Evidence that the world is different

I am now Dubai waiting for a flight to Almaty (Kazakhstan). I spent the time on the flight reading (including Stieg Larsson’s third book in his trilogy – The girl who kicked the hornet’s nest – hard to put down. I also listened to all the Rai CDs on the plane’s enterntainment system. I came upon this music about 15 years ago when I was listening to Studio Brussel (then my favourite radio station in Europe) driving back to Maastricht (where I was living) after a bike race down in Belgium. It was bizarre – middle eastern instruments and modes – interspersed with acid jazz, house and straight jAzz. The first song I heard sounded very algerian and then the sax player went wild. I thought I was just tired from the hard race – it was so not what I was expecting – but I mmediately became a fan. So I caught up with all of the current releases – courtesy of an Emirates flight. This little blog extends that cultural saturation.

I am used to using Google in various foreign countries and having it come up in the language of the host country. But today I had a new experience. I was looking for the latest gross labour market flows data from the BLS as part of some modelling I am doing and this is what popped up.

This screen capture shows you a right-hand biased version of Google search – which immediately reminded me of where I was.

I thought I would pass this cultural nuance on. It was interesting to me at least.

Next blog

The next blog is coming soon, I read a lot on the flight. Some character was trying to say that unemployment had nothing to do with lack of spending but rather was about a lack of information (eek). I also read that Latvia should ease its problems by immediately joining the Euro zone (eek again!).

And then I read that the Iceland Government is agreeing to pay the UK and Dutch governments nearly 4 billion euros for the failed Landsbanki which had branches in their countries and lost billions. But while the bank started as a public bank (and served as the central bank back in time) it was privatised under the neo-liberal rush to obliterate public activity and developed very high international exposure. It went broke. I just cannot work out why this is a problem for the sovereign government of Iceland … unless you also understand that those solid citizens at the IMF won’t lend it any money unless it agrees! Well, I have a one word solution to the IMF – which is, Argentina … aka default.

You can see lots has been going on. Back later.