September 28, 2007 11:59
I saw this Austin Minor near the campus of the
Copenhagen Business School
. And I thought it was a beautiful thing. So was this Volvo driving through the City Hall Square:
I'm flying back to the U.S. today (Friday). So this will probably be the last of my Copenhagen dispatches.
September 28, 2007 6:25
By popular demand, a couple more photos from the Lego factory in Billund. A molding machine rolls out some black Legos:
And a robot, nicknamed "Olfert," replaces a full box of translucent green pieces with an empty one:
September 27, 2007 7:06
Thursday afternoon I went to the annual summit of the Danish Confederation of Industries (
Dansk Industri
). There is nothing elsewhere in the Western world that compares with this organization: It is the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and several other corporate organizations whose names I can't think of, all rolled into one. Plus it negotiates the labor agreements that determine how much maternity leave and how big a pension and how much continuing education Danish workers get.
Pretty much every Danish CEO of consequence was there, along with about half the cabinet and a bunch of labor leaders. The prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, gave a speech explaining his plan for making Denmark "the world's most competent nation": better education, more R&D;, more skilled immigrants, slightly lower taxes. (I was able to understand all this because I had a headset through which a nice translator converted it all into English.)
The tax part was pretty funny. Dansk Industri is pushing for lower top income tax rates to keep talented Danes from leaving and attract talented foreigners. Fogh, as he's called, is the longtime tax expert of the liberal (read: sorta libertarian) party and is clearly sympathetic to such arguments. But the political realities here aren't what they are in the U.S.
"You might feel we're dragging our feet, but in this society opinion polls show that tax cuts are not a priority," Fogh said. "I think it's quite good to have tax relief in a country where opinion polls say people don't want it." (Everybody laughed at that.)
After his speech, Fogh didn't leave the building as any self-respecting American politician would, but sat down in the front row for the awarding of the Dansk Industri Produktpris. The
winner
was
LM Glasfiber
, for designing and making the world's longest windmill blade (61 meters!).
When that was all done, I wondered if it was appropriate for a reporter to accost the prime minister. Then a Danish reporter did it, and I figured it was okay. I ended up walking out of the auditorium deep in conversation with Fogh. Nothing he said was all that amazing, plus I'm tired and I want to go to bed, so I think I'll save the quotes for my eventual article. But still: Pretty cool, no?
September 27, 2007 11:33
This was at the employment ministry Wednesday. I assumed the sign said "take one" rather than, say, "poison," so I took one and ate it. Pretty good. And I'm still alive.
I'd heard of the
Copenhagen city bike system
, where you put in a 20 kroner (about $4) coin to get a bike, then get the money back when you return the bike to one of hundreds of racks around the city. But Wednesday afternoon, when I really could have used one, there was none to be found at any bike rack I saw. Thursday morning I came across the lovely yellow thing pictured below, but didn't have the right coin and was in too much of a rush to go looking for change. So I really like the idea and all, but as a practical matter it has turned out to be pretty useless. Perhaps I should get myself a 20 kroner piece and hold on to it for life, so on every future visit to Copenhagen I'll be prepared.
Finally, this woman is killing weeds with a blowtorch:
September 27, 2007 5:32
Yeah, I probably ought to be commenting on the GM-UAW deal. But I've been running around interviewing Danes all day everyday for an article I'm going to write on the swell Danish economy, and don't have many brain cells left over for the American economy. I took this shot Wednesday on the way to a meeting with
Knud Romer
, author of the European sensation
Den som blinker er bange for døden
(He who blinks is afraid of death), a fictionalized account of his less than idyllic childhood as son of a German mother and a Danish father in southern Denmark. Seriously, it's
huge
in
Germany
and
France
. He's still looking for an American publisher, though. Come on, people, how can you resist this book?!?
