[l33t]

Socialism never worked.

[Lockbox]

Does Sweden still have its regressive tax system?

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Liberals love to claim that socialism is great and that the USSR failed because they didn't go about it right. They hold up socialist countries in Europe, like Sweden and France, as examples. There's just one problem. These European models of socialism keep crashing and burning.

[Moonman62]

I wonder if Brokaw, Rather, and Jennings will cover this story.

[FITZ]

It seems we have an awful lot of Socialism. I find it hard to believe there is really more in other places---I don't think our economy can tolerate much more.

[riri]

All part of the big European facade. The place is not the high cultured land of sophistication and opulense that we have been lead to believe. I found it rainy,depressing and basically lacking in most everything-except old beautiful buildings.

[wimpycat]

Alabama or Sweden?

[Torie]

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

[airedale]

They also have a major population bomb that's getting much closer to exploding and taking their entire system down with them. They already are taxed at close to 90% of their income and a Swede in the top 5% has $5,000 US in the bank and owns their home. The population is growing at less than replacement something like 1.25 to 1.5 per couple and continuing to drop. They have a fairly large population bubble of baby boomers that's just approaching the age that they will be leaving the work force. Since the populations behind them to support them in their old age is much smaller it would require a larger chunch of tax $$ to support them. When you are being taxed at 95% already it doesn't leave room for a tax increase. The only alternative is to cut services or perhaps get the old people to die off more quickly so they aren't a burden on society. If they take in a lot of immigrants to support their older people they loose their culture as the real Swedes become a smaller and smaller minority in their own country over time. No matter which way they go it's a no win situation.

[Nogbad]

Sweden got rich during WWII
by staying neutral
and selling to both sides.

They remained rich for a while
after the war,
and told the world
their wealth was the result
of their social system.

Many fools believed them
and political 'scientists' went there
to learn about their system.

[Drango]

How are they compared to the French?

[Snickersnee]

When Sweden adopted Socialism at the end of the XIX Century, 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 -- and they exported them to North America en masse. I think it amounted to almost ten percent of the whole kingdom emigrating over a few years' time. As we know, these went largely to the Upper Midwest, where they were wildly successful. That's what happens when you have liberty.

On the other hand, they gave us the likes of Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Paul Wellstone....

[Charles Henrickson]

I'll be in Sweden for a couple weeks in August, so thanks for this heads-up on something to look for.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

I wonder what the crime rate is like in Sweden?...it must be very high because our leftists tell us that poverty = high crime.

[Kermit]

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.

Let me tell you, this study is really going to rankle the Swedes. One big reason, Europeans feel (not think) they are morally superior to us, is how they look down at how "we" treat Blacks in America. The Euros imagine them pounded down into poverty by greedy white capitalists. To have Black Americans wealthier than the Swedes is going to bug them, if the word gets out.

This study could help turn around the situation in the home of Social Democracy.

[A. Pole]

Socialism never worked.

Maybe yes, maybe not. But the decline started after free-market reforms in the 1980's same was as in Soviet block in the 1990's. The prosperity in Sweden coincided with the social-democratic rule.

[Tribune7]

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.

Ha HA

If Sweden were a U.S. state, it would be the poorest, measured by household gross income before taxes, Bergstrom and Gidehag said.

Ha HA

If the trend persists, "things that are commonplace in the United States will be regarded as the utmost luxury in Sweden," the authors said.

So much for the socialist, Godless, pro-abort, open marriage paradigm.

[Clara Lou]

That word economically-deprived is what rankles.
I went to an induction ceremony for the National Junior Honor Society Thursday. Out of 72 students with an average of 92 or higher, only one was black. We had numerous Hispanic students and many white in the group. Just an observation.

[jackbill]

They said they had chosen that measure for their comparison to get around the differences in taxation and welfare structures.

I suspect that the study would have shown an even greater disparity if they had included taxes and the Earned Income Credit!!!

[Enemy Of The State]

I suppose they are going to want some of our money next?

[Polybius]

My liberal wife was thrilled after I told her I had just arranged to hire a secretary from a country mired in poverty.

My wife is wondering what she'll look like and I'm wondering if she speaks English.