10:23 – I took the day off yesterday, the first in several months. I’ve come down with a cold, from what source I don’t know since I seldom leave the house.
On the plus side, everything we need to build the first batch of biology kits is either already here or on the way, with just three exceptions. I need to order some potassium dihydrogen phosphate (used in the nitrogen-free fertilizer concentrate supplied with the kit) and some sodium dodecylsulfate (used in extracting DNA). I also have 120 50mm funnels on backorder until 21 March.
Today, I’ll get those last purchase orders issued and then jump back into the rewrite of the forensics book.
11:44 – I decided to take it easy today as well. It’s hard to do what I do when annoying virus symptoms are distracting me.
I see the Greeks are rioting. I made a comment the other day about them needing to cut 1.5 million government jobs, and someone pointed out in the comments that there were “only” 800,000 government employees in Greece to start with. Actually, no one, including the Greek government, knows how many government employees there are. The commonly quoted numbers between 800,000 and 1,000,000 are almost certainly far lower than reality. The best numbers I had as of last autumn were between 1.2 million and 1.6 million, depending on how one counts them. At any rate, my suggestion was actually to get rid of all of them and start over.
Barbara and I started watching Lillyhammer, Netflix’s first co-production of original programming. It stars Steve van Zandt (familiar as Silvio Dante from the Sopranos and as a member of the E-Street Band) as a New York mafia guy who is relocated by witness protection to Lillehammer, Norway. As we watched the first episode, one of the story arcs made me think about why Europe is moribund. The gangster decides to star a bar/nightclub in Norway, and finds that he has to go through incredible hoops to do so. That’s commonplace in Europe, whereas in the US someone who wants to start a business just starts a business. Here, it’s literally pro forma–fill in a couple of forms and you’re good to go. Is it any wonder that the US is dynamic and Europe moribund? If Obama really wants to get things going, all he has to do is exempt small businesses–say, those with fewer than 100 employees, or better 1,000 employees–from all city, state, and federal regulations and taxes. Make small businesses a protected species. Unemployment would plummet, tax collections would skyrocket, and government outlays for social programs would fall off a cliff.