Growth, jobs and more

  On his blog,   Daniel Pink is writing   about the   CNN poll   that is finding, that people have a much more positive view on their personal situation than on the state of economy in general. And concludes: If enough people think everyone else is doomed, eventually they’ll doom themselves. How true. A Eurobarometer study reports the same story as the CNN survey. Note the huge discrepancy between the perceived financial situation of a household (64% at least rather good) and that of the economic situation in the World (only 20%), the EU (33%) and the home country (29% very good or rather good). This crisis is a result of many different factors and it will not be resolved by a single silver bullet. Many things will have to be addressed, in a coordinated way. The general fear and pessimism is one of them.

Since the young in the West take peace between Germany and France for granted, and the young in the East got used to democracy without a fear of communism, the European Union and its institutions seems to be running out heroic missions. To be relevant to the “citizen” the EU needs to provide useful services that are making life easier for the businesses and improving the quality of life the people rather than make history. The European institutions are permanently looking for ways to present themselves useful and relevant to the citizen, so that he or she would eventually improve its attitude towards the European project and look up to Brussels with a similar admiration as when the idea of a common market helped the continent out of the ashes. And there are plenty of ways being offered by all kinds of NGOs, pressure groups and lobbysts. A few days ago  Euractiv reported  on dangers of iPods: Consumer groups have asked the Commission to “revise existing safety standards” to pro...