Lazy b@stards!

[whabang]

ARTICLE (http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=415&date=20040920)

Seriously, premium welfare systems are a fantastic thing, but I hate when I see them abused like this! :pissed:

[restore2003]

Hmm, you should visit Norway, the capital of abused social welfare systems :-P

[PMC]

whabang wrote:
ARTICLE (http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=415&date=20040920)

Seriously, premium welfare systems are a fantastic thing, but I hate when I see them abused like this! :pissed:

@Whabang,

Just out of interest, what are the taxation rates like in Sweden?

Sweden has a population numbering less than London, yet supports an extensive welfare system and can afford to fund a home-grown defence programs which are way beyond the reach of the UK (think Gripen jet fighter and stealth naval vessels here).

How do they do it? Are the Swedes an industrious nation? Do they pay massive amounts of income tax? Is IKEA contributing massive amounts to the national economy?

[whabang]

First of all, If I make 20000 kronor, my employer has to pay an employer's tax on that. IIRC, it's about 30%.
I then pay 30% income tax on the money that I make, so for me to get 13 000:- to spend, my emplyer has to pay 26000:-.
Then if I buy something, I pay 25% (12% for food) sales tax on that.
Then of course I have to pay extra alcohol tax if I buy liqour, environmental tax for electricity, gas, and other forms of energy.

In general, Sweden is a highly industrialised country. Most workers are in a labour union, and the general standard of living is extremely high compared to the world's average (second best country in the world to live in, and the best country in the world for employees).

Lately, especially after the economical crisis in the early 90s, the economy has been screwed up totally. The national debt has sky-rocketed since '92, simply because the welfare system was to be maintained.

Right now, it feels like we're going the same way as Yugoslavia. :-(

[whabang]

@restore2003

Yeah, but at least you have the oil-money to fund it! ;-)
*bloody North-sea arabs*

[restore2003]

Tsk Tsk, do i sense some kind of jealousy? :-)

Btw, this country(Norway) is falling apart in many ways, even when it`s got one of the best economy in the world.

Just read through this and ask yourself why we cant get new
roads, lower priced healthcare, etc:

http://www.statsbudsjettet.dep.no/2003/english.asp

Poverty is on it`s rise, along with crime and drug abuse, and increased immigration(and they`re not always checking the immigrators criminal background either)

[whabang]

Not really, we have enough of other resources (Ikea, H&M, Ericsson, Victoria Silverstedt) to compensate for the lack of oil. BTW, they are still prospecting in the Baltic; some areas were never prospected because of the cold war.
All they managed to find previously, was one or two wells. I doubt they're still producing anything.

[PMC]

whabang wrote:
@restore2003

Yeah, but at least you have the oil-money to fund it! ;-)
*bloody North-sea arabs*

We've got North Sea oil... We're an industrious nation, we pay low rates of personal taxation, but pay through the nose for goods and services (fuel tax contributed £36Bn to the national economy) and are the world's second biggest exporter of arms, yet maintaining our social secuirity system costs £32Bn a year and £36Bn disappears annually to fund our Quasi-autonomous non elected government organisations (QUANGOS) that debate on matters ranging from annual ministerial junkets to wines to be served at state dinners... Incidentally, none of these committees are elected, they're appointed by the government.

Basically, thats £6,000 pounds spent per year for each and every person in the UK... Enough to repair the entire national rail network or maybe even pay for a fleet of nuclear carriers.

[whabang]

Oh, I forgot about the arms sales!
As an example, we earn four times as much from arms sales to India, as they get from Swedish help-programmes. :-)

[restore2003]

And you forgot all this crap "dansband" music you guys are
exporting to Norway :admonish: :furious: :admonish:

:-P

[Fade]

@ whabang
"so for me to get 13 000:- to spend, my emplyer has to pay 26000:-."
---------------

Whabang, I think what you have just told us is someone would have to be crazy to try to start a small business in your country.

[whabang]

Fade,

Indeed! And still, the government insists on calling small buisnesses "the future". :roll:

[Seehund]

PMC wrote:

Just out of interest, what are the taxation rates like in Sweden?


If you count all taxes, including the "invisible" and indirect taxes, then the taxation rate for the average Swede was 62.7% in 2002.
In other words, if you work 5 days a week, you only start earning a disposable income of your own sometime on Thursday morning. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, highly competent and well educated politicians (mostly political broilers from The Party's youth organisation, labour union mafiosos and former supermarket cashiers) know what to do with your salary better than you.


Sweden has a population numbering less than London, yet supports an extensive welfare system and can afford to fund a home-grown defence programs which are way beyond the reach of the UK (think Gripen jet fighter and stealth naval vessels here).


