If Sweden were a US State, it would be the poorest state in the union

Reuters Market News Swedes less well off than poorest Americans -study

STOCKHOLM, May 4 (Reuters) - 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 on Saturday.

The study by a retail trade lobby, published in the liberal Dagens Nyheter newspaper 19 weeks before the next general election, echoed the centre-right opposition's criticism of the weak state of Sweden's economy after 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.

AMERICANS CAN BUY MORE

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 meant 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 six 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, in 1998-99 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 which 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 centre-right opposition in the run-up to the September 15 elections.

I won't object to you telling other people about their rusty Swedish

And I won't object to being called on the carpet for agreeing with someone; I didn't tell 1234 that his/her Swedish is rusty. 1234 said it of him/herself, and I merely agreed! ;-}

I am not fluent in Swedish, and never claimed to be. The little Swedish that I do know was taught to me long ago by my Swedish grandfather, and most of it is lost in the haze of the medications I have to take, not to mention being hampered by the condition itself, as it affects memory. But yes, you're correct; I have repeatedly misspelled "mycket," and I never caught myself.

As for the accents-- while I would love to use the proper letters, I simply do not have the luxury of making repeated extra keystrokes. (The only computer keyboard I have access to is the one on my lap -- in the bed.) On the other hand, I don't like not using the accents. I have the same problem whenever I write "en francais" -- "Look Ma, no cedille!" (See?!)

My memory is going downhill very quickly, and I'm fighting to hold on to it, while also fighting to hold on to the mobility that I still have left. My condition decided to take off on a downhill slide and leave me in the dust, and there isn't a thing I can do about it. If all goes well, I should be returning to NC for a second brain surgery this fall. While it won't undo all the damage that has already been done, it will stop the progression. We hope. The first one was supposed to do that, but thanks to my impatience, I ended up whacking my head and undoing all the good that the first surgery had done. Brain surgery is not something you want to play around with; having to keep going back for MRIs, Tilt Table Tests, and more surgeries is simply not worth getting out of the bed a week or two earlier than the doctor ordered.

At any rate -- you are correct; when I misspell a word, I'm darned consistent about it! I knew better, but once the wrong spelling entered my brain, it refused to budge. I appreciate your pointing it out to me.

Tack så mycket,
Sharon Persson/Johnson Mason Palmer

Thank you, bourbon; I truly appreciate that! Actually, it's not an "illness," per se, but a congenital brain malformation, and all the perks that come with it. It's called Arnold-Chiari malformation, and I have (significant) spina bifida occulta and scoliosis that we're sure are related to the ACM. (Oh; they are considering my TMJ dysfunction as a related phenomenon, but it's a hard sell.)

Other maladies may have a connection, but none of those connections can be proven. It's a wonderful part of the mad, mad, mad, mad "auto-immune disorder" world that I live in! *VBG* Right now, I'm dealing with the aftermath of having all of what was left of my teeth surgically removed. (I'm only 39!) My dentist, oral surgeon, and neurosurgeon all agree that the enamel wearing away from all of my teeth at the same time was a function of a certain aspect of the ACM. The insurance companies are duking it out, though, because no one wants to pay the bills! I am grateful that I have dentures to learn to get used to -- but darned if they aren't a pain in the wazoo at the moment! Eventually, I hope to get a mouth full of implants, but we'll have to wait and see. . . .

The world is full of all kinds of "icky stuff." This bundle of stuff just happens to be mine. I have faith that everything will work out for the best -- or at least, in the best way possible.

Thanks to a television show that aired last night (and has its own thread), I've got myself a new theme song for my life. You can find the lyrics, and the rest of the thread right here!

Everyone's lives are in their own hands. Whether their hands are busy and full, or idle and empty -- that is a product of individual choice. As for me, I prefer to keep busy. And I Won't Back Down!

Thank you, bourbon. May peace live in your heart, as we fight for peace and its right-to-life in the rest of the world. I appreciate you!

do you agree with the data cited in this story? do you think it is an accurate representation of Swedish economic problems or does it overstate the case?

The data might very will be accurate. Actually I would be surprised if it wasn't. However, the interpretation is laughed at here in Sweden, from left to right. The problem is that the economists writing this paper have compared apples and oranges. The data might be useful to compare the two societies, but only from a structual point of view - i.e showing how the concept of wealth differs. The authors pulled the brakes half-way through what could have been an interesting paper, and produced something that made good headlines but not much else.

We concervatives would have loved this paper if it actually had been representative and accurate (the interpretation), but only a day after being published - when people started to read more than the headlines - it was thrown out. That said there are problems, some related to the data in this paper, that needs fixing.

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