And having this helps a LOT towards assuaging high personal taxes:
Posted on 06/06/2009 2:00:08 PM PDT by WesternCulture
Population: 9.2 million
Citizens among the 20 richest persons on Earth: 2
We Swedes might be awfully PC as well as awfully overtaxed, but at least we know something about running companies..
The secret behind our success: we tax private income and consumption, not our companies and we don't believe in having huge national deficits.
The article:
"The family which owns clothing giant Hennes & Mauritz is now on a par with the Swedish state as the largest shareholder on the Stockholm stock exchange.
Shares in H&M have shot up 20 percent since the start of the year, giving the value of holdings owned by Stefan Persson and his children a major boost and bringing the company’s stock market value up to 306 billion kronor ($40 billion).
As a result, the value of the family’s share of the discount clothier has shot up to 112.8 billion kronor, based on the June 2nd closing price of 370 kronor per share, according to the financial news website E24.
When factoring in Persson’s holdings in other listed companies and the family foundation, E24 estimates the family’s total stock portfolio reached a value of 114.3 billion kronor earlier this week.
The latest price rise was enough to put the family ahead of the Swedish state as the largest shareholder on the Stockholm stock exchange.
The Swedish state, on the other hand, which has ownership stakes in the Nordea bank, telecom provider TeliaSonera, and the airline SAS, had a stock portfolio worth only 114.2 billion kronor on June 2nd, according to E24’s figures, taken from SIS Ownership Data Corp.
With the current value of its portfolio, the Persson family could purchase any company on the Stockholm stock exchange except for three: H&M, Nordea, and TeliaSonera.
Behind the Persson family and the Swedish state, the third largest owner on the Stockholm exchange is investment fund Swedbank Robur, which has shares worth 94.3 billion kronor."
Truly sad that the State was the largest (and is now the second largest) owner of stock in Sweden! Says a lot about where we’re heading... The Obamassiah wants to be the biggest stockholder on Wall Street.
I’m not preaching Socialism, but Sweden is definitely a better run country than most other ones on this planet.
Sweden has high taxes, yes. I won’t deny this.
(But perhaps we Swedes are rich enough to afford them?)
In Sweden of today, there is an enormous support for entrepreneurship and Capitalism and very few people here in my country would claim our high standard of living basically is thanks to our superior fiscal system.
I think it’s intelligent to tax consumption heavily, like we do, instead of taxing companies to death.
IMO, two “leading” nations here on Earth that ought to question their policies on corporate taxation are Germany and the US.
- Couldn't agree more.
Fortunately, the present government of Sweden is trying to sell off most of the companies it owns.
For instance, V&S (with brands like Absolut) has already been sold.
At the moment, GM owned SAAB Automobile is in a severe crises and the Swedish government could easily purchase it from GM if it wanted to, still they, as well as the vast majority of Swedes, don't wish to see such a solution.
I admit Sweden of today makes a lot of mistakes, but I somehow feel we perform quite well in the department of international trade and global Capitalism.
Just curious...do you have millions of illegal aliens to support? How about crooked polititions on a masive scale? Does your head of state fly around the world giving away $ billions and bowing and apologizing to even the Chichlets seller on the street?
Well, there's a clue. I wouldn't mind being more heavily taxed if no companies were taxed -- everything would be cheaper. Plus companies would lose the extremely expensive overhead of tax compliance, which I'm paying for.
The Fair Tax would accomplish much of that here.
Sweden has high taxes, yes. I won’t deny this.
(But perhaps we Swedes are rich enough to afford them?)
Socialism does best in nations that are made up of one ethnic group. This describes Sweden much better than the USA.
How good are your banks these days?
Canada is quite the intrusive socialist nanny state compared to America but has zero bank problems which is pretty darn good these days
In general Europeans pay 10% more taxes than USA to cover your nationalized health care. So slice 10% off your tax bill to get a better idea of how you compare to the USA taxes
“Just curious...do you have millions of illegal aliens to support? How about crooked polititions on a masive scale? Does your head of state fly around the world giving away $ billions and bowing and apologizing to even the Chichlets seller on the street?”
- Good thing you’re being curious.
Too many people swallow what the media feed them right off and do not seek information about reality on their own.
Yes, Sweden has plenty of illegal as well as legal aliens to support (not wishing to say I feel proud over this).
Sweden gives away a larger share of its total GDP than the US does.
Furthermore, we are not a NATO member. We pay for our own defense and have developed jet fighters, stealth subs and stealth warships of our own.
But this is not the point of my above rant.