Our welfare system is going down the drain, but it was never particularly good in the first place. Compare with most western industrialised countries, where taxes constitute less than our 51.1% of the GNP. For some reason "the Swedish model" has come to mean something good in some countries. I can't imagine why.
Its intent has always been to keep as many aspects as possible of the citizens' lives under direct or indirect political control, and install politicians or politically elected people as supervisors on every level of society. Politicians run our military forces. Politicians run our hospitals. Jurors in courts are selected politically. Of course all this isn't economically sustainable, but we all foot the bill. It always cracks me up when someone talks about our "free healthcare". :)

The defence is virtually non-existent today. Projects such as Gripen and Smyge/Visby are mainly intended for export, even if we did fsck up and order a bazillion Gripen for our airforce, which we're now shutting down almost as fast as we've shut down the army and the navy. We always expected NATO (which officially was said to be things like "an imperialist project of oppression") and our sucking up to the Soviets to save our butts anyway.


How do they do it? Are the Swedes an industrious nation? Do they pay massive amounts of income tax? Is IKEA contributing massive amounts to the national economy?

We pay massive amounts of tax on everything.
We keep borrowing money.
We invent especially beneficial taxation loopholes for a small number of giant corporations (exporters, mainly) that have come to live almost in symbiosis with The Party. Most Swedes work for either these corporations or somewhere in the state controlled/owned sectors. New and small enterprises are regarded with the highest suspicion, and are counteracted as far as possible.
We live on wealth created back when we were an industrious nation, and on wealth that we unlike others never lost when we were a particularly coward and treacherous nation (WW2).

The house of cards looked stable, to its architects anyway, for half a century, but it's getting windy.

[Graak]

I've been unemployed since I finished my education at the local gymnasium in June. I've been thinking about starting my own buissness (web design & programming) but the extremely high taxes makes me think twice about it :-x

[Dan]

The really issue isn´t that the tax is too high, it´s that we don´t get anything for it.
And none of the parties has any ideals they believe( well except for KPMLR or NSF but...).
If we had one party called Socialmoderatafolkmiljöcenterkristdemokratvänstern that would reflect the realityof our politics perfectly!
That´s not to say that the grassrots in the small parties are bad, but at the top.(Anyone in moderaterna or socialdemokraterna is just out to make a career.)

And what would we need a army for when we don´t have a proper civildefence in place?
And SÄPO,the securitypolice,why would we need those when they are all traitors anyway? Charging them with a number of crimes such as high treason and spying for a foregin power would be a walk in the park.

As for what drives our economy its steel and timber as it always has been!

[whabang]

We pay massive amounts of tax on everything.
We keep borrowing money.


As said, We're going the same way as Yugoslavia! :-P

You always put things in a very dramatic way, Seehund; you should get into politics! :-D

[KennyR]

Seehund wrote:
If you count all taxes, including the "invisible" and indirect taxes, then the taxation rate for the average Swede was 62.7% in 2002.
In other words, if you work 5 days a week, you only start earning a disposable income of your own sometime on Thursday morning. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, highly competent and well educated politicians (mostly political broilers from The Party's youth organisation, labour union mafiosos and former supermarket cashiers) know what to do with your salary better than you.

Well, nice way of putting it, but not all that accurate. If you weren't paying it in tax, you'd be pissing it away in all the other things that take place of tax, like medical insurance, road tolls, house insurance, etc. Most people don't even consider that, they just think WELL, ITS MY MONEY, I EARN IT, ITS MINE, ITS MINE I TELL YOU!!! Money is an imaginary concept, and thinking in absolutes over such a concept like "60% of MY MONEY!!!" is pointless. Maybe if you weren't being taxed at all you'd be paid a lot less. Truth is, capitalism keeps a balance because if it didn't, it wouldn't work. The people who do the actual work are always going to get the short end of the stick, whether you live in A Worker's Paradise or The American Dream. Your only problem is beaurocratic ineffeciency - a hell of a lot better than corruption or profiteering.

[KennyR]

And that reminds me of the kind of welfare wastage that goes on in my country too. (You can go on permanent disability welfare for shyness - really! I'd do that myself if I wasn't so idealistic...)

More examples: my neighbour fosters abandoned children. As well as getting paid an absolute fortune for doing it, each of those children gets individual taxi, paid by taxpayer's money, to the same school 300 metres away. Why not just get them in the same taxi? Why not just tell them to walk? It's not as if they're not watched by CCTV every step of the way...

