Comments on: Sweden: Image and Reality

By: Sweden: Image and Reality | Mortgage Review Site - Latest Daily Mortgage News

Tue, 25 May 2010 05:55:01 +0000

[...] 25th, 2010 by admin | Posted in Uncategorized | Interesting post here about Sweden from Lane Kenworth, Professor of Sociology, University of Arizona: Surprises for the [...]

By: Therese

Therese — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 21:45:49 +0000

Two generations of so-called welfare financed by taxes and consumed almost privately resulted in a very interesting information from the official Welfare-commission with so-called welfare-experts taught to tell what the politician don’t dare to say themselves and to defend any doings (within the power of their expertice) of any government – a so-called buffer:
Non-Western immigrants in Denmark consume 3.47 times the amount of welfare in average compared with the average of the Danes (self-knowledge usually is a good thing even though we knew and also told it right from the beginning):
So, if we allow a little mathematics:
x/(1-x) * Danes’ share in p.c. of the population/Non-Westeners’ share in p.c. of the population = 3.47
where x is the percentage of Non-Westerners’ consumption of the entire welfare-budget.
(we can ignore the Western immigrants, they are very few, and they mostly come here to work)
x= 30%, even though we calculate with just 11% Non-Westeners – perhaps 15% is even more realistic. We are not allowed to know the correct number, but we must pay anyway, so we get the politically correct number instead partly to make us pay.

This means that the Danish welfare-system that was bound to collapse when the hippy-generation of rulers had become pensioners and was expected to have eaten up all national resources by the time of their own death will collapse instead 2-4 years from now.

We have calculated several possible outcome depending of the most foreign immigrants share on:
http://danmark.wordpress.com/2010/04/14/non-westeners-cost-30-37-of-the/

Sincerely
Therese
Denmark

By: J

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:30:53 +0000

To compare the challenges of a country of 9 million to one of 300 million is silly.

By: Angela

Angela — Sat, 30 May 2009 21:31:37 +0000

What a difference a year can make ……
To visit a neurologist in the state health system it costs
about £30. To visit you local doctor £15.
Medicines are not free.

EVERYONE including pensioners all have to pay the same amount when in need of health care.

Taxes are high and pensioners pay MORE than workers !
I know I am one , and live I in Sweden.

By: Nietz

Nietz — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 05:40:42 +0000

Actually, the poor in Sweden live considerably better than the poor in the US. The LIS study simply points out income *ignoring* government services are approximately the same in Sweden and the US. Once non-monetary government services such as health, childcare, university, etc are taken into account, Sweden’s poor do considerably better. Since Americans rely far more on their after-tax income for their basic needs, Americans need higher incomes to keep up with European living standards. Unfortunately, the poor do not earn more than Sweden, despite working twice as long.

Sweden is also at a disadvantage in this study, as the proportion of the elderly population is much higher in Sweden. The LIS’s author published another report looking just at disadvantaged groups together (elderly and poor children) and found a much lower living standard in the US.

This is likely the case for most Americans now. Nominal per capita GDP is now higher in Sweden than the US, by IMF calculations. Given the difference in US/Sweden inequality, the median worker must earn considerably more in Sweden, even ignoring the additional government services.

According to the US Census, US median income is $24K. In Sweden, it is $34K.

http://www.scb.se/templates/tableOrChart____225793.asp

By: Hanna

Hanna — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 23:41:13 +0000

Seems like this thread has become a playing ground for Nordic xenophobics.

We should let them taste their own medicine and deport them to places like Iraq and Somalia where they argue that our immigrants should go.

Very peculiar that these criminological data are not reported or commented as in the examples above by Nordic criminologists. Thus, it may either be the case that this thread’s commentators are spreading racist myths, or that Nordic criminologists have been brainwashed or partake in some kind of multiculturalist conspiracy.

By: Sonia

Sonia — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:40:08 +0000

Report from the publich Swedish BRÅ shows that the number of rape-crimes rose by 257 p.c. from 1996 to 2006. This implies an yearly increase of 9.9 p.c. Drug-rape has been included in rape-crimes from 2005, but that does alter the development.
Now we need the distribution of criminals on Swedes on the on side and the group foreign citizens, citizens with naturalization and the offspring of the latest (but Sweden does not publish that).
The distribution when we look at Danish (next to Sweden) relations:
Extracts from: http://danmark.wordpress.com/2007/01/27/unge-med-anden-etnisk-baggrund-end-dansk-truer-med-vold-og-terroriserer-med-sms-er/ (in Danish):
“That 40 p.c. of all convicted for rape-crimes are immigrants or their descendants, that 50 p.c. of all criminals in our capital Copenhagen have another etnic background than Danish, that 80 p.c. of all convictions concerning violence made by youngster less than 18 years is given to young second- and third-generation of immigrants (in 2004 82 p.c. (in Danish:http://www.lilliput-information.comdomc.html )), that the same group occupy 70 p.c. of all the country’s special secured institutions for young criminals, that the jails, the prisons (including the new-built ones) and the centres of crises are filled to the limit with persons from the mentioned group, and the violence has increace by 57 p.c. in just the last two year in the schools could perhaps indicate that something is totally wrong or some does not match up in the information we are given…”
The foreigner share is larger in Sweden than in Denmark, so the share of rape-crimes, assumed the patern of actions are pretty much the same in two countries, definitely is larger that 40 p.c. in Sweden.

