It’s definitely a clean and well organized country with lots of nature. And it seems pretty great for tech.
But would never move there.
The article talks about living, working, procreating and eventually dying in Sweden, so lets talk about that.
Many things are expensive in Sweden. When we think about living, we must consider things that are not expensive. Swedish type system arguably very strongly directs and limits the choices from the economic perspective.
- Beer is always expensive but dental care is always cheap. You can't choose between chugging more beer and having hole in your choppers. You can choose to having the hole if you insist, but the beer is still expensive.
- You can't choose between more beer and good education and healthcare for your children. The Government has made that choice for you.
- Similarly you are forced to live with affordable broadband due to government regulation enforced on companies to protect the consumer.
The question of living is Sweden should be decided by thinking how much your own goals align with the government enforced baseline. Temporarily embarrassed millionaires don't want to live in Sweden.
If I never had to worry about being bankrupted by medical bills or whether we could afford childcare, vacation time, etc it might make me more than willing to part with more money for taxes.
One of the primary reasons we want to make a high corporate salary is the security it provides and the comfortable life it facilitates. However, if you lose that job or never get one to begin with you miss out on all these essential benefits that should be available to everyone. Healthcare, childcare, leave, education should be available to all.
Tax is calculated for you, all you need to do is sign (with your mobile ID).
If you get sick you get payed after the first day. Hospital visit is about $8 per night. Doctor $20 per visit.
It all depends on what is worth for you.
I've been reading that a lot, but I can't find any decisive evidence supporting it - what leads you to think that?
I did find this though that says 2x:
I don't think I have ever heard that claim before. I am American, had very good insurance through my employers when I was living in the US, and routinely experienced mediocre care. But I didn't have anything to compare it to at the time. After I moved overseas and experienced excellent healthcare I know better.
"Oh, you need a specialist. You will get a letter for an appointment in about 4 months." 4 months later when you go see the specialist, he decides he needs an MRI to diagnose. Wait another 3 months for the scan.
Unless you are literally dying right now, this is the reality of many health care systems. This scenario is about 3x more common in national health plan systems than in insurance based ones.
In other words, if you are in an affluent area with a well-funded NHS trust, you will receive prompt and plentiful care whenever you need it and for whatever reason you need it. Less affluent areas must prioritise to meet their budget constraints, so they will indeed make you wait for a long time, unless there is an emergency.
So, reports in the (non-UK) media that claim that it may take "4 months" to be seen by GP or a specialist doctor unless you're dying, etc, are a) exaggerated and b) don't take into account the regional differences in service, which can be very pronounced.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan...
I do enjoy reading about Sweden though, especially the child-facilities and social-care. Things are similar here in Finland, but there are differences. Both are worlds apart from what I grew up with in the UK though.
The only other big change is a political system built on coalitions. Apart from that, it’s mostly the same.
That is so obvious. How else would one do it?
For evening-care you're less likely to find such cheap care, even if you do the traditional thing and pay teenagers, but even so you wouldn't expect to pay more than 40/50 euros for a night out with your wife/husband.
Social stuff is more than the day-care though, just walking around the local area there are numerous small parks, and play-areas for children, often stocked with toys. Free transport on buses, metros, and trams for a parent with a child, etc, etc. None of it is revolutionary, but it all adds up to making parenthood feel pretty good here.
(Some things are, sadly, not perfect. For example when I take our child to the doctors for scheduled checkups the first question is usually "Where is his mother?", but minor niggles aside I think having a child here is much much nicer than it would have been in Scotland.)
Also, check out taxes. I was offered a contract position in Sweden recently, and the total tax burden was around 55%. Thanks, but no thanks.
Does it work better in America with the lazy people, are they working better just because they make less money? Most people in Sweden can actually live on one job even if it is as a cleaner.
The people that you call lazy is a very small percentage of the population. And just about all of them has some physical or psycical problem preventing them from getting a job. It is not a choice they have to either go work or starve. Noone chooses to starve just because it's fun. This mentality is very upsetting for us that has seen reality and does not live in a glass house.
