I certainly used too, but the more I learn about it the more I worry the theory might be completely wrong.

Bo Lundgren was the chairman of the Swedish market-liberal and conservative Moderate party in 1999-2003 and his politics where characterised by what can only be called an utter obsession to cut taxes. After getting historically bad election results he resigned and was made the head of the Swedish National Debt Office due to his competent handling of the bank crisis of 1992. He was succeeded as chairman of the Moderate party by the more centrist Fredrik Reinfeldt, current Prime minister of Sweden.

And here we have an interesting and very recent interview with the Bo Lundgren. Hopefully it will give something of a Swedish perspective on the current unfolding crisis.

On September 22 this fall, the European Parliament will vote on the legal position of the European Tribune and all other blogs. The resolution which will include measures to make legal action against blogs easier, regulate the content of blogs, and require licensing and registering to operate a blog is sponsored by Estonian Socialist MEP Marianne Mikko.

MEP Marianne Mikko.

The current US financial crisis is often compared to the Japanese one, but one might argue that a better comparison is the Swedish crisis of the early 90's, which by the way was the worst one we had since the depression which isn't little considering the constant crisis we had during the 70's.

It was so bad it probably crossed the line from recession and went into depression territory. For example, GDP fell by 6 %, housing prices fell by a quarter and several banks were nationalised.

Promoted by Colman, with a little reformatting.

I am sure you have all heard about the problems and delays at the construction site of Finlands fifth nuclear reactor, a 1600 MW EPR being built by Areva and Siemens which will increase the nuclear generation of Finland by 60 %.

What you probably haven't heard about is the other new reactors.

Diary rescue by Migeru

IHT/JOHANNESBURG: At first, the power blackouts seemed a mere nuisance, the electricity suddenly dead for two or three hours at a time, two or three times a day. Radio announcers jocularly advised listeners to make their morning toast by vigorously rubbing two pieces of bread together and wisecracked about amorous uses for the extra darkness.

But after three weeks of chronic power failures - after regularly irregular vexations with lifeless computers, stovetops and stoplights - public forbearance has given way to outrage. This nation, long a reliable repository of cheap, plentiful electricity, finds itself pitifully short of juice

A new generation of nuclear power stations will be encouraged to supply unlimited amounts of electricity to the national grid, The Times has learnt.

??!

There are few signs in the world economy that we are heading towards a depression. Weak economic development in the US, and partly in Europe, is being compensated for by a continued good rate of growth in the rest of the world. When the credit fear abates, and all the skeletons finally fall out of their closets, the sun will shine again.

With the credit crunch and almost $100 oil arriving pretty much the way Jerome predicted they would, the feelings of doom and gloom are spreading. Some people are even talking about the Depression. I'm not saying this won't happen (or that it will), but it never hurts to look at things from a different perspective.

(With graphs!)

Diary rescue by Migeru

The government has lent more than £20 billion, or $40 billion, over the past two months to secure deposits at Northern Rock, many of which are pension savings, and to end the first run on a bank in the country since 1866. But it is coming under increasing pressure to ease the burden on taxpayers, while avoiding job losses.

[...]

"It will be really tricky," said Patrick Dunleavy, a professor for government and public policy at London School of Economics. "On the one hand you don't want to spend billions and play into the hands of private capitalism. On the other hand, you don't want to be accused by the opposition of socialist actions if you nationalize it."

<head explodes>

Wind power never had it easy in Sweden. With surplus generating capacity in the 90's, a highly conservative mindset among power producers and industrial consumers and average power production costs heading for 1 cent per kWh, breaking into the market seemed impossible.

But then some things happened.

Kriegers flak offshore wind farm.

Following in the steps Lord Oxburgh of BP, Jim Buckee, the astrophysicist PhD and retired CEO of Talisman Energy has decided to share some of his feelings of our current energy situation, including the oil sands, Peak Oil, climate change, and his greatest regret.

Diary rescue by Migeru

At the recent Association for Peak Oil&Gas conference in Cork, Ireland, former US Secreterary of Energy, Secretary of Defense and Director of the CIA, James Schlesinger, told the audience that "We are all peakists now".

He also said that almost all oil company executives now privately believe that peak oil is coming.

And Swedish top students know less about it than chimpanzees do.

A positive US media report on France. How extraordinary!

CBS 60 Minutes reports on, well, you know what they report on.

During his whole career as Swedish PM (1996-2007), social democrat Göran Persson had regular and secret interviews with TV journalist Eric Fichtelius. The several hundred hours of frank material were condensed into four one-hour programs, of which three has of yet been broadcasted.

On top of this several hours of extra material have been posted on the state television web site, and that's where I found this goodie which includes, like DoDo commented, "Energy dereg, SocDems who swallowed neoliberal ideas, the takeover of the EU ideal by the marketistas, silly goings-on in the EU Council".

edifying stuff from the diaries. -- Jérôme

A new-generation nuclear reactor has been approved and is set for construction on the Normandy coast, one of only two new reactors being built in Europe.

Finland: 1
France: 1 (definitely planned, and included above)
Romania: 1
Russia: 3 (though Beloyarsk might be in Asia, can't recall...)
----------
Total: 2?

Grrrrrrrrr.

Labor is labor and capital is capital, and the two shall never meet. Right?

It certainly seems so, with globalization giving rise to ever higher corporate profits while wages in developed countries have been rather stagnant for quite some time (while hundreds of millions of dirt poor people have become just poor and are getting better off as we speak).

Should we fight globalization if we believe it hurts the interest of workers in Western countries? No. On the whole globalization is making the total wealth greater and the standard of living better. But as with all structural changes which we have grappled with before, the question is: how do we adapt and transfer wealth to make sure no one becomes a loser in the brand new world?

And this is where my modest proposal comes in.

From the diaries -- whataboutbob

In a parallel universe, I received a wire last week from the Executive Mansion. Would I meet with First Citizen George X. Bush (Jefferson had won the 1796 election) to advise him on the war in Mesopotamia? Being a Small Endian, I was somewhat surprised to be asked to meet with a Big Endian First Citizen, but of course I telegraphed back that I would.

It was commonly thought that the war in Mesopotamia was not going well. We still had no effective answer to the Mesopotamians' war elephants, and our legionaries were getting squashed on too regular a basis. I had said publicly that we ought to give it up and go home, which made the invitation to the Executive Mansion all the more surprising. First Citizen Bush had to know what advice I would give him.

We met last Friday afternoon, in a gathering that included a few other opponents of the war besides myself. The First Citizen asked what we thought he should do in Mesopotamia, and we all told him we should get out as fast as we could, leaving lots of large caltrops on the roads behind us as we left. Then First Citizen Bush threw us a curveball.

"You've said just what I expected you to say," he told us. "Now I want to ask you a harder question. I'm not going to pull out of Mesopotamia, at least not yet. I have decided on one last throw of the dice, one last attempt to win this war. What should that be?"

To be sure, Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal remain the most likely winners of the presidential election's first round on April 22, 2007. However, Jean-Marie Le Pen's chances to cause a new surprise after his 2002 stunning success are now higher than originally thought.

The two months before the polls will be decisive. Le Pen's attempts to win the sympathy of those still undecided will likely cause him to use all of his tactical ability -- both through the media and in a more direct relationship with potential voters.

Although the establishment continues to scorn the National Front and its national-populist culture, the Socialists may be secretly happy that a strong Le Pen could prove capable of absorbing Sarkozy's political space on the right.

Report Drafted By:
Dr. Federico Bordonaro

From the Power and Interest News Report.