Noorse bank vergoedt spaarders na slechte informatie

DNB, de grootste bank van Noorwegen, gaat enkele honderden spaarders vergoeden die het slecht had geïnformeerd over de risico's van sommige producten. (bron: deredactie.be)

Als dat in Noorwegen kan, waarom is dit niet mogelijk voor de Belgische situatie bij Arcopar?

"Noorwegen stelt schulden van Derde Wereld in vraag" (DeWereldMorgen.be)

Heet van de naald, dus ik wil het jullie zeker niet onthouden: Daan Bauwens van DeWereldMorgen bericht dat Noorwegen als eerste land ter wereld schulden van de Derde Wereld in vraag stelt.

Noorwegen is het eerste land ter wereld dat als schuldeiser een onderzoek instelt naar de legitimiteit van schulden van ontwikkelingslanden aan de Noorse schatkist. Ook in Groot-Brittannië worden momenteel vraagtekens gesteld bij schuldenclaims aan ontwikkelingslanden.

De Noorse minister van ontwikkelingssamenwerking Heikki Holmås kondigde vorige woensdag een volledige doorlichting aan van de legitimiteit van alle schulden van ontwikkelingslanden aan de Noorse staat.

Link naar het artikel.

Run Reindeer, Run!

I noticed I hadn't posted anything on my trip to the North Cape, so here is a nice little video of reindeer just for fun:

We bumped into these beautiful animals a lot once we crossed the pole circle. Most of them are very shy and stay far from the roads, but these particular ones are living close to the North Cape, where there is hardly any traffic. Apparently they are used to the occasional car passing by, but first try to outrun it to only realize later that it is better to jump sideways into the berm.

On my way to the North Cape

Today I have left on a roadtrip to visit the North Cape.

Estimated return: 5th of June, wish me luck!

1st May Concert Oslo

1st May Concert Oslo

Happy Labour Day everybody!

Norwegian verbs, verb på norsk (bokmål)

As I am currently visiting the University for Life Sciences or the Universitetet for miljø- og biovitenskap  (UMB) in Ås, Norway, I have been trying to raise my level of the local language: Bokmål.

There is the 'official course', organised by the local government, but there are also many attempts by the university or private, to bring an additional platform. Through such a 'student organised weekly class', I got in contact with Tania who has been giving some extra classes in the evenings.

Her way of teaching taught me a new concept in language learning: "Focus on the verbs first, the rest come automatically". The idea behind this is that in any sentence, the verb is the core of that sentence and it is therefore much more worthwhile to concentrate on ten basic verbs (and their correct conjugations) first as the needed nouns and other vocabulary will come by having conversations.

This got us thinking on which are the verbs that we use the most in a language? Definitely 'to be' (*), 'to have', 'to go', 'to give', 'to take', 'to see', 'to want', ...

Following is a table of the verbs that I am concentrating on at the moment:

How rich countries got rich... (review)

image from Anthem Press India

As mentioned before, I have been working on a short review of Erik S. Reinert's book "How Rich Countries Got Rich ... and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor"

Tomorrow morning there will be a small seminar and discussion on the book's topic within the UMB. The review is publicly available and can be read by clicking this link.

Basically, Reinert's book (and his The Other Canon Foundation) is a critique on neo-liberalism from within capitalism rather than from the left. As he points out, there is 'another canon' within capitalism that doesn't fully agree with the current trend of globalization and opposes the abstract 'one-size-fits-all' model that is being spread by the Washington institutions.


Unconditional free trade has up to now only widened the gap between rich and poor. Instead of a convergence of world income, we find that while the rich nations enjoy sustained growth, ninety of the world's nations were poorer in 1997 than in 1990.

This is the risk of the current view on globalization, the value chains of production are broken up in such a way that the rich countries take all the high-skilled jobs while the activities of lower pay are given to the poor countries: poor countries end up specializing in being poor and rich countries specialize in being rich.

To break this trend, just 'making the market' free is not the right answer. Economic growth is a joint product of synergies, a large division of labour, increased returns and new knowledge.

