When people say that California represents the future, they usually mean it nicely – they are thinking about hi-tech industries, or popular culture, or environmentalism. But reading Matthew Garrahan’s piece on the golden state’s budget travails in today’s FT, I wondered whether California now represents the future of the west – but as a nightmare, rather than a pleasant dream.

The Californian budget crisis is so severe that all public employees are having to take pay cuts. Public-health services are under serious threat, and there is talk of pushing Aids patients and the terminally-ill out onto the streets. It has proved impossible to raise taxes any further and the bond markets are in revolt. California is looking to Washington for help. But with the federal government running budget deficits of 12% of GDP, and the federal debt pushing up towards 100% of GDP – you have to wonder whether California’s present might, once again, be America’s future.

Matt Garrahan’s piece also left me feeling slightly embarrassed. In my last column for the paper on the politics of autsterity, I argued that only countries in Central Europe or Latin America were having to make really tough choices about public-spending. California’s travails show that bits of the US are already having to face the politics of austerity. (And I know California isn’t a country – but, famously, if it were it would be the eighth largest economy in the world.) So far the political fall-out seems reasonably limited and Governor Terminator remains popular. Still, it’s early days.

Back in February I blogged about a seminar I had gone into Paris devoted to the subject of “Is there a China model?” The organisers of the forum have now made a film of the whole event. It will appeal to anybody who is interested in:

a) The debate

b) Seeing a lot of Chinese intellectuals in action.

c) Watching me talking very slowly and deliberately, as I attempt to moderate.

You can find the film here.

I was in Krakow over the weekend and took the chance to visit Auschwitz – which is about an hour’s drive away. The experience was not what I anticipated.

In my mind’s eye, Auschwitz was isolated, empty and covered in snow. In reality, I drove there in bright sunshine and found that Auschwitz is in the suburbs of a small Polish town. You drive to Oswiecim, it’s left at the garden centre, and there it is - Auschwitz. There is a big car park full of coaches. Auschwitz is a major tourist destination. There is nothing to be done about that. And I’m sure it is better that lots of people visit than that the place is forgotten. But it is not an atmosphere that lends itself naturally to silent contemplation.

The Polish authorities make some effort to preserve an atmosphere of quiet and solemnity. At Auschwitz 1 (the camp, with the famous “Arbeit Macht Frei” gate), all large parties have to take a guided tour. Things seem a bit looser and less dignified at Birkenau, three kilometres away, which is where the prisoners arrived and where most were murdered on the spot. Birkenau is a vast place and there are more people wandering around on their own. I saw one group of of boisterous, laughing men, who were speaking Swedish. They were wearing stag party style t-shirts which proclaimed – “Warsaw, Krakow, Auschwitz – 2009″. It was a genuinely appalling experience. But not quite for the reasons I had expected.