Hmmm, interesting. I have a friend in Sweden, IIRC, he told me his mom likes to drive a Benz and his father, a Volvo. There are actually American car enthusiasts in Sweden as well. They seem to enjoy a quite high standard of living in Sweden, IIRC, over the years, they have realized that they have become too socialist although they still have some weird laws an high taxes. I Google Earthed a house in Sweden, I did see a central A/C unit, come to think if it, if I didn’t know it was Sweden I would have thought it was in West Virgina.
My wife’s old 95 Buick Roadmaster gets 26 MPG on the Highway, about the same as todays 6 cylinder Buick’s, and they call it a gas guzzler. It has 172,000 miles on it, and it runs like a top.. My car is a 2005 Toyota Camry that gets 32 on the highway and 26 around home.
Not all Americans have gas guzzlers and some keep them because they cannot afford anything new. That’s me. I bought the Camry second hand 5 years ago.
Yes, Sweden of today is pretty rich and we could afford hobbies like restoring old American cars to mint condition.
The major reason behind this is the fact Sweden has had a major rethink and shifted its national policy from a Socialism to Capitalism mindset.
From 1870-1970, Sweden was the most successful country on Earth in terms of annual GDP growth. During 1970-1990 it was the least successful of all industrialized nations.
Today, we could compete with China and India in these domains.
Income taxes are still very high in Sweden and so are the taxes on consumption.
But the good news is that corporate taxes are very low over here. The business life in Sweden indeed looks very healthy.