Talk:Sweden
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Template:WP1.0 Template:FAOL Template loop detected: Template:Todo Economic performanceIn the section about the modern political situation, I strongly disagree with the phrase "However, poor economic performance since the beginning of the 1970s, and especially the crisis at the beginning of the 1990s, have forced Sweden to reform its political system to become more like other European countries.". That is a politically biased statement that should be changed or removed. 83.226.118.49 (talk) 20:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC) lauren mcdowall wiz here .!! 27/1/09 Is it really part of foreign policy?What influence does this comment at the end of foreign policy have? "American actress Jessica Alba came under scrutiny in early 2009 for telling a reporter to "be neutral about it. Be Sweden." It was alleged by Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly as well as editorial gossip network, TMZ, that she meant to say Switzerland. Alba defended herself in a subsequent web blog by citing this Sweden Wikipedia entry." Though an interesting tidbit, I believe should be under a separate heading. 65.188.211.70 (talk) 17:51, 28 January 2009 (UTC) Quasi-prohibition?Alcohol is heavily taxed in a mostly unsuccessful attempt to discourage alcoholism. This isn't really addressed in the article, though. Why not? --98.232.180.37 (talk) 08:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
same sex marriagesame sex marriage will be legal from 1 May 2009, repealing the registered partnership law [1]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.148.207.230 (talk) 06:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC) "Public Policy" and "Economy" sections blatantly infiltrated by politics.This is a selection of the many politicized quotes: "After World War II a succession of governments increased the welfare state and the tax burden, and Sweden's GDP per capita ranking fell from the 4th to 14th place in a few decades.[80]" This sentence heavily implies a cause and effect which is not accepted by most economists. The citation is to Bergstrom and Gidehag, who have been widely discredited. "Deregulation-induced competition helped Sweden to halt the economic decline and restore strong growth rates in the 2000s." Sweden's economic growth is more often attributed to other factors. The Swedish economy more closely followed global trends, and is suffering in 2009, just as the rest of the world is, because of the global economic crisis enabled by deregulation. Also, the Wall Street Journal's editorial page is not a respected source of information in the United States, and is inappropriate for use in an encyclopedia, much less for an entry on Sweden. For information on the Swedish economy and Swedish public policy, the consensus among Swedish economists and policy analysts should be used. This is the section: "A September 29, 2008 editorial in the Wall St. Journal quoted Jan Björklund, leader of Sweden's Liberal Party, as saying, "The corporate tax is one of the taxes which large companies really study when they plan to set up business somewhere." The editorial goes on to say, "The corporate tax reduction will bring the Swedish rate down to 26.3% from 28%, continuing its fall from a high of 57% in 1987... entrepreneurship had become such an alien concept that more than half of Sweden's 50 largest companies were founded before World War I and only two after 1970—the period when taxes and social welfare programs proliferated... Three years ago Sweden eliminated its inheritance tax."" The sections in question read more like crude policy papers from the American Enterprise Institute than like good encyclopedia sections. The article is in desperate need of a clean-up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iluiiuli (talk • contribs) 07:31, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
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Economic performance
In the section about the modern political situation, I strongly disagree with the phrase "However, poor economic performance since the beginning of the 1970s, and especially the crisis at the beginning of the 1990s, have forced Sweden to reform its political system to become more like other European countries.". That is a politically biased statement that should be changed or removed. 83.226.118.49 (talk) 20:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC) lauren mcdowall wiz here .!! 27/1/09
Is it really part of foreign policy?
What influence does this comment at the end of foreign policy have? "American actress Jessica Alba came under scrutiny in early 2009 for telling a reporter to "be neutral about it. Be Sweden." It was alleged by Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly as well as editorial gossip network, TMZ, that she meant to say Switzerland. Alba defended herself in a subsequent web blog by citing this Sweden Wikipedia entry."
