MATT WELCH, writing in the National Post, surveys the crushing of dissent in America post 9/11.

STILL MORE ON SWEDEN: A Swedish reader informs me that the position of Sweden vis a vis the United States has occupied not only the Blogosphere, but the Swedish press. He sends a precis of the debate:

Congratulations to your interesting weblog community.

Today, with four days to go until the Swedish parliamentary elections on September 15, I’d like to contribute to the recent debate about the Swedish Economy versus the American one. I will do this, not by stating my own layman opinion, but rather referring you to three Swedish articles written about this in the biggest Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

The 1st article, which initiated this debate, and was written by two critical researchers at a Swedish Trade Research Institute, is called “Swedes are Poorer than Blacks in the US”. A 2nd article wished to debunk the first one with a couple of counter-arguments: “Impossible Comparison Sweden-USA” and the third one takes a position between the two: “When Differences Become Apparent”.

Arguments, methods and conclusions of the study in the 1st article:

– It is the gross median income (money income before taxes), excluding capital income in the two countries that have been compared in order to avoid comparison of differences in government and welfare services. It does however include gross welfare payments from the government.

– Median income US: approx $40,000; Sw: $27,000. GDP/capita US: $31,000; Sw: $22,000

– Private consumption US: $20,000; Sw:$11,000 (explained by the fact that school/medicare payed privately in the US)

– Average Retail Sales is twice as big in the US than in Sweden, meaning an American can buy two pair of pants when a Swede can buy one pair.

– A low economic growth rate has caused Sweden to lose wealth when compared to the US

– The median (not average) American household, has a yearly income before taxes which is 50% higher than the Swedish one. The median Black household in the US is better off than the median Swedish one

– If Sweden had been an American state, we would have been the poorest one, together with Hispanics and Blacks, and there would have been a debate about the “Swedish Problem”

– In the US, the biggest income is earned by ‘Asians’ and second by ‘Whites and non-Hispanics’. The poorest are the ‘Blacks’. The Swedish median income is lower than that of all those groups.

– Between 1993-1999, income increased for all US groups by 15%, but mostly for Blacks (25%). In Sweden, the median income has remained almost unchanged during that period.

– While the income of the richest 20% segment of the US population have risen the most (30%) and widened the income differences between rich and poor, the most humble segment of Americans has seen its income increased as well. The poorest households in Sweden increased their income by merely 6% during those years, which is 12 percentage points less than for the poorest in the US. Swedish middle and high income households had an increase of between 12 and 20%.

– Low growth rate has a devastating effect on all segments of the population. If Swedish income had developed at the same rate as American income, Swedes would have an additional $1,500 gross income on a yearly basis.

– Politicians need to focus on growth stimulation, which would in turn authorize a positive income development for the Swedish population from all income segments.

The second article tries to debunk these findings using American studies and statistics:

– Yes, the median income in the US is bigger than the Swedish one, but so is the cost of life in America, as well as the differences of income between large segments of the population

– Median income says nothing about working conditions, living conditions or the quality of the Medicare system, and nothing about the economic development of the country.

– The “differences in government and welfare services” are precisely the factors which the above studies failed to take into account. If you live in a country earning $100,000, but paying $99,000 in rent and health insurance, are you really better off than in Sweden?

Cost of life in America is way higher than in Sweden. The smallest apartment costs $500-600/month.

– In order to live decently in the US for a family of one adult and two children, an income of $30,000/year is needed, to be able to pay for medicare and health insurance. Most Americans work in service or restauration industries, where salaries are $22,900 on average. 47 million households in America earn less than $35,000. Percentage of poor: 26,1% of Blacks, 25,6% of Hispanics and 10,5% of Whites.

– Median income fails to explain the quality of the living conditions. 5,4 million Americans live in squalor conditions. Government subsidized apartments are scarce (36 available for every 100 needed). Average working time was 40 hours/week, 52 week/year! (In Sweden, you are intitled to 5 weeks of vacation).

Minimum wages in the US are $1,000/month and many poor need two jobs to survive.

– 31 million Americans, including 12 million children don’t have access to sufficient or healthy food. 8 out of 1000 children die preliminary deaths excluding the child birth death rate). Among Blacks, the percentage is 15.8 out of a 1000. In Sweden, only 1 child out of 1000 die under those circumstances.

– 40% of American families say they would only be able to sustain for 3 days in case they suddenly lost their job or got sick for a long (and expensive) time, before their money runs out.

– In 1999, a sixth of the population (43 million) did not have health insurance, which is up from 32 million ten years earlier.

– Net Capital Wealth (money on bank + stock + retirement pension + apartment / house minus debts) compensated for inflation decreased in the US from $54,600 in 1989 to $49,900 in 1997.

– Net Capital Wealth per Race in 1998 in the US: Whites $81,700, Blacks $10,000, Hispanics $3,000. If you exclude capital in real estate house/apartment) you get: Whites $37,600; Blacks $1,200; Hispanics $0.

