Study discovers Swedes are less well-off than the poorest Americans

Reuters via Haaretz ^ | 5/4/2002 | Reuters

[Torie]

You do know how to hurt a guy. Institutional investors "invest" in what is going on, and have a lot of shares to vote. Calpers and Vanguard and now very active in this endeavor, and control between them a huge amount of money. Others I am sure are also involved.

[grasshopper2]

My brother is the expert on the Wagner leitmotifs. He flies around the country to savor them, and to Germany. I just listen to Wagner and to him (mon frere (freir (?), no that doesn't look right either). My other brother flies around the planet looking at birds, for which he is paid handsomely (sp). He is a world recognized expert. I am the most mainstream of the 3. I don't fly much of anywhere. I just post neocon stuff here

Hmmmm... If I were single, which of the three frères would I choose? The passionate music lover? The jet-setting naturalist? The intellectual accountant? ...Oh, I’d just take them all.

[eraser X]

"This describes the biggest economic cost of welfarism. It's not the high taxes, it's not the cost of regulation, it's not the idiotic governmental malinvestment. The biggest cost is the loss of economic growth."

Kermit, you're absolutely right. The opportunity cost is economic growth. And that's from all of that you list. This was the point that Senator Byrd missed when he had his heated exchange with Sec. O'Neal over the picture of Gulliver tied down by the Lilliputians in the budget document--a point that all on the left miss.

[Torie]

:) I don't think I ever read a post directed to me that gave me more pleasure. The interesting thing about my brothers and I, is though we disagree on much, we are each other's best friends.

[FITZ]

Okay --instead I'll use a Muslim country's fertility rate --but I think Mexico's is one of the highest in the world. Muslim countries don't tend to have high standard of livings and they don't seem to have good retirement plans for their elderly ---the US still has one of the best but I don't think it's about birth rate one way or the other, it's on how much people save for their retirement and how efficiently people work.

[Torie]

Mexico's is about 2.4 heading rapidly towards 2.0. It is dropping like a rock. You really need to keep up to date in Kansas City, or is it El Paso?

[Torie]

You might also look up the fertility rate in the Muslim countries of Indonesia (which hosts the most of any single country) and Tunisia.

[SteamshipTime]

They have been through the wringer a few more times than we

Always entirely of their own choosing. They keep doggedly oscillating between fascism and socialism and, when their governments run out of money to print and debt to issue, they start a war.

and if they want to structure their society differently than ours I see no reason for the hostility and acrimony some have expressed.

Fine with me, but let them foot their own bill. Europe dabbles with utopia and provides day spas and summer vacations for marginally-skilled laborers and counts on the U.S. to cover for their defense. Now that the money's run out, they're having to import a tax base, only to find, surprise surprise, the North Africans, Occidentals, and Slavs have no intention of being their pack mules.

Europe has been busily making its social democrat/communist bed for the past two centuries. They are welcome to sleep in it.

[Torie]

I think it is based on females actually. :) In any event, it is based on females living in Mexico. I am not sure quite how the rate is calculated. I assume it has something to do with the pregnancy rate to term of those that are able. If so, fertile females decamping would not affect the rate.

[PaulKersey]

>The Swedes also have longer holidays. It some ways, a study like this is apples and oranges.

That just means you don't like the result.

>Actually, the Swedish economy is pretty efficient.

Actually it is not.

> The economy is not really socialist, it is redistributionist. It is a complex topic, and complex economic subjects are ill suited to this forum.

That means you are in way over your head. Try and prove this and you will find how far down the intellectual food chain you really are here in FR.

[Torie]

Oh why don't you just go for it without the bridge work? As juicey a target as I you could presumably take out while brushing your teeth at the same time.

[PaulKersey]

>I don't know how it is in Sweeden, but if crime is anything like in Norway, I'd be willing to trade a host of U.S. luxury gadgets just to be able to walk the streets and raise a family in safety.

I was in town in Oregon today and stopped by a convenience store. Not only were the pickup trucks out front not locked, but some were left running unattended with their heaters on while the drivers went inside. They would do that in Scandinavia too, but they can't afford pickup trucks.

Of course they also sold ammo in the stores, so a thief would not get far. And everybody knows it.

[PaulKersey]

>It is interesting to note the ignorant opinions on this thread.

Kiss my a$$!

>My American friends whom I see quite frequently are intensley jealous of the holidays they all seem to have in Europe. One from Kansas remarked the other day that he had to work 20 plus years to get the amount of holidays everybody gets here. It was a shock to him!

Tell your your lazy friends to get a REAL job.

>Actually the quality of life in a country increases with the less a person is expected to work.

Yes, our welfare parasites probably make more money than you do on your govt job.

>Sad but true! And it ain't got nothing to do with any ...ism's.

Yes it does. It has to do with CAPITALISM and ENTREPRENEURISM, or the lack thereof. I retired at 50 and have had every day off since. (Thank You Ronald Reagan.) And I don't live on government checks either, thank you very much.

[PaulKersey]

>The murder rate bit I doubt is correct.

Nothing you don't like can be correct, can it?

[PaulKersey]

>Mondale, Wellstone

I think both Humphrey and Mondale are Norwegians. Wellstone is Jewish.(?)

[Intolerant in NJ]

they canvassed the population to see who was most likely to be a drag on the system -- the shiftless, the mentally slow, the big families --...seems to me I recall a story a year or so ago about a scandal brewing in Sweden over the fact that the government had engaged in a program of sterilization of the "mentally slow" - intellectually deficient - so that they would not have to spend as much money on care and supervision of future generations of impaired individuals...seems they had to resort to some pretty sordid practices to maintain their smug "progressive" facade.....

[PaulKersey]

>In any event, Minnesoooota is under going a political transformation

If so, a VERY slow one. The myth that Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa are Republican states has persisted for decades, but a look at the States that went Democrat in the last number of elections tells all. (Minneapolis area is just like the Seattle area. So large and nutso they carry the entire states.)