Sweden's Cocoon

[HagiaSophia]

CBN.com – STOCKHOLM, Sweden – The good times just keep rolling along in Sweden’s social-democratic paradise. Welcome to a veritable welfare wonderland, where everyone is taken care of from the cradle to grave; where alcoholics can retire on government pensions; where the average worker calls in sick one day a week, even if he or she is not sick; where drug addicts get disability checks and the where the real unemployment rate is close to 25 percent. If all this sounds like a recipe for disaster, congratulations for grasping some basic economic principles that most Swedes, and in fact, most Europeans, still haven’t figured out.

If Sweden ever was an economic paradise, welcome to what is turning into paradise lost. Economists here seem to think that all that is needed are a few tweaks. But this bloated welfare state needs more than a tweak. That’s not likely, because most Swedes, and most of the world, assume Sweden has found a combination of socialism and capitalism that works. But does it work?

“Uh, No,” comments Frederik Erixon. “It’s quite simple. No, it doesn’t work.”

Erixon, one of the few free market economists in Stockholm, says Sweden’s standard of living continues to fall farther and farther behind.

“Sweden is much poorer today in comparison to other countries than say 10, 20, 30 years ago,” Erixon continues. “The GDP (gross domestic product) growth has been declining for a number of decades.”

Sweden’s official unemployment rate is six percent, but that figure is “cooked”, to use an economic expression. Because it doesn’t include another six percent on sick leave, at least 10 percent on disability, and a significant chunk of the nation’s high school and college graduates are well, just loafing. This according to top Swedish Economist Stefan Folster:

“If one adds all that together, it’s probably fair to say that one in four people is not in work but could be,” Folster says.
All Swedish workers get a minimum of five weeks of vacation every year. Not enough, apparently, because, as we mentioned, the average worker also takes one sick day a week, often to work a second job, because taxes take at least half of their first income.

Sweden’s welfare state has even managed to turn alcoholism into a career option, since government policy effectively pays people to stay home, drunk.

But if you want to be a Swedish entrepreneur, then you have a problem. Most small businesses in Sweden consist only of the owner. It’s too expensive to hire employees and too difficult to fire them. Just ask Trucking Company owner Lars Jansson…"

cbn.com/CBNNews/News/041206a.asp

 

[Theodora]

I saw this article and read it to my husband who likes to tell me how wonderful the welfare system is in some European countries. And I keep telling him, I don’t know what is so wonderful when the initiative is taken away from a person to be a productive worker. Also, it is a fact that in many European countries the birthrate has fallen below the level necessary to replace and maintain a healthy work force to support this so-called “utopian” welfare system, and that this system is bound to implode. I had a conversation with a contractor who with his crew put in long hours to meet the deadline when remodeling our home. At the time we talked about the “beautiful” welfare system in other countries where you don’t have to bust your but (pardon my French) to make a living. I liked his final remark the best, he said: “But we have more fun!” (meaning, of course, the harder your work, the more money you can make.)

 

[mlchance]

HagiaSophia:

Sweden’s welfare state has even managed to turn alcoholism into a career option, since government policy effectively pays people to stay home, drunk.

I could do this job.



– Mark L. Chance.

 

[Ourladyguadalup]

Good News Disability for alcoholism is now available in your area. Has been for some time.

Every once in a while some brilliant thinker writes an letter to the editor of my local paper about how the European countries are so much smarter w/their socialized programs. Why didn’t we think of free day care & medical care for everyone?:ehh: Wonder what their tax rates are like? oops…they didn’t think of that, huh?

 

[caroljm36]

It wouldn’t seem so bad to me in fact (if not in principle), except that I read from foreign writers like Mark Steyn and Melanie Phillips that the effect of all this welfare is to make people really, really selfish and cavalier about others. E.g, all the vacationers in France taking off for their August holiday, leaving their elders to swelter in a heat wave. Thousands died but people just kind of shrugged it off.

I guess because you just expect the nanny state to take care of everything, so you can’t be bothered to help others. It’s really a scary scenario but it’s very believable to someone with a Catholic world view.