First of all, Swedish conservatives and leftie-scum alike have been laughing their butts off over this study. Torie mentioned that, in some ways, it was an apples and oranges study. And so it is, unfortunately. We conservatives - a truely rare breed in Sweden - would however love to use figures like these for arguments. If they had done a study of price-adjusted disposable income (after tax, insurance, etc), the figures could at least have been interesting.
Someone mentioned productivity. It is true that Americans have a higher productivity per capita, and it's also true that Swedes have a higher productivity per capita per working hour. That's not because we want to get poorer (as this study would suggest ;), but because of a chosen trade-off made possible by a good standard of living. I have to admit that in this issue I'm, too, very Swedish. As long as I can afford my cars, computers and other need-to-have-junk, I'm happily trading off extra income for free time.
Crime rates have been discussed on this thread, and some very strange figures have been floating around. Tapping official statistics (from the FBI, and BRÅ [Swedish authority responsible for collecting crime stats]) I've found these numbers for the USA and Sweden (2000):
If someone wants to know about Sweden, I might just be the one to ask. Judgning by some posts on this thread, there seems to be a lot of blanks anyway.
/ a FR donating, royalist, atheist, conservative Swede.
What is it about some Scandinavians that they must "share" their atheisim with strangers? It's like queers who must "share" their affliction with the world. Who cares? Do you want special handicapped status?