As for startups, it would be better to see the success ratio (how many people tried to create a startup vs how many succeed) and not just the number of survivors.
Who made this claim? Certainly not me. I claimed that, for an ordinary software engineer (i.e. not a startup founder), life will be better/easier in many other European countries.
Any examples of societies that are unequal[1] enough for you?
[1] Not sure about a proper antonym here.
- Mona Sahlin, former leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party.
Same with housing. Rich fools conquering large towns and driving everyone else out. Does that benefit society?
Of course when you support a system that everyone is his own best friend, you'll be happier when all the money you earn goes to you.
Assuming of course that the government is fiscally prudent for the many years until your kids start higher education and you are elderly and need a lot of medical care. Given how popular it is around the world to run huge deficits that end up requiring major cuts to services I wouldn't bet my future on it.
It's a bit off topic, but all I can see online about Sweden always sounds so perfect. But in reality it's not. There's a lot of us Swedes that are long from fine paying these taxes and then see our friends/relatives waiting for half a year waiting for treatment for cancer.
And if you'd like private healthcare, Sweden taxes you extra for that.
New car? Triple tax first 3 years.
It also means that you’re taxed higher. While most people pay 31% in commune tax, the top earners pay an extra 25% adding to the resentment.
I think most people agree that the quality of health care is an issue, but pretty divided on how to go about things. About 50-50 split.
Fun fact, since the election in September the Riksdag still hasn’t been able to elect a prime minister due to being to divided on such issues. The only thing they do agree is to not to collaborate with SD, giving both sides roughly 40% support for their favorite candidate.
Wikipedia had a nice map of the situation. We hn 10%ers tend to live in the more densely populated blue areas, again giving a pretty distorted view of things.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Swedish_general_electio...
Really? I thought that good healthcare was one of the major positives of the high taxes paid in Sweden. That was alluded to in the article and I have seen positive comments in the past about it. I guess that is due to the 10%ers being the ones commenting(?). But then I don't understand how there is uneven distribution of quality healthcare.
One of the issues being debated is the uneven quality between geographic regions. Not a new issue though, a more contemporary issue the lack of care givers and long waits that seems to be a problem in general.
If I were to guess a combination of the large age group just retiring and an attempt to allow more private health care options from a few years back started a vicious circle of relatively low wages and increasingly stressful working conditions driving competent people to seek out private employers instead.
Apparently it’s not uncommon for nurses to leave an employment, only to come back as contractors for the same job with twice the salary.
If that is the case I’m sure it’s mostly a temporary mess that needs to stabilize into some new configuration.
But the private options seems to be doing a good job, in general the people around me seems to be happy with their service at least. But to access those services you need the typical insurance through your employer, defeating the entire point of a public health care system to begin with.
So any resentment among the 10% probably stems from fear of not having a private option for things like cancer treatments if the current mess in the public system continues.
That said, the public system does an excellent job of all standard physical care I’ve needed so far. Have had some unlucky encounters with incompetent people, but can’t blame the system for that.
The psychiatric care looks like a complete failure though. If you have any anxiety or depression to deal with you’re on your own. The treatment plan is basically for a GP to administer prescription medicine and sick leave. If you do manage to be remitted to a specialist their main function is to evaluate to which degree you’re faking it. (In Sweden your either working or a lazy freeloader, “arbetslinjen” is very strong) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbetslinjen
But that's true almost everywhere. In the U.S. it's true everywhere outside of the Bay Area, and perhaps Seattle.
I love Boston, for example, but the city is chock full of bankers, lawyers, management consultants, and doctors whose incomes often dwarf those of engineers. And they're much higher on the social ladder. You're priced out of the most desirable neighborhoods in the city, and if you're single, dating is tougher.
Obviously, it's not the end of the world. 99% of people don't make as much as investment bankers or white-shoe lawyers, and life goes on. But I think it explains in part