The Dutch economy needs highly qualified and highly educated workers and the Kennismigrantenregeling (“knowledge-migrants-measure”) is an important tool to get them. The Netherlands is a frontrunner in Europe in this matter, according to the Dutch government. It’s all one, big lie.
Today authorities announced that the day before yesterday was the coldest 11 March ever recorded in the Netherlands. This newsflash may not be very remarkable, if only these same authorities, weeronline.nl, hadn’t announced on 5 March that it was the warmest day ever recorded in the Netherlands!
The last few days were bitterly cold in the Netherlands
So, what’s going on here? A maximum and a minimum temperature record within 7 days?! Is the weather turning sick?
Innovation is deemed crucial to sustained economic growth and welfare improvement. One may subsequently pose, as I do, that innovations require some sort of inequality before they can blossom. This does not mean that some people need to be kept poor so that others can innovate; it means that those individuals who have the potential to significantly improve things for society should be enabled (or left free) to act on that potential.
One of my favourite writers (and speakers), Milton Friedman, explains that experimentation, which is closely related to innovation, can bring tomorrow’s laggards above today’s mean. I’ve drawn the picture below to illustrate what he means (or at least how I understood he meant it):
Bringing tomorrow’s laggards above today’s mean
Thus, if we accept that today some inequities exist, which means that some are poorer than others, tomorrow the poorest (the “laggards”, on the left end of the graph) may be better off than the average today. The crucial insight is that inequalities are relative. Even though some may be better off relatively, everyone is better off absolutely.
Someone’s life expectancy is the expected number of years he or she will remain alive. It is an average that is computed for several groups of people of varying specificity, such as the entire global population, newborns in Ghana, or 15-year-old women in Europe. It is a statistic used in many debates, especially in those concerning a country’s (under)development. The statistic is always presented with much confidence, that is, no-one really doubts the accuracy and reliability, which becomes clear in thousands of articles, but let’s pick one:
Or even more specific:
I find such statements truly remarkable, since it is not at all straightforward that we can compute life expectancy statistics with great confidence and accuracy. A great deal of uncertainty enters the calculations in several ways, of which I would like to discuss a few: picking indicators, large prediction horizons, and lacking backtesting.
As a child I was crazy about dinosaurs. It turns out that much of that craziness is somehow related to Steven Spielberg. It all started with Littlefoot, a little Apatosaurus. He starred in an extensive series of cartoons. The most notable, scary, heartbreaking, and profitable one is the first, The Land Before Time, in which Littlefoot finds his way to the Green Valley through a lot of hardships, mostly caused by a cruel, big Tyrannosaurus. I remember watching it dozens of times, Littlefoot fighting with Herbie for my attention, and I am not shy to admit that I watched it once more quite recently.
Two tyrannosaurs, both from the creative hands of Steven Spielberg. At the left, Sharptooth, from the Land Before Time, and at the right the pride of Jurassic Park, breaking out of its enclosure.
Musings of a traveller 
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