Within Swedish politics there is essentially complete agreement that the union model of labour negotiation should remain. Companies like Tesla are certainly an issue, but comparatively easier to deal with. The larger threat to the union model actually comes from undeclared labour which is a huge, systemic problem.

It ends up being significantly cheaper for the employer (no taxes, benefits, regulation) and can (in the short term) be beneficial for the employee (higher wage, still cashing in unemployment benefits etc.) even if it is disruptive for the collective long term.

In some businesses such as salons for hair dressers or mani-pedi, as many as 40% of labour is undeclared. Restaurants, construction and transportation are also high up.

Oh for sure, there are lots of companies pushing the gig-economy self employment model.

Strictly speaking, gig workers aren’t employed, but rather a contractor who is self-employed. This means that a lot of labour legislation doesn’t really apply (which would include minimum wages).

It is in the pipeline of legislation however, and I know that some unions have started targeting gig employers with collective bargaining. Foodora for instance is covered by collective agreement since 2021.

ironically the majority of those are government employees and police

It’s not ironic in the slightest. It’s for government employees that the conflict of interest between what’s best for the government (often low costs of labour) and employees (generous benefits and wages) becomes impossible to ignore.

Similar incentive structures do exist on a national economic level. For instance lower wages often provide a more competitive industrial basis internationally, even if that is not neccessarily beneficial for the individual employee.

Not much that I know of aside from a bunch of extra bureaucracy. Unions already perform polls on wages amongst members, and that information is generally available to the union members. Furthermore, there’s often even information available about wages within an employer organization if it is large.

The main problem I see with legislated minimum wages is that it becomes a legitimate target for employers in a “take it or leave it” fashion.

Partly, but there is more to collective bargaining than that.

a) Indexed inflation levels tend to be underreported (exactly due to things like this)

b) it does not allow for over-time adjustment of real wage levels. As productivity increases, the real wage usually goes up. During periods of economic crisis you often see the largest wage increases in absolute terms, but a decrease in the real wage due to inflation. These negotiations are the toughest.

Am I the only one even a little happy to see the head of a major company mentioning upgradability as an appeal for customers?

Please do stick with two unsoldered SODIMM slots for your laptops Asus.

Estimates of the global population reliant on synthetic nitrogenous fertilizers, produced via the Haber-Bosch process for food production. Best estimates project that just over half of the global population could be sustained without reactive nitrogen fertilizer derived from the Haber-Bosch process.

Source: OurWorldInData

For sure, wind is an especially good complement for hydropower, since the latter can store the surplus when it’s windy and release it when it’s not. Still, wind generation can, like other variable renewables, slip to nigh 0 production from time to time, at which point there must be enough dispatchable capacity to cover the supply/demand gap. Otherwise you get rolling blackouts in the middle of a -20°C winter. Not great.

Here’s a showcase of one such day in my country this winter. Average temps below -20°C (which means demand is very rigid due to heating needs) and the wind died down completely in the morning across all of Scandinavia & northern Germany, which meant there wasn’t room to import either. Winter prices on electricity ranged between 10-60€/MWh back when our nuclear plants were in full operation. Half have been shut down in the past decade due to political pressure from the green party.

Perfect is the worst enemy of progress. Right now the highest priority must be to get rid of the fossil fuel plants, and logistically speaking hydropower is simply the best. Mostly because of the built in function of energy storage and ability to load follow, something that the other variable renewable options entirely lack.

As with everything, politicians are at least 15 years too late in their thinking.

Any country that runs a sizable nuclear industry for power generation does have the capability to develop a nuclear weapons programme in relatively short order.

This is false. Sweden does not have a nuclear programme and does have a sizeable nuclear energy sector.

I disagree. Next to hydropower (which is limited by geography) it has been the champion of non-fossil electricity generation so far. Still, the fossil fuel lobby is a powerful foe.

Simply put, we should invest in all non-fossil options, and where solar is geographically viable, it is great. In other places however, where peak electricity demand coincides with the coldest, darkest parts of the year dispatchable production is strictly necessary, which is where nuclear shines.