Sweden - GDP up 5.5% (and socialism at AN ALL TIME LOW!)

http://www.scb.se ^ | 07/08/2006 | Statistics Sweden, National Accounts

[WesternCulture]

Since the recession of the early 1990's, Sweden has successfully steered away from socialist experiments, trade union hegemony over society as well as excessive government intervention in business life. Contrary to Germany, Italy and France, the scandinavian countries are no longer stern believers in the outdated "Swedish Model" of the 1950 - 1970 era. Hardly surprising to friends of capitalistic progress, swedes nowadays are used to reading news like this:

"Sweden's GDP: +5.5 per cent in second quarter 2006

Sweden's GDP rose by 5.5 per cent during the second quarter, calendar-adjusted and compared to the second quarter of 2005. Seasonally adjusted the economy rose by 1.4 per cent compared with the first quarter of 2006. Growth in the second quarter was above all marked by strong household consumption and high gross fixed capital formation. Household consumption expenditures increased by 3.2 per cent, while gross fixed capital formation was up 7.9 per cent. Exports increased by 7.1 per cent and imports by 6.5 per cent. General government consumption expenditures increased by 1.3 per cent. The change in inventories was lower compared to one year previously, and the change amounted to a negative GDP change of 0.3 percentage points. Industrial production was up 7.1 per cent and total producers of goods rose by 6.8 per cent. Service sector industries rose by 6.1 per cent. Total employment, measured as the number of hours worked, increased by 1.2 per cent.

Compared to the publication in March previous quarters have not been revised."

Source: Statistics Sweden, National Accounts (a swedish government department)

More reading (from http://www.thelocal.se ):

http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=4534&date=20060807&PHPSESSID=c7a22e0f65871eb567e99d63a397b767

[WesternCulture]

Don't let people tell you things like "Socialism works - look at Sweden!". Sweden today is (still) a country which taxes personal income and consumption heavily in order to provide her citizens with free (or low cost), state-run health care, education, child care etc. Very true. However, apart from this, free market enterprise is more or less as unrestricted as in the US. In a socialist country, the government strives to control companies through a centrally planned economy in detail, while in countries like Sweden and the US, governments quite contrary, refrain from this. During 1870-1970, no country on earth had a stronger GDP development than Sweden (Japan is a possible exception, but the statistics for Japan aren't very reliable). In the era of 1970-1995, Sweden had among the weakest GDP devlopments of of all OECD countries. Howcome? One basic reason, a lot of people would say, is this; During 1870-1970, swedish corporations and trade unions worked in concert with eachother. Productivity increased and so did prosperity. This situation was completely altered by the oil crisis of the 1970's. The levels of overall profits and productivity went down, while everyday expenses went up. Hard working swedes, used to an ever increasing standard of living, naturally, felt displeased and dissatisfied at this time. Tragically enough, given these circumstances, the powerful swedish trade unions couldn't resist the opportunity of trying to gain ground on the behalf of their counterpart, the employers. Apart from organising senseless strikes, trade union coryphaei and certain "left wing" party members also forced the Social Party (which used to be dominated by the trade unionists to a large extent) to adopt a more or less communist policy consisting in the creation of so called "employee funds" (löntagarfonder), designed to hand over the control of Sweden's large multinational corporations from their shareholders to politicians and trade union bigwigs. The full completion of the "Employee Funds" never saw the light of day. Around 1990, after 20 years of lagging behind in the GDP growth department and facing escalating unemployment numbers, a lot of swedes turned their backs on trade unionism and - in connection to the fall of communism and the expansion of the EU - embraced the thought of a united, integrated Europe without boundaries. Today, Sweden, Denmark and Finland are all members of the EU and just like Norway and Iceland, who are not, their economies are on the right track since long ago. The sad part of the story is that while Scandinavia, Great Britain, Ireland and most eastern european countries have orientated themselves towards budget discipline, hard work and investment friendly policies, large countries like Germany, France and Italy have fallen prey to the delusory ideological concept of "working less and consuming more". In contrast to the case of Sweden in the years of 1970-1990 this time it's not mainly trade unionist that are promoting this idea in these "leading" EU-countries, but sooner opportunistic politicians and different left wing think tanks. I'd like to think Chancellor Frau Merkel's Germany presently is guiding the western part of the european continent out of the dark, but it's way too early. At least she's been talking of the PRESENT Scandinavia as an ideal in the field of modern economics. Not Scandinavia of the 1970's.

[dynachrome]

I believe that Sweden is effectively "dhimmi". Malmo is run by the islam-o-fascists.

[WesternCulture]

To dynachrome:

Some parts of Malmö are dominated by immigrants, yes, however only Rosengård is completely dominated by muslims specifically.
Rosengård has 23 000 inhabitants, Malmö, including suburbs has something like 600 000 inhabitants.
Any way you look at it the muslims are (comparatively) strong in Malmö.

Hope this link works this time round (about the original issue);

http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=4534&date=20060807&PHPSESSID=c7a22e0f65871eb567e99d63a397b767

[samm1148]

"In a socialist country, the government strives to control companies through a centrally planned economy in detail, while in countries like Sweden and the US, governments quite contrary, refrain from this."

My a**! Environmental controls over oil companies, bailouts for pension plans, and defense contracts handed out to the biggest smoozer versus who can make the better product.

Maybe the author's assertion was true in 1960. It is true no longer: Like it or not the socialists have won.

[WesternCulture]

I get your point - and I agree governments all over the world are excercising and are seeking to excercise control over private companies, however I wrote "in detail".
You can't compare efforts to counteract enviromental harm etc to the long term plans of the Soviet Union.