– Conclusion: 40% of the population earns just 1% of what the remaining 60% is earning! No wonder the median income is high. This is why, the author argues, it’s not correct to say that the poorest segments in Sweden have lost out compared to their American counterparts.

– It is true to say that the American income has increased, but a huge portion of the population in the US is living under conditions which couldn’t possible serve as an ideal for most Swedes. And the Americans are paying for it with their health and spare time.

The third article (editorial) argues:

– A shortage of growth can be catastrophical to the Swedish economy.

– The normal Swedish family earns less than the normal American family in the traditionally ethnically Swedish parts of America, which should be food for thought

– Sweden is a rich country (GDP/capita higher than the UK or France), but Sweden should radically lower taxes, reform and liberalize the labour market and promote growth.

– Sweden doesn’t have to become like America but we should try to promote and emulate the kind of dynamic that exists there, which allows people to change “classes” rapidly, through hard work, and which allows regions to attract investment.

– There ARE reasons to why the American dream motivates people around the world alot more than does the Swedish or European models. It’s only our own myths and misconceptions that prevent us from taking impression of our neighbour across the pond.

I personally tend to agree with the third article. I hope these summaries could share some light to this debate of some interest to both Swedes and Americans, and if you like, you may post it on your excellent weblog. The links (in Swedish) are merely given as reference for any Swedish-speaking readers you might have.

Best regards,

“The Viking” /

Swedish national living elsewhere in Europe (but not because of any problems with the Swedish tax authorities…)

Thanks very much. Whether the Blogosphere will (or will even care to) go beyond the degree of debate that’s going on in Sweden is unclear. But this certainly makes clear that that, far from being mere anti-Swedish carping, the issues that have been raised about Sweden’s economy in the Blogosphere are genuine, since they’re obviously of vital interest to the Swedish electorate.

UPDATE: Reader Kevin Hurst writes:

I am sceptical of the notion that the cost-of-living is higher in US as a whole than Sweden. I rather think that it is the opposite. If I am reading the attached OECD figures correctly (it is late and I am in a hurry), they list the Swedish price level as HIGHER than US (by a ratio of 105 to 100). That fits what I would expect. Most of the arguments of the “pro-Sweden” article point back to the dubious fact that it costs more to live in US. Most of the rest of the points you list are either false or misleading. For instance, very few poor head-of-households earn the minimum wage. Even McDonalds gives people raises after you’ve been there for 6-months. Very few people in the US who work full-time are poor! Also, they significantly overestimate US outlays for rent and health insurance. I would like to know what figures they are using.

I don’t open attachments, so I wasn’t able to read Kevin’s figures. I’ll see if I can get a link. But from what I know about comparative cost-of-living in Sweden vs. the United States (back when I practiced law, my Swedish clients regarded D.C. as cheaper than Stockholm) I would expect to find Sweden somewhat more expensive than America.

UPDATE: Here’s the link. Thanks, Kevin.

JOURNALISTS WHO CAN’T USE A DICTIONARY: Pulp Commentary says that Roland Watson and Chris Caldwell prove that they don’t know what they’re doing by doubting the existence of “crawfishing” as a verb. And he’s got links. It’s a lexicographical Fisking.

MARK KLEIMAN thinks the U.S. / Swedish crime comparisons make Sweden look worse than it really is.

Well, you can argue about this stuff, and cross-border crime comparisons are always iffy, but I think the sources I linked to look pretty good — and they’re certainly not from sources with a vested interest in boosting the U.S.A.

In an email, Kleiman notes that his analysis doesn’t demonstrate that Sweden is a “light unto the gentiles.” I keep waiting for that demonstration, but what I keep getting are arguments that it’s not as bad, compared to Mississippi, as I said.

THE PATRIOT ACT ACTUALLY PROTECTS PRIVACY MORE than preexisting law, argues George Washington University law professor Orin Kerr. He’s got a law review article (which I haven’t yet read) but the link is to a story in the New York Times. I think it’s fair to describe this as a “contrarian” view.

TO MY SURPRISE, my local paper has been running these Mallard Fillmore cartoons on the editorial page next to Doonesbury.

HENRY HANKS says that TAPPED is spinning the NEA story itself.

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY has an interview with Nick Cook, author of a recent book on antigravity. Cook, who isn’t a nut, thinks that there’s real progress on antigravity and reactionless thrusters in the classified “black” research world. I’m skeptical, but I hope he’s right.

MORE EURO-DOUBLE-STANDARDIZATION:

We may even have to thank France for helping to ease the tensions. America’s oldest ally has come to the rescue — however inadvertently. Though it had kept it a secret, the French government had much the same objection to the court as the American government — that its peacekeepers could be hauled before the court.