Joern
http://Danmark.Wordpress.com
http://lilliput-information.com

By: Snorri Godhi

Snorri Godhi — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 09:22:38 +0000

Finlander got it broadly right, and if anybody doubts that socialism (broadly defined) causes nationalism, I advise studying the history of the Swedish Social Democratic Party more carefully. (Or the history of Fabian socialism, for that matter.)

I’d like to add a few insights that I got from working in Denmark.
Surprise for the left #1: high employment is not the same as a strong work ethic: high employment can originate from an efficient welfare police (cutting benefit fraud), from make-work schemes, from a preference for short working hours (i.e. a low work ethic, possibly due to high marginal tax rates), etc.

Surprises for the right:
1. “Competitiveness” indexes are not to be taken seriously.
2. It’s easy to move from underclass to middle class when the difference is a few percent of income: that does not mean that people become significantly better off.
3. If the incomes at the bottom are no higher in Scandinavia than in the USA, that would rightly be seen as a failure by Scandinavians.

By: Hanna

Hanna — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:28:44 +0000

should of course be 67 (murders in Russia) times 9 (million Swedes) divided by 150 (million Russians) roughly equals 4.

So, the majority of the population in the Nordic countries support the shattered neo-nazi groups? Where did you get that figure from? Even the immigrant despising party Sverigedemokraterna hates the nazis for giving a bad name to nationalism.

Your rantings about parallells between nazism and socialism I will leave for somebody else to comment on.

By: Hanna

Hanna — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:19:32 +0000

Finlander:

I fully agree with you that racism is widespread here – good that you point that out.

But you are poorly informed about the neo-nazi situation. They are violent and murderous, but, fortunally, few.

“The neo-nazi movements are actually more widespread in Sweden than anywhere in Europe”.

More widespread than in other Nordic countries – yes.

But how about Russia as a counterexample:
http://www.russiatoday.ru/news/news/21302

67*150/9=4

Please provide us with a recent year when Amnesty International documented that 4 people or more were murdered for the colour of their skin in Sweden.

The largest rightwing extremist gathering is the yearly march in Salem, south of Stockholm, attracting 1000-2000 people (the violent clique consists of a couple of hundreds at the most) – and about as many people usually try to stop the march, which they are prevented from by riot police.

Right now, the neo-nazi movement is probably more split than ever, fighting each other more than they fight minorities and political opponents.

This is not to say that they should be ignored, but the rampant racism that you rightly mention is much more of a problem, providing non-European immigrants with higher levels of poverty and unemployment than the figures for Swedes or Nordic immigrants.

By: jensn

jensn — Sat, 31 May 2008 20:17:11 +0000

You can always live in a dream until it becomes reality:
Try: http://danmark.wordpress.com/2007/08/21/sweden-has-been-called-a-welfare-state-but-what-about-wealth/

Sonia

By: novparl

novparl — Sat, 31 May 2008 11:16:34 +0000

Nice to see Finlander/Suomilainen and a few others questioning the Sweden-dream-land view.

Out of the top 200 Swedish firms, only 2 are headed by oh-so-liberated women. This despite decades of state intervention!

By: James Rice

James Rice — Sat, 31 May 2008 09:29:40 +0000

Hadas Mandel and her co-authors have drawn some attention to what could be considered further surprises for the left – in particular, surprises that revolve around occupational gender inequalities. As we all know, female labour force participation is comparatively high in Sweden. However…

Occupational sex segregation is also comparatively high in Sweden. For example, women are more likely to be in “female-typed” occupations in Sweden than in the USA. Related to this, women are also less likely to be in managerial occupations in Sweden than in the USA. (See the LIS working papers and associated journal articles by Hadas Mandel and her co-authors.)

By: Finlander

Finlander — Wed, 28 May 2008 04:29:28 +0000

And then questions develop, like what is a ‘true Swede?’ or ‘true Finn?’ or ‘a real American?’ These questions arise from natural tendencies that manifest themselves in socialistic societies, lest anyone thinks it’s a big rainbow of multicultural acceptance. It’s really not. Instead, there are jealousies and hatreds of anyone who appears different and is thereby seen as a foil to the system.

Just think about Hilter’s Germany, and realize that Bismarck started the welfare state only a few decades prior. Coincidence?

By: Finlander

Finlander — Wed, 28 May 2008 04:17:22 +0000

I don’t mean to pick on Sweden; neo-nazis are becoming big in Finland too. I feel there is tacit support for them among the normal population. They also exist in Germany, mind you, but at least the majority population in Germany doesn’t support them like people in the Nordics seem to.

You can’t separate socialism from nationalism. They are inherently inseparable, because the former causes the latter.