Posted on 05/04/2002 3:41:42 PM PDT by l33t
STOCKHOLM - Swedes, usually perceived in Europe as a comfortable, middle class lot, are poorer than African Americans, the most economically-deprived group in the United States, a Swedish study showed yesterday.
The study by a retail trade lobby, published in the liberal Dagens Nyheter newspaper 19 weeks before the next general election, echoed the center-right opposition's criticism of the weak state of Sweden's economy, following decades of almost uninterrupted Social Democratic rule.
The Swedish Research Institute of Trade (HUI) said it had compared official U.S. and Swedish statistics on household income, as well as gross domestic product, private consumption and retail spending per capita between 1980 and 1999.
Using fixed prices and purchasing power parity adjusted data, the median household income in Sweden at the end of the 1990s was the equivalent of $26,800, compared with a median of $39,400 for U.S. households, HUI's study showed.
"Weak growth means that Sweden has lost greatly in prosperity compared with the United States," HUI's president, Fredrik Bergstrom, and chief economist, Robert Gidehag, said.
International Monetary Fund data from 2001 show that U.S. GDP per capita in dollar terms was 56 percent higher than in Sweden, while in 1980, Swedish GDP per capita was 20 percent higher.
"Black people, who have the lowest income in the United States, now have a higher standard of living than an ordinary Swedish household," the HUI economists said.
If Sweden were a U.S. state, it would be the poorest, measured by household gross income before taxes, Bergstrom and Gidehag said.
They said they had chosen that measure for their comparison to get around the differences in taxation and welfare structures. Capital gains such as income from securities were not included.
The median income of African American households was about 70 percent of the median for all U.S. households, while Swedish households earned 68 percent of the overall U.S. median level.
This means that Swedes stood "below groups, which, in the Swedish debate, are usually regarded as poor and losers in the American economy," Bergstrom and Gidehag said.
Between 1980 and 1999, the gross income of Sweden's poorest households increased by just over 6 percent, while the poorest in the United States enjoyed a three times higher increase, HUI said.
If the trend persists, "things that are commonplace in the United States will be regarded as the utmost luxury in Sweden," the authors said. "We are not quite there yet, but the trend is clear."
According to HUI figures, during the period 1998-1999, U.S. GDP per capita was 40 percent higher than in Sweden, while U.S. private consumption and retail sales per capita exceeded Swedish levels by more than 80 percent.
The HUI economists attributed the much bigger difference in consumption and sales mainly to the fact that U.S. households pay themselves for education and health care, services that are tax-financed and come for free or at low user charges in Sweden.
According to recent opinion polls Sweden's Social Democrats are comfortably ahead of the center-right opposition in the run-up to the September 15 elections.
probably much colder, too
Your sanctimonious tone fooled me.
Having said that, I agree with you about agency problems and the porous nature of many "Chinese Walls." Elliot Spitzer is a grandstanding putz, but some of the stuff that he's uncovered with respect to analysts and invenstment bankers looks and smells pretty bad.
Amen. Sweden sucks. What a bunch of losers!
The marketing department in a well-run firm employs at least one individual (and perhaps several) whose entire life is consumed by 'product management.'
Excel or no, they utilize all that cute math to develop products which maximize income. This involves a variety of methods, including line extensions, promotions, line enhancements, and (in combination with manufacturing and design types) part-commonality economies.
Excel is great for a one-man band, but gets a bit stretched in a $350MM+ concern.
Not really Torie. The Swedes have longer holidays therefore they will live longer. Under normal circumstances that would be an ideal situation, however, there are some serious demographics problems coming their way. They have fewer and fewer people who are paying taxes. They are allowing immigration to get out of hand and many of these people are draining the system rather than contribute to it. What good is it if you live longer, the state runs out of money and can't pay your pension and healthcare during the period of your life when you need it most?
It seems to me there are some VERY serious problems ahead for the Swedes, and especially those Swedes who were planning on retiring sometime before they die.
Yes, they do own them.
At this point the line between economics and political philosophy gets blurry. Does one find oneself claiming that a tax cut will raise money for the government as per Laffer, while secretly hoping that it dries up the teat on our regulators?
I think I'd put myself in the category of advocating a tax cut with a sincere expectation that it will actually raise money, yet not really caring. We have a lot of unnecessary government.
And arguing for a break for capital gains over other income is even more dubious
I've always understood the argument for a capital gains cut to be more along the lines of it being an effective economic stimulous -- since it would presumably free up capital -- rather than a direct revenue raiser. So, if we are talking about raising revenue, I agree that a capital gains cut would not be as effective as cutting the top brackets and shutting shelters.
So, in other words, you believe in the Laffer curve. You just disagree over its exact shape. Earlier you said it was a fraud, and poo pooed it as having first been drawn on a napkin. If you went straight to the point, and did not try to impress upon us your snottiness, this forum would use internet bandwidth much more efficiently.
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