As the European nations met last Friday to discuss their common position at the EU meeting — for the EU is supposed to have a common foreign and defense policy these days — it was revealed, much to the surprise of other EU members, that the French government had secretly negotiated a seven-year exemption for its own peacekeepers back in 1998.

“I was somewhat surprised that France, despite signing the ICC, had been granted this exemption,” noted Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh. Interestingly, demanding exceptions is exactly what Europeans have attacked the Americans for doing.

I guess I should be surprised, but I’m not.

MISHA IS JEALOUS of Michael Ledeen. Well, sure.

DAVID TELL has a sum-up of the Hatfill affair.

THIS ARTICLE IN EDITOR AND PUBLISHER asks “Why do they hate us?” — the press, that is:

The newest polls about the press are discouraging enough to make even H.L. Mencken weep. The public, which had admired us in the months after Sept. 11, has turned against us again. Nearly half those responding in the most recent Pew Research Center poll seem to think that we “don’t stand up for America,” and a majority believe we “don’t care about the people we report on.” Generally, polling numbers have gone back to pre-9/11 levels.

And why could this be? Here’s a clue:

The public loved us most in November, when flags rippled on the corners of TV screens and from on-camera lapels.

Then the story seems to drift into a discussion of how the public doesn’t like the press to ask “tough questions.” But I think that misses the point. The public doesn’t like the press asking dumb-but-slanted questions and pretending that they’re tough questions. Adversarialism for the sake of adversarialism, Reuters-style moral equivalence or bias, and petty kvetching give people the sense that the press sees itself as apart from, and somehow better than, the society that it is in fact a part of, and that readers and viewers are a part of. And people don’t like that. Go figure.

My advice to those who read this article and want to know how to improve the press’s image: read a lot of weblogs. Because webloggers don’t hate the press as such. Heck, if we did, we’d spend our time watching The Simpsons on DVD (I’ve got seasons 1 & 2!).

But you become a weblogger because, fundamentally, you think the press is important, and you love what it does enough to hate to see sloppy and biased work — which unfortunately, you see a lot of even in the elite media. And, yes, people besides webloggers and media watchdogs notice that . Everyone notices it. Maybe when I was a kid people were too unsophisticated to pick up on media bias — or maybe they just lacked the right vocabulary to talk about it — but everyone’s a media critic now. Yet, fundamentally, the big media are still playing double-A ball, in front of major league umpires.

Where the article is dead-on is in recognizing that press freedom is threatened when the public doesn’t respect the press. But here’s a message to journalists: the public doesn’t disrespect you because you’re “too tough” and raise troubling questions they don’t want to think about. The public disrespects you because you are, far too often, sloppy, superficial, and biased. You want more respect, do something about that.

UPDATE: Justin Katz has some similar observations, and notes that the press’s enthusiasm for “campaign finance reform” may account for some of this — he suggests that maybe people just aren’t enthusiastic about free speech for the press when the press has shown itself unenthusiastic about free speech for everyone else.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Hey, maybe stuff like this explains why people don’t like the press.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Howard Owens says I’m wrong — bloggers care about news, not the press. Fair enough, though I think actually we care about both. His comments on the difference between the stories that bloggers think important and those that are beaten to death by Big Media are right on.

OKAY, ONE MORE: Laurence Simon responds, and has links to many other posts responding to this piece.

OKAY, I LIED: A.C. Douglas emails that I should have mentioned Susanna Cornett’s piece on this. I looked at it, and he’s right. And she mentions this post by Toren Smith as the definitive wrapup.

WIN FITZPATRICK REPORTS a poll showing that most Palestinians support nonviolent action. Problem is, they support violent action, too, in the same proportion. So if this is progress, it’s not because Palestinians are getting less enthusiastic about violence, but only because they’re willing to at least consider nonviolence to some degree.

Of course, if they’d run a Gandhian campaign they would have won decades ago. But how long would they have to forego bombing bar mitzvahs and seders before that kind of approach would have credibility now?

VIA RAM AHLUWALIA, I notice that the federal government has approved commercial development of the Moon. Ahluwalia’s comment: “[M]aybe there will be a round of ‘neo-colonization’ protestors lamenting ‘solar imperialism’ and the unfettered search for new markets.”

They’re already out there, believe it or not, dismissing space colonization as “white male ideology of conquest.”

THE SHROPSHIRE CHALLENGE IS, well, it’s funny, that’s what it is.

THIS SPINSANITY CRITIQUE OF MICHAEL MOORE might interest those who still follow his doings. Excerpt:

This pattern — the very sources Moore cites proving him wrong — continues throughout the book. . . .

Most baffling of Moore’s misstatements may come in a listing of categories that the U.S. tops, such as per capita energy use and births to teenagers. In a blatant misrepresentation, he states: “We’re number one in budget deficit (as a percentage of GDP).” When Moore wrote his book last year, the United States was running a budget surplus, as it had for the previous three years.

Enjoy.

AN INTERESTING BIT OF U.S. / EUROPE DIALOGUE.