Champagne Taste

Mercer released its 2008 cost of living survey this week, a must see for expats and avid city travellers, http://www.mercer.com/costofliving.

Oslo is in 4th place behind Moscow, Tokyo and London. New York is 22nd. Oslo keeps very interesting company for such a dull and uninteresting place.

The first Canadian city in the survey is Vancouver at 65th. This is of no surprise to me. Canadians are very cost conscious. It is the influence of our Presbyterian roots. What did the Scottish ever do for us eh? Well, in addition to golf, whisky and deep fried Mars bars, they instilled a sense of McScroogeness.

I never really paid attention to prices until I moved to Norway. I do now. Unfortunately in many situations one is offered little choice bar abstinence. This is a result of inefficient supply chains, subsidies and protection, lack of competition, and or tax. For example:

• My litre of milk at the shop - $3 – Subsidies and protection
• My bottle of beer at the pub - $8 - Tax
• My takeaway pizza - $30 - Inefficient supply chain
• My monthly cable sports subscription - $70 - No competition
• My Volkswagen Passat - $80,000 - Total fucking economic incompetence.

A look at the average annual gross income offers a few insights:

• 1st - Moscow - $12,000
• 2nd - Tokyo - $45,000
• 3rd - London - $60,000
• 4th - Oslo - $75,000
• 22nd - New York - $45,000
• 65th - Vancouver - $47,000.

However, these numbers are distorted by tax and the currency exchange. When adjusted to Purchase Power Parity (PPP), the real purchasing power of the average consumer, most cities come in around the $30,000 level, except Moscow.

To be fair, Moscow has 87 billionaires. They are mostly ex-politicians, ex-KGB, and criminals and contribute greatly to the high cost of living. I doubt they are included in the official statistics as most are tax exiles. Who says there is no money in Communism, it’s just a matter of being at the right place at the right time.

In Norway, the cost of goods is generally twice as much as those in many western countries. Labour costs are also twice as much and you would expect this is the case so that people can afford the cost of goods. You would be wrong.

It is a tax generating system to keep the unemployment rate low. The slack is taken up by employing government spreadsheet jockeys to devise and calculate complex tax systems. Go figure.

I now have a great empathy for struggling families trying to make ends meet. Just speaking to people at the golf club and the yacht club in Oslo about their economic challenges has given me a great insight to how the other half live.

It would appear they have champagne taste, on a premium beer budget.

Beaverboosh

Note: All figures in USD.

In The Hole

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Count Me Out

The world’s population is set to rise from 6.5 to 9.1 billion people by 2050, an increase of 2.6 billion people.

That’s a lot of fucking.

It took since the beginning of human kind to the 90s to get the population to 2 billion. I wonder if the hippies in the 60s preaching sexual revolution realised what a mess they would get us into. Hippies, free love and mathematics eh. Toxic.

I hope to personally contribute to this growth at some point. Mrs BB and I moved to Norway with starting a family in mind. So far we have managed to start new jobs, a family war, a mountain of debt, and our car each morning.

Oh, and I have started to learn Norwegian. Hey, it’s a long starting stage.

Norwegian women are baby factories. A weekday trip to the cafe mid morning finds gaggles of yummy mummies chatting frothily and breast feeding. No wonder lattes are so popular here with the kids.

I attribute the Norwegian birth rate to the ‘shagability factor’. Norwegian women are both gorgeous and lovely. It is more likely that additional factors such as social benefits are at work.

Mom gets a year off work at 80% wages. Dad gets 4 weeks paternity leave and it is mandatory. Kindergarten is free for all children and starts at the age of 1. Of course, all is funded by the taxpayer. It is the family side of social democracy.

Thank goodness for social benefits, Huggies are twice the price here than anywhere in the known world and Norwegian babies are weaned on designer clothes. It is a zero sum game.

The population explosion is set to take place in the developing countries with the world’s poorest nations contributing the greatest. The developed countries will stay static with at 1.8 billion people, a neutral birth rate.

I can understand this. At the rate the missus and I are moving, by the time our 2.x children can vote, we will be scheduled for hip replacements.

I consider fiddling the statistics by moving to Burkina where the birth rate is at epidemic proportions. Mrs. BB can have 12 children and then we can move back to the developed world. If I can get 500 million people to do the same, we can do something about the static birth rate.

I moot the idea with her. She is uninterested. I add that she can put her most excellent French to good use and will have a permanent tan. I am not getting anywhere. It can see it is not exactly a persuasive argument.

At any rate, it is unlikely we will be around to be counted in the census in 2050. We will focus our attention on a procreation displacement strategy. We must ensure we are doing our bit for the continuity of the developed world’s birth rate.

Beaverboosh

Oh Bugger

‘War for the most part is boring with occasional outbursts of violence.’ General Bernard Law Montgomery, affectionately known as Monty, could have been speaking about my experience of working through the lazy hazy summer holidays.

The silly news season is upon us. Unfortunately to the untrained eye, it looks no sillier than the rest of the year.

Malaysia's opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has been accused of sodomy, an offence which if convicted could carry a prison sentence of 20 years, and surely more sodomy. He denies the allegation.

I am slightly concerned having spent much time in KL years past. My Bumiputra girlfriend enjoyed the occasional irregular position but never mentioned it in respect of the law. This could upset any plans I have for running for public office in Malaysia.

It is a good thing that the UK repealed its buggery law for consenting adults many years ago. Half of the House of Commons and most of the House of Lords would likely have been prosecuted, in many instances by each other, and then where would we be.

The bible, one of the best historical fictions of its epoch, dispenses harsh justice. Leviticus defines sex between men as a capital punishment. Thankfully it says nothing about sex between Canadians and Bumiputras.

The Romans looked down on same sex sodomy in the ranks, however, it was commonly accepted to use your slave as a sex object, as long as the slave was on the receiving end.

Mesopotamian law meted out a harsh penalty to the well hung caught sodomising brothers-in-arms allowing them to turn him into a eunuch. Contrary to popular belief this did not produce the sublime soprano voices of the castrati who were castrated at birth, but rather a gruff nasal whine.

Sodomy still carries a serious offence in many countries. Same sex sodomy is punishable by death in Iran. Thankfully this will be avoided, as their President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated during his recent visit to Colombia University, ‘there are no homosexuals in Iran.’

Consenting sex between adults in many western countries is legal. Canada’s most famous Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, when repealing archaic sodomy laws proclaimed ‘there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.’ The law provides that consenting adults can do what they wish, provided no more than two people are present.

I doubt this law will get in the way of most Canadian men’s fantasies, especially where twins are involved. It is on the top 10 list of things Canadian men must do before they die.

Beaverboosh