cool statistics

i like to play a bit with numbers, and i'm happy that oecd has renewed their services, you can find it here.
what you think, which are the most opened economies in oecd?
Country Trade-to-GDP-ratio (trade of goods)
(current prices, current exchange rate)
Slovak Republic 157,38
Hungary 132,67
Czech Republic 130,71
Netherlands 110,13
Luxembourg 87,51
Austria 81,13
Ireland 80,89
Switzerland 75,34
Korea 71,42
Germany 71,24
Poland 70,67
....
Japan 26,29
United States 22,16

workoholic

hundstage

dog days of summer! yupi! budapest is the best place for summer: every day lot of programms, open-air concerts, bikeing next to the river. if there would be no winter it would be too perfect :)
and on friday erik sumo will play at szabadság tér at downtown festival.

green future

i have found the best summary of the energy problem, possile renewables and best goverment policies what i have read now:
i am only sceptic about their ideas about green tax, i think they underestimate the negative externalities of fossils.
i find also interesting the oil peak theory, jeremy leggett has a good book about that. the rising oil consumption mainly contributed by china and india and the shrinking oil production will lead the world to change the energy production.
why oil production cannot grove? in the last 20 years - in the ages of cheap oil - there was not enaugh investment and these can't be done in some years.
international energy agency, wich is an office of the united nations publicates a study every year - the world energy outlook. as this paper is prepared by the wisest people in this topic. they have also changed they forcasts and mainly accepted the oil peak theory and they are asking for change in philosphy: energy efficiency should be in focus. and we should invest in renewables but these investments will only yield on longer term - where we face again the same problem: the short term thinking of the most important companies.
so if there is a market failure we need the governments, if possible on the multinational level. kyoto process showed that we can mainly forget multinational level - fast growing countries will not participate, like china and india but that can be understood. kyoto was anyway everything but not useful: mainly none of the countries has done what they have promised.
europien union is a frontier of sustainable growth - but co2 trade and shrink of emission are not a success story. every member state has other policies how to achive the common goals. the big question is which is the best way to make alternative energies market-ready. green taxes are a good way but there are a lot of critics about that also. the subsidies are also questionable - which technics and which companies should recive them? maybe the best way is - and it looks like to work in germany which is pretty well performing in this field - is the warranted prices which are higher than market price. it is very important in this case that these has to be warranted for longer time, have to calculable and have to decline with time (not the case of hungary). maybe it would be a good way to put externalities tax on polluting technologies and finance the alternative energies from this.

conclusion: i have too much free time and need a job

some ideas about globalisation

globalaisation is mainly a good thing, sad that a lot of people don't want to get it - specially sad if these people are in the winning side - like hungarians.
nevertheless there would be a need to rethink the way global economy and globalisation is working: because the benefits are distributed a very unmoral way. this is not only problem in moral ways but also politically and economically. those nations, groups of people, regions that feel and see that only the other side (wich is already richer) is takeing the benefits of it naturally will feel embarrassed and will resist, they will turn to nationalism and protetism wich is bad for them but also for the hole world.
i have found a short nice articale summarizing these ideas by globalisation institute.

unemployed life

since 3 weeks i am unemployed and living from the friendly contribution from the 10 procent taxpayers of hungary. till now it was a lot of fun to have so much free time, but it would be nice to be able to start to work.
but i did not thought that you can have so much fun while not working: been to linz, italy, aquapark, was laying on the sun in every possible park in budapest, read books, all magazins wich i like, was riding bob and bikeing a lot. everyone should get one month summer holiday!

balmer in budapest

microsoft has sold for 100 million euros office programmes to hungary - which could have been purchased way more cheaper - lot of people say. the contract is made that way, that all universities and governmental offices have to use microsoft products.
one student was protesting with eggs.