Archive for 2013

DENMARK RECONSIDERS THE WELFARE STATE:

The 36-year-old single mother, given the pseudonym “Carina” in the news media, had more money to spend than many of the country’s full-time workers. All told, she was getting about $2,700 a month, and she had been on welfare since she was 16.

In past years, Danes might have shrugged off the case, finding Carina more pitiable than anything else. But even before her story was in the headlines 16 months ago, they were deeply engaged in a debate about whether their beloved welfare state, perhaps Europe’s most generous, had become too rich, undermining the country’s work ethic. Carina helped tip the scales. . . .

“In the past, people never asked for help unless they needed it,” said Karen Haekkerup, the minister of social affairs and integration, who has been outspoken on the subject. “My grandmother was offered a pension and she was offended. She did not need it.

“But now people do not have that mentality. They think of these benefits as their rights. The rights have just expanded and expanded. And it has brought us a good quality of life. But now we need to go back to the rights and the duties. We all have to contribute.”

In 2012, a little over 2.6 million people between the ages of 15 and 64 were working in Denmark, 47 percent of the total population and 73 percent of the 15- to 64-year-olds. . . . In addition, the work force has far more older people to support. About 18 percent of Denmark’s population is over 65, compared with 13 percent in the United States.

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.

THE BENEFITS OF GOING TO CHURCH: As Andrew Exum noted on Twitter this morning, this article makes it sound like taking fish oil, which doesn’t really capture the reasons why most actual people go to church. But these may be terms that the New York Times’ readers can accept. . . .

One of the comments suggests that religion “helps people die without making too much of a fuss.” Maybe that’s why the New York Times, in this era of ObamaCare and Death Panels, is seeming more sympathetic. . . .

AND NOW, SOME GOOD NEWS: Private company succeeds in test launch of rocket that will carry cargo ship. “A company contracted by NASA to deliver supplies to the International Space Station successfully launched a rocket on Sunday in a test of its ability to send a cargo ship aloft. About 10 minutes after the launch from Wallops Island on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles declared the test a success after observing a practice payload reach orbit and safely separate from the rocket.”

AT AMAZON, Warehouse Deals in Sporting Goods.

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DIVERSITY! Walter Russell Mead: Why the Koch Brothers’ Move Into Newspapers is Good for America. “From where we sit, the biggest danger to journalism today is the gentry liberal groupthink one can call the ‘Acela cocoon.’ It’s particularly problematic for journalism right now because it mutes press criticism of the current Administration. On a handful of issues—civil liberties, drones, the environment, Iran—the Acela cocoon is significantly to the left of the Obama administration and so has been criticizing the Administration a little harder now that the election is out of the way. But on so many big issues of the day the Administration and much of the press are so closely allied that the press genuinely has a hard time criticizing power.”

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS:

This could be a structure for producing children — children who could then live with both biological parents. Obviously, a male and female can produce a child together, without ever having sex and without medical intervention. In China, this is being done in a way that deceives their family, and sometimes they’re doing nothing together but having a wedding. So, depending on what the couple does, it could be fake. But what if, say, a female gay couple and a male gay couple were compatible friends, who pooled their resources to buy a big house and they really wanted to raise their children together responsibly and with both parents in the house. Would it be wrong for the males to marry the females?

Robert Heinlein envisioned the future involving a wide array of marital arrangements. Will he be right again?