In Sweden, there is a widespread insight, even among ordinary people, that if our multinationals do not manage to compete on a global level, we are doomed as a nation.
All of us Westerners ought to ask ourselves where our superiority comes from. Our ideals and our traditions are two major explanations, but we also need to focus on things like what we do right here, right now.
Sweden is more of a model of Lutheran work ethics than a model of Socialism and taxation and this is worthy of attention, so again thank you.
Thanks for being with us. I love you guys.
- They've lost a lot of money recently but none of them will need the kind of aid they we're given in the early 1990’s.
“In general Europeans pay 10% more taxes than USA to cover your nationalized health care. So slice 10% off your tax bill to get a better idea of how you compare to the USA taxes”
- US families are taxed extremely hard in relation to their expenses for certain basic services they have to finance on their own; child care, education, health care etc (yes, I'm well aware some employers offer free child care and so on for their staff).
An average Swedish family probably enjoys a material standard of living unparalleled on this planet very much thanks to the productivity of our multinationals and how much of these services Swedish families get for free or at very low cost.
On the other hand, IMO Sweden must, in one way or another, lower taxes for young people (even more than we have done recently) in order to make these young people feel they can afford to start a family.
“Thanks for being with us. I love you guys.”
- Skål/Cheers!
- It's easier for politicians to tax companies heavily than exposing their electorate to such burdens.
Sweden has made a lot of mistakes throughout the past, but I think most people who know anything about international business life would agree Sweden to be a very successful country in this area.
Sweden has recently lowered income taxes but is still doing pretty well during this era of global economic recession and slowdown in international trade (despite being a nation highly dependent on exports).
P.J. O'Rourke surmised that if Swedish culture didn't have historically ingrained cultural concept of "get off your butt or you'll freeze to death" the system wouldn't work. If you gave such generous things to the masses here, half the population would sit on their butts on the government dime for the rest of their lives.
Look at what our socialist experiments have given us. We created the modern inner-city ghettos through welfare. We encourage single-mom welfare queens to pump out as many babies as possible to get bigger and bigger government checks. And they do it, never to work their entire lives. Our socialism has created an entire class of leeches on the rest of the society.
Somehow the Swedish work ethic keeps this from happening on a large scale.
Now...you're talking!
I hope you did not think I was being rude in my last post...
Many of us Americans that fund outrageous government benefits for illegals are so very frustrated....
We do not oppose legal immigration..we loath illegal immigration and all it's excuses...and costs including the violence.
- Absolutely not, but in any case there's nothing wrong with being rude, or let's say somewhat “challenging”, as long as there's a little bit of sincere spirit and IQ behind it all.
“Many of us Americans that fund outrageous government benefits for illegals are so very frustrated....”
- You have my sympathy.
Here in Europe the situation is very much the same.
I think we Westerners ought to help people who suffer from civil wars, starvation etc in the Third World, but I don't think welcoming them here is a good solution to their or anybody else’s problems.
In what way is it an act of racism to claim that we Westerners, primarily, should seek to aid Third World inhabitants on their home soil?
It is not.....
Being a Christian, I have a responsibility to serve the needy...not the lazy...and I prefer to assist them where they live.......but not at the expense of neglecting my own family and countrymen.
“P.J. O’Rourke surmised that if Swedish culture didn’t have historically ingrained cultural concept of “get off your butt or you’ll freeze to death” the system wouldn’t work. If you gave such generous things to the masses here, half the population would sit on their butts on the government dime for the rest of their lives.”
- In one way, I’d say this is true. But Sweden isn’t rich because of the Nordic climate.
Lazy, unemployed people live rather well in my country, but still there’s a vast difference between the income levels as well as the material standard of living of a typical couple of such lazy (deliberately) unemployed people and a typical Swedish man and woman who work hard and wish to do something with their life.
Like you can see for yourself using the link below, Sweden consists both of the nice houses and the abundance of decent Volvos, SAABs, BMW, Audis etc as well as the 20 year old wrecks and the sad areas where people live in rather sad apartment blocks (and pay ridiculous rents). OK, places like Paris, London, LA and NYC boast much worse areas, but everyone in Sweden definitely isn’t well off..
“Being a Christian, I have a responsibility to serve the needy...not the lazy...and I prefer to assist them where they live.......but not at the expense of neglecting my own family and countrymen.”
- Couldn’t agree more.
And having this helps a LOT towards assuaging high personal taxes:
Over here, we can’t get Old Milwaukee.
But, actually, there’s Miller in my fridge!
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