setting measurable objectives is a fairly measurable objective, so even management of those companies could to some extent be replaced by computers.

And if management is a computer that very efficiently assigns tasks to other computers to earn money, what do the computers use the money for?

Luckily computers are not yet good at imagining fun things to do with money.

Say have you met Libya, Libya, the Tattooed Lady?

It is difficult to judge what the West should do or have done with Libya and the current crisis. Actually, it is not that difficult to judge - the difficulty is to come with the right judgement.

The Libyan map is tattooed with numerous peoples and religions: Arabs, Berber, Touareg, Tebou, Barasa, Majabrah, Sunni, Ibadi and so on. There are city dwellers, farmers, people who live by the coast and people who live in the desert.

Some of those different groups surely feel more distant to Muammar Gaddafi (معمر القذافي‎) than others. But how many of the Libyans feel primarily that they are Libyans?

That is the snag. Libya right now is in a horrible state, and at first glance it might seem like the human thing would be to send an international army to the country to put things in order. However, every outsider who tries to change the country in one direction or another, may contribute to a united "anti-foreigner" feeling in the country, and that movement would certainly be exploited by Gaddafi.

Yes, he has his own foreign mercenaries who fight for him, but they fight on Libyan orders. Not the orders of "the people" or of a democratically elected government, but the orders of the leader of the country since many decades, and that may give it some kind of legality in the eyes of some.

Sending foreign troops from the outside is a sensitive thing, and it is impossible to predict how the different Libyan groups would perceive it, no matter whose side the foreigners were to fight on. It might make some of the Libyans feel more nationalistic and loyal to Gaddafi. A foreign invasion might actually help Gaddafi. Or not.

On the other hand, it is horrible to stand without doing anything at the sideline and see the Libyans kill each other.

So what should be done? I do not know. I'm afraid I am agnostic.

Scientists surprised

At a recent physics convention in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a group of scientists from the university of Bratislava (Portugal) were walking to a nearby café, when a little girl jumped out from behind a corner and shouted "Booh!" Reports reveal that they were all surprised. "I think none of us had expected anything like this", said one of the visitors.

Everything is Cyclic

A few years ago, I had breakfast at the same time in the morning twice. First in Osaka (大阪), then, having crossed the international date line, in Honolulu.

I recently had a similar experience. I checked in for a two hour flight one day. The next day, I went to the same airport and checked in again for the same flight.

Phileas Fogg gained one day by crossing the date line. Could he have saved a day by checking in for the same flight twice in a row as well?

What is more likely to make us younger? What is more likely to make us more experienced?

North Korean Yeonpyeong Attack - Not on Purpose?

In spite of the international outrage, the recent North Korean attack on the South Korean Yeonpyeong, 연평도, islands may have been a clumsy mistake. The attack seems so utterly pointless that not even the North Korean leadership perhaps thought of it.

Imagine this scenario. You are a North Korean soldier. You have heard all your life that there are evil countries like South Korea and the US who constantly are trying to attack the country you live in, and where you, in spite of some hardships, have had a fairly decent childhood. Now, this is the real thing. You are a soldier close to the border, and the evil enemies are close by. Suddenly, you see and hear the South firing with canons.

You know that your duty is to defend the country of your family and friends. (You do not have to think about the fact that you defend Kim Jong Il, 김정일, and the communist party as well.) You give alert. "We are under attack." Surely that is the only reason why the South would fire their canons - to attack us.  They are, after all, evil - that's what you have heard all your life. Your officers panic. They also want to defend the country of their families and friends. They immediately order retaliation.

This is important. This is to defend the peace of your community, to make sure that nothing harms your parents, your sisters and brothers, your friends and your small innocent nephews and nieces, perhaps your own children. It is such an important task, and you are part of it. Of course you have to fire, fire and fire again, against the evil anonymous enemy out there.

This goes on for about an hour, and 170 shells have been fired. During most of this time, the South shoots, now definitely at you and your friends, who have done nothing worse than trying to defend your near and dear. You finally stop shooting, when a senior officer gets involved and tells you to. About one hour later, the South stops their shooting as well.

You make your report to your command, who send their report to Pyongyang, 평양, where the top leadership has to try to explain the incident to an annoyed international community, without admitting that their country messed up.

