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Study discovers Swedes are less well-off than the poorest Americans
Reuters via Haaretz ^ | 5/4/2002 | Reuters

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.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs
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To: Tribune7
Well I checked your links, and they seem bona fide. I really am surprised. Perhaps Sweden needs a bit more tough love, and a lot more spankings.
81 posted on 05/04/2002 5:27:27 PM PDT by Torie
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To: Neanderthal
Norwegians tend to be Republican actually. Check out the voting habits of the heavily Norwegian County of Otter Tail in Minnesota. In any event, Minnesoooota is under going a political transformation. The story is under reported, but it is nevertheless true.
82 posted on 05/04/2002 5:29:47 PM PDT by Torie
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Comment #83 Removed by Moderator

To: stands2reason
Strange blanket opinion for someone on a conservative forum, which is what this is. You don't seem very conservative to me.

We do not tolerate dissent. Shoot them both.

84 posted on 05/04/2002 5:32:09 PM PDT by Doe Eyes
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To: Torie
I really am surprised.

I was too, actually.

85 posted on 05/04/2002 5:32:43 PM PDT by Tribune7
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To: abwehr
Now overtime, taxes, health and safety rules will all make it a lot more complicated than this but the idea of having ALL the workers cut back a little to save SOME from being totally unemployed is not without merit.

Except that this isn't what happened. It was the stupid California power deregulation scheme writ large. To keep everyone employed, they mandated 35 hour work weeks so that there would be more work to be distributed, raising employment levels. Unfortunately, that reduction in the work week did not translate into matching salary reductions. So they are hemorrhaging cash just as fast, but they are employing more people in the interim. It was a scheme to prop up employment numbers, but they are losing money even faster and eventually the house of cards will collapse and no one will have a job.

86 posted on 05/04/2002 5:33:11 PM PDT by tortoise
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To: Snickersnee
On the other hand, they gave us the likes of Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Paul Wellstone....

...not to mention McGovern and Dasshole...

Hey, my forebears came on a ship from Sweden in 1636, landing in what is now Delaware. But I'm prouder to have two Indian grandmas.

87 posted on 05/04/2002 5:34:37 PM PDT by Migraine
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To: Neanderthal
South Dakota is not Swedish. It is WASP and German, with 8% Native American, an incredible percentage of the latter of which are alcoholic. It must be the weather or something. North Dakota is the most German state in the US, including a fair number of Volga Germans from well, the Volga region of Russia that Catherine the Great imported there from her favorite country.
88 posted on 05/04/2002 5:34:47 PM PDT by Torie
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To: abwehr
The US .... rewards its top people with pay levels only a Saudi prince, and a top prince at that, might enjoy.

The US does no such thing. The owners of companies voluntarily choose to pay those sums. They may do it foolishly, but its their money, and they are free to do what they want with it.

89 posted on 05/04/2002 5:34:59 PM PDT by Rodney King
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To: Arioch7
In Europe, they DEMAND that the 35 hour a week worker gets payed the SAME amount as a harder worker.

My girlfriend works for a German conglomerate in the US. She gets paid American wages (which for her, is six-figures), but gets European hours (35/week) and European vacation time (5-6 weeks a year, I believe). She has the best of both worlds, and they get bent out of shape if she doesn't take her vacation or works more than 35 hours a week; by her nature she tends to work more of an American schedule. Compared to European companies, American companies are vastly more productive, and it is pretty obvious why (I worked with major French conglomerates for a couple years and got a first hand lesson in bureaucratic inefficiency and being forced to work with only marginally useful employees that would have been axed in this country).

90 posted on 05/04/2002 5:41:41 PM PDT by tortoise
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To: Torie
Would you mind providing your qualifications for the topic?
91 posted on 05/04/2002 5:42:22 PM PDT by ItisaReligionofPeace
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To: ItisaReligionofPeace
Are you requesting my cirriculum vitae?
92 posted on 05/04/2002 5:46:16 PM PDT by Torie
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To: DallasMike
It's fine. I just repainted the garage floor. The wife and kids say hello.
93 posted on 05/04/2002 5:46:53 PM PDT by Leisler
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To: Torie
But do you have earthquakes?
94 posted on 05/04/2002 5:49:39 PM PDT by FITZ
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To: FITZ
We most cetainly do. The closest fault line however is in Newport Beach, which is about 20 miles distant. I also purchased a cut rather than a fill lot on the hill just in case.
95 posted on 05/04/2002 5:51:29 PM PDT by Torie
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To: Doe Eyes
What's your problem? Your sarcasm tricks are wearing a little thin.
96 posted on 05/04/2002 5:52:14 PM PDT by stands2reason
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To: Torie
I have no problem with crime. I have a gun, know how to use it and a fair amount of free floating anger and would welcome the diversion and relief of double tapping one of Darwins failures. : )
97 posted on 05/04/2002 5:53:18 PM PDT by Leisler
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To: Torie
What do you mean that the Laffer curve is a fraud? The Laffer curve simply state that at a 0% tax rate the government taxes in 0 taxes. Also, at 100% tax rate, the government takes in 0 taxes because nobody works (on the books, anyway).

I think we would both agree that a 1% tax rate would take in very little, as would a 99% tax rate.

Laffer simply said that somewhere between 0% and 100% is the ideal rate for raising revenue, and that there are points on the curve where you can increase revenue by lowering the rate.

We can argue all we want about where the ideal rate is, but on what basis do you state that the curve itself is a fraud?

98 posted on 05/04/2002 5:53:47 PM PDT by Rodney King
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To: Rodney King
Laffer was a professor of mine. He was then, and remained, lighter than air. The Curve was hype city. The informational content that 100% tax rates and 0% tax rates do not maximize revenue is simply not very interesting. He also was a big fan of fixed exchange rates, which was rather odd.
99 posted on 05/04/2002 5:56:10 PM PDT by Torie
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Comment #100 Removed by Moderator


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