Another example: renovations. Every council house is currently having a new gas system installed from tax money, probably running into costs of a £1000+ a house. This, when natural gas will soon be useless as a fuel in the UK due to the wells drying up. So, in 3-4 years time, they'll have to do it all over again. Wonderfully clever, not?

And there are all the single mothers who live with their boyfriends and get tax rebates, and schools that have expensive redecoration a year before being closed and knocked down, and unnecessary roadworks to keep croneys in the construction business employed, and, and...

Wastage is terrible, considering that about 55% of the average wage is spent in tax. And whenever the councils run out of money, they just raise council tax again. Well, it keeps their construction industry friends happy.

So why aren't I bitter if 55% of working wage is being thrown away? Well, we had Thatcher's system where people were allowed to spend all their own money. But because that raised inflation, people were made unemployed en-mass and wages weren't raised to match the inflation. We were allowed to spend our own money, just not to have much. And I'll tell you something - we're a LOT better off now, even with the wastage.

[whabang]

The problem is that Sweden simply isn't large anough to support such a system. There are only nine millions of us, and only about 50% of the population is actually working.
The population boom in the 40's is taking it's toll now; all those people are going to retire, and Sweden is actually going to end up with more people being retired, than there are people paying taxes to support them.

The welfare system is, contrary to what Seehund says, of a quite high standard, although it will have to be thrown out in a few years. We simply can't sustain it.
Sweden's population just passed the nine-million mark. If the immigration stops, we'd be down to eight in twenty years.

What we need is to increase productivity. Dan's comments about the defence forces are true: we should just dump it for now, and concentrate on decentralising the society, and building a proper civil defence. That's 40 billon more for keeping the old-timers alive.

[Cyberus]

whabang wrote:

The population boom in the 40's is taking it's toll now; all those people are going to retire, and Sweden is actually going to end up with more people being retired, than there are people paying taxes to support them.



Well, you should have gone to war, then there wouldn't be so many people having children.

Seriously though, we have a similar problem here. We have an ageing population, and we need immigrants to support our ever ageing population. When people like me are old and grey, there won't be a state pension - even thought the goverment advises me to pay National Insurance or I won'r have a state pension. There's no assurance that they'll even be one in 40 years. Thank {bleep} I'm moving away from Britain soon, this country's totally going down the pan...
I'm surprised the government hasn't given people incentives to leave actually...

[whabang]

Well, you should have gone to war, then there wouldn't be so many people having children.

Hey! I'm mainly of Danish and Dutch orgin! Don't blame me! :-D

[Dan]

KennyR wrote:

More examples: my neighbour fosters abandoned children. As well as getting paid an absolute fortune for doing it, each of those children gets individual taxi, paid by taxpayer's money, to the same school 300 metres away. Why not just get them in the same taxi? Why not just tell them to walk? It's not as if they're not watched by CCTV every step of the way...
What??? In Sweden you got to live 3km from school before you have the right to demand that the schoolbus should come and get you. I had 2800-something meters so I should know. The first year I had to get on the bus an hour before school started ride it to Perstorp 10km in the opposite direction, where the bus picked up students that went to the gymnasium in Klippan and then go back. The next year we bypassed the bureaucrats and talked directly to the bus-company, another one that the one I travelled whit the first year, and there was no problems at all.

and schools that have expensive redecoration a year before being closed and knocked down, and unnecessary roadworks to keep croneys in the construction business employed, and, and...
We get that to not to mention spending many millions on modernizing military airfields and portsand then closing them. Or hospitals, they are trying to break somekind of record in hospitalclosing.

Wastage is terrible, considering that about 55% of the average wage is spent in tax. And whenever the councils run out of money, they just raise council tax again. Well, it keeps their construction industry friends happy.
And construction keeps unemployment down.

So why aren't I bitter if 55% of working wage is being thrown away? Well, we had Thatcher's system where people were allowed to spend all their own money. But because that raised inflation, people were made unemployed en-mass and wages weren't raised to match the inflation. We were allowed to spend our own money, just not to have much. And I'll tell you something - we're a LOT better off now, even with the wastage.
No we aren´t, we are going to end up with american level of public service but with our own tax levels.
But voting to the marketliberal right isn´t the solution.
The communists and the nationalists are going to have a ball again. :sigh

[whabang]

they are trying to break somekind of record in hospitalclosing.
They save twice as much that way:
First thesave money from closing the hospital,
Then they save money, when the old people die due to lack of proper care. :-D

[Dan]

KennyR wrote:
Your only problem is beaurocratic ineffeciency - a hell of a lot better than corruption or profiteering.
What should be done is automate the adminstration, like tax office etc. It could be automate to the same degree as production industry.

Then we could put the money and workforce save into the welfare system.