I guess you could say both Sweden and the US today are examples of "mixed economies", while many would say the US is more of a capitalist, free market economy than the scandinavian countries.

The kind of socialism described above (Sweden in the 1970's-early 1990's) I'm convinced will never become reality in the US and I hope the people of Italy, Germany and France will by and by understand its faults.
Without hard work and increasing productivity - no (sustainable) increases in consumption.

[CaliGirlGodHelpMe]

What is "dhimmi"?

I read that in Malmo the police no longer go into certain areas because the islamic gangs will kill them if they so much as show their faces. This means that they effectively control entire areas of the city, which used to be so beautiful.

[FreeRep]

Socialism is simply Communism, it has a record and philosophy of failure.

[Sam Cree]

Another apropos thread. Funny how they're suddenly coming up.

[PVT4evr]

A Dhimmi is....to my knowledge a Kuffar (Non-believer) who lives under Islamic rule, I believe it refers to Christians and Jews in particular.

[Socratic]

Socialism is simply Communism, it has a record and philosophy of failure.

Exactly. A Socialist is merely a polite Communist. The Socialist is gracious to merely use coercion rather than outright murder to achieve his goals. Both seek to enslave.

[ClaireSolt]

What explains the fact that GDP/cap in US is a;lmost double that of most European countries?

[nonliberal]

Great post. I hadn't realized my ancestral homeland had begun to right the ship.

[samm1148]

I'm sorry if you don't believe this is a socialist country then there is nothing I can do to change your mind. The GDP, a measure of a market basket of products is bigger because of the sheer volume of economic activity.

The Roman Empire was also a powerhouse--just before its fall.

[ClaireSolt]

Your post makes no sense and does not answer my question.

[zarf]

If Sweden's economy ran on "Jew hatred" they'd have the leading GNP in the world.

[WesternCulture]

It's unfair to call Sweden a jew-hating country.
To begin with, heard of the White Buses, Folke Bernadotte, Raul Wallenberg or The Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Buses

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raul_Wallenberg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folke_Bernadotte

http://www.holocaustforum.gov.se/conference/official_documents/invitation/

Furthermore it should be noticed that these projects and these persons enjoyed and still enjoy a very wide support among swedish citizens.
Raul Wallenberg and Folke Bernadotte are considered as heroes in Scandinavia.
In school children are taught about the insane propaganda and achievements of antisemitism.

In the past (around 1970-1990) Sweden used to acknowledge and even support the PLO to a great extent, however this was't because of jew-hatred. You could say it was more of a stupid leftist inclination of supporting any kind of alleged "oppressed" ethnic group around the globe, combined with a vivid desire of exporting goods to Arab countries, but don't call it jew-hatred.

Concerning foreign policy, Sweden today has a different attitude towards Israel. The present government, whatever you think of it, has expressed much more support of Israel than the social democratic governments of the 1970's and 1980's.
Sweden, among other EU countries donate money to the Palestine Authority, because it believes this will prevent terrorist networks like Hamas of getting more influence. Call it a policy of unsuspecting appeasment if you wish, but don't call it jew-hatred.

In several polls, swedes have shown to be among the LEAST jew hating countries in Europe.

[mjolnir]

Great, informative article and post!

Have you read P.J. O'Rourke's book "Eat the Rich"? He described Sweden as "good socialism" meaning he thought at the time it "worked" as a country better than other socialist nations because it had a strong rule of law and trust factor.

Of course Sweden compared to Europe in general to its credit has had much less of a problem with anti-semitism. However, I think it would have been difficult to maintain support of anti-Israel groups and nations such as the PLO without anti semitism gaining a larger foothold, which I think has happened to the Left in the United States.

So it's good to hear that Sweden's current government is changing its policy with regard to the Middle East to some degree. In what way is this being done? Is this in part a reaction against phenomena like the hateful "Radio Islam"?

When Americans see Swedes, we, or to be little more accurate and less presumptuous, I, see insufferable European "elites" parading their arrogant ignorance, whether its diplomats like Hans Blix or the Nobel committee awarding the Peace Prize to some UN ignoramuses, third world thugs or backstabbing, self-serving left wing American jackass (where's a swamp rabbit when you need one?). That no doubt has induced a skewed picture of Sweden--- after all, part of the reason European elites are elites in a negative sense is that they DON'T represent their people, they represent a bureaucratic consensus that DESPISES their people. Still, to the extent that the people of Sweden look at pacifism and neutrality as part of their tradition, it's hard to see it can avoid being anti-American, anti-Israel and anti-any other nation that disavows neutrality and/or pacifism. For instance, as I understand it, the media in Sweden is uniformly anti-Amerian and anti-Israel. Is that impression mistaken?

I grew up getting the usual left wing brain washing about the "Swedish miracle" of socialism in high school. I appreciate your knowledge about these things-- thanks for sharing it!

[WesternCulture]

Hello!

I'll reply later today to what you've wrote, but now I gotta rush!

[dynachrome]

"The Dhimmi is the Arabic term that refers to its non-Islamic embracing population that has the ignominious dishonor of living in Islamic conquered lands. In a similar manner to the Jewish reference to a non-Jew as being a goy, so too the term dhimmi refers to non-Muslims. However unlike the Jewish term, goy, and much more important, the dhimmi is a distinctly subjugated second class non-citizen almost slave who is subjected to dictatorial deprivation of any legal and human rights since he is a non-Muslim permanent resident in a Muslim state."
http://www.jewishmag.com/57mag/dhimmi/dhimmi.htm

[zarf]

My personal experience was not reassuring. I found a simmering anti-semitism in almost every discussion of politics, especially in Goteborg.