I do not know if this is how it happened, but it seems as likely to me, as some well orchestrated North Korean plot to achieve something one does not even know what it might be. My experience is that politicians make a lot of clumsy mistakes. I am willing to believe that the North Korean politicians are as clumsy as the ones in the West.

The Euro - not that much of a crisis

Ever since Greece got into financial trouble at the beginning of this year, there have been people, mostly from outside the currency union, who predict its sudden demise. I will stick out my usually so agnostic neck here, and say that they are talking utter rubbish.

Is there a crisis? Yes, of course it is. Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, all have huge economic difficulties. However, it is not a crisis that is worse than other economic crises in the past. The world economy is a dynamic system, and there are bound to be crises popping up here and there, like in Denmark in 1987, the United Kingdom and Japan in 1992 or Taiwan and Korea in 1997. All those countries had their own currencies, and that did not save them from any crisis at all. Some of them have recovered, like Taiwan and Denmark, and some have not, like the UK and Japan.

The recent crises within the Euro area proves that the Euro is not a fool proof way of keeping a country out of economic troubles, but I do not know anyone who ever claimed it was.

There is a crisis, an issue, a problem, a situation, and now politicians and the market forces are working on solving it. We do not know yet, how good or swift the solution will be, but it is very likely that there will be some solution.

The Euro prevents some traditional ways of solving the problem. Spain cannot devalue its currency to get more competitive. However, devaluations are very blunt instruments. With a devaluation, everyone in a country gets temporarily poorer. Everyone will get less money to buy imported goods - and domestic goods, made of foreign parts. A domestic company which needs foreign parts to sell on the domestic market will be hit by a devaluation, perhaps so much that it actually goes out of business, causing unemployment and further disasters. If Spain would devalue its local currency, it would lower the salary for all those people who work for financially sound companies, as well as the ones that need to become more competitive.

With the Euro, there will be no devaluation, and financially sound Spanish companies will be able to do business as usual. Other companies will have to take some drastic measures, like laying off people or lowering salaries. However, if there had been a devaluation, Spanish companies would get more competitive, and some companies outside Spain would get less competitive in relative terms, and they would run into problems. When there is a shortage of money, someone is inevitably hit. The question is who and how.

The Euro in its present form is a new concept, and no one knows exactly what solutions will emerge, but there will surely be solutions for a lot of the people involved. For some people, there may be no solution, and their living standard will be permanently lowered - just like in other crises in countries with their own currency.

But let's assume for a moment, that the Euro is to be blamed for the current problems, how would one get rid of it?

That is a real problem. It is almost impossible to do so.

A country with a poor economic situation could be tempted to leave the Euro to be able to devalue. The problem is that it inevitably would be known in advance that they would leave, and before the cut-over, everyone would rush to remove their money from the poor country, as everyone would know that the currency was meant to lose value. People would transfer all their savings abroad. Companies would transfer their headquarters and capital abroad. The flow of capital would be immense. The intended effect, a loss of value of perhaps 5-10%, would extend to a drainage of the entire country's resources.

A country with a good economic situation could be tempted to leave, not to be dragged down with the falling value of the Euro. The problem here is the same, but with inverted values. Everyone would know in advance that the country would leave with the intention of pushing up the value. There would be an enormous pressure to buy assets in this country to take advantage of the appreciation to come. This would drive the currency so high, that the salaries in the rich country would become impossibly high. The companies would not be able to afford them, as their products would be too expensive to export, and mass unemployment would follow.

This means that it would be very difficult, perhaps impossible, for anyone to leave the Euro - at least for the purpose of fluctuating a local currency up or down.

Besides, there are all the practical costs we paid once when we joined the Euro, that will need to be paid again: transition of accounting systems and software, replacement of all slot machines (like parking meters, vending machines, ATMs), distribution of the new currency and elimination of the old currency (the Euro that is still valid in other countries) and so on.

In addition, for every country leaving the Euro, the old arguments are still valid. International travel would become more expensive, as we would have to start paying exchange fees again when going to neighbour countries. International trade would be more cumbersome and more expensive, as each transaction would have to pay for the risk involved. That would lower the trade volume, and one thing no economist outside North Korea denies today, is that trade is necessary to generate wealth.