20/09/2005 9:27:42 pm
Big and Small as I Was Away. A week in the sand, sun and sea of Tunis can seem so much more when one gets back. Numerous tasks await - as the usual hundreds of e-mails, piles of documents and people waiting for replies to important questions. Some things have taken place during this week that may be worth noting:

- The election in Germany has produced an uncertain result, risking that no government will be particularly strong. The success of the free-market FDP was positive indeed, but it is generally depressing what fear of change despite great problems can lead to.

- Google has introduced a "Blog-search", at blogsearch.google.com. That is, a search engine which searchs for words and topics among blogs.

- The Economic Freedom of the World for 2005 has been published. (Order here.) Sweden drops from number 19 to 24, the lowest position since before the reforms of the 1990s. This is mainly an effect of the rest of the world getting freer whereas Sweden has stopped.

- The Wall Street Journal published an interesting analysis of the current political situation in Sweden, where I was also interviewed. (Read it here.) The lack of ideas and desperation of the government is clear, as are the tactics and caution of the opposition.

- My article about how lower social security contribution levels will lead to more jobs (that is, if the state stops paying people almost as much not to work as they would have had if they worked) has been published in a large number of newspapers.