Though an interesting tidbit, I believe should be under a separate heading. 65.188.211.70 (talk) 17:51, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Quasi-prohibition?
Alcohol is heavily taxed in a mostly unsuccessful attempt to discourage alcoholism. This isn't really addressed in the article, though. Why not? --98.232.180.37 (talk) 08:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
- Actually, the most recent Nordic alcohol research shows that health effects due to alcohol consumption by the public can be most easily reduced by making alcohol less available. However, the methods used in present-day Sweden are far from "quasi-prohibition". You should acquaint yourself with the original Göteborg system. --MPorciusCato (talk) 16:05, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
- I don't really see that the article should pass judgement on the success or not of the current alcohol policy in Sweden. If we're to include it it's better to just report what it is and how it works. I agree with MPC above that "quasi-prohibition" is not an appropriate term. Better to just call it "restrictive alcohol policy" (which is actually the situation in most countries in Europe and North America).Osli73 (talk) 16:34, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
- I agree with you. --MPorciusCato (talk) 18:22, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
- Are there any refs available on that being the cause? I've always seen the high taxes as being there to pay for all the idiotic stuff the drunkards often end up doing. -- Execvator (talk) 20:41, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
- taxation on alcohol is not as much for prohibition as simply allocating the costs of damage done as the result of consumtion to the consumers instead of all the taxpayers. This is a common thing to do to regulate a market that is failing due to negative external effects. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grindsprint (talk • contribs) 11:01, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
same sex marriage
same sex marriage will be legal from 1 May 2009, repealing the registered partnership law [2]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.148.207.230 (talk) 06:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
"Public Policy" and "Economy" sections blatantly infiltrated by politics.
This is a selection of the many politicized quotes: "After World War II a succession of governments increased the welfare state and the tax burden, and Sweden's GDP per capita ranking fell from the 4th to 14th place in a few decades.[80]" This sentence heavily implies a cause and effect which is not accepted by most economists. The citation is to Bergstrom and Gidehag, who have been widely discredited.
"Deregulation-induced competition helped Sweden to halt the economic decline and restore strong growth rates in the 2000s." Sweden's economic growth is more often attributed to other factors. The Swedish economy more closely followed global trends, and is suffering in 2009, just as the rest of the world is, because of the global economic crisis enabled by deregulation.
Also, the Wall Street Journal's editorial page is not a respected source of information in the United States, and is inappropriate for use in an encyclopedia, much less for an entry on Sweden. For information on the Swedish economy and Swedish public policy, the consensus among Swedish economists and policy analysts should be used. This is the section: "A September 29, 2008 editorial in the Wall St. Journal quoted Jan Björklund, leader of Sweden's Liberal Party, as saying, "The corporate tax is one of the taxes which large companies really study when they plan to set up business somewhere." The editorial goes on to say, "The corporate tax reduction will bring the Swedish rate down to 26.3% from 28%, continuing its fall from a high of 57% in 1987... entrepreneurship had become such an alien concept that more than half of Sweden's 50 largest companies were founded before World War I and only two after 1970—the period when taxes and social welfare programs proliferated... Three years ago Sweden eliminated its inheritance tax.""
The sections in question read more like crude policy papers from the American Enterprise Institute than like good encyclopedia sections. The article is in desperate need of a clean-up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iluiiuli (talk • contribs) 07:31, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
- I'm sorry but the consensus among Swedish economists is that the rapid expansion of the welfare-state and the rise of taxes and extensive regulation (mostly in the 70's-80's) was the main cause of the slowdown of Swedish growth during these years. It's not a controversial opinion among researchers in the field. I don't know if your're Swedish or American, but if you know Swedish you could look up "Marknad och Politik" by Lars Hultzkrantz, Hans Tson Söderström, or "Makroekonomi" by Klas Fregert, Lars Jonung. Both standard books used in the introductory course in economics, they explain all this in more detail.--Winterus (talk) 15:50, 8 April 2009 (UTC)