I would recommend all to read the book and form your own opinion.

I have found one incorrect reference though: in chapter 2 "The Evolution of the Two Different Approaches" talks about "post-authistic economics" on page 45, footnote 32 gives a link to Edward Fullbrook's website. This link is misprinted and should be http://www.paecon.net/ , I hope this will be corrected in newer editions.

References:

• My review
• Some excerpts from the first chapter
• Reviews: Jayati Ghosh, Jeremy Williams, Matt
• How Countries Get Rich by C. Peter Timmer of the Center for Global Development
• 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang
• Cracking the Code: Unlocking Africa’s Secret to Wealth
• The Other Canon

More:

• Sacred Economics
• Dead Aid: counter proposal
• The Credit Crisis visualized (by Jonathan Jarvis)
• Reconstructing the theory of Uneven Economic Development (Other Canon)

Update:

• Review in Dutch by Franky Aelbrecht

How rich countries got rich...

image from
Anthem Press India

Today I started reading Erik S. Reinert's book "How Rich Countries Got Rich ... and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor". The title is already thought provoking, Reinert will discuss that the concept of a free market is actually a luxury, and that the currently rich countries have become that way exactly through a combination of government intervention, protectionism and strategic investment.

Update: review available

Visiting Peru in July 1967, during his last high-school summer vacation, he wondered why the country is so poor:

Most of the people I observed at work - the luggage handlers at the airport, the bus drivers, the hotel personnel, the barbers, the shop attendants - did not seem to be any less efficient than the people performing the same tasks back in Norway.

What is it about this "market" that rewards people with the same level of productivity with such different real incomes in different countries?

Just as now, economists were already claiming in 1967 that free trade would elevate all people out of poverty, that the allowance difference for rich and poor would be leveled out. This 'proven' economic theory has been repeated from 1760s, the 1840s and the 1990s:

If high-tech engineers and people who make a living washing dishes are placed in two different countries and start trading, they will suddenly obtain the same real wages?

I am about to find out, I have just started to read his book, but these starting theories sound already very promising.

In his own words:

If you take anything from this book, let it be this: if you want to understand the causes of American and European prosperity, study the policies of those who created it, not the advice of their forgetful successors.

I have found one incorrect reference though: in chapter 2 "The Evolution of the Two Different Approaches" talks about "post-authistic economics" on page 45, footnote 32 gives a link to Edward Fullbrook's website. This link is misprinted and should be http://www.paecon.net/ , I hope this will be corrected in newer editions.

More:

• Review by Jayati Ghosh (IDEAs)
• The Other Canon
• Cracking the Code: Unlocking Africa’s Secret to Wealth
• Sacred Economics
• Dead Aid: counter proposal
• The Credit Crisis visualized (by Jonathan Jarvis)
• Reconstructing the theory of Uneven Economic Development (Other Canon)

Bye Norway!

Picture taken from Visit Norway

Staying in Norway was great, although I have only been there for 17 days, I learned a lot of new things and met nice people. I had never ben 'up north' before, on a sunny day Megumi showed me the fjord at Drøbak, very beautiful.

But 'every beautiful song has an ending', and today was the last morning of my Northern holiday. I thanked the host family, said goodbye to Megumi and took the Ryanair flight back to Belgium.

Flying without luggage is very comfortable, all I had was my tooth brush, some spare clothing and a jacket, all jammed in one small bag. First thing that I noticed in the airport of Rygge, is how friendly the security staff is. Unbelievable, I am used to their grumpy counterparts in Charleroi, but these people even had a smile on their face and wished me a nice flight. I was so flabbergasted, it almost made this whole security check drill a 'pleasant' experience.

But okay, here I am, back in Belgium, back on the jobhunt.

This week I learned...

LEARN from Rick Mereki.

New things I have learned during my first days in Norway, in chronological order (I kid you not):

Norway!

To celebrate the new month, I got myself a cheap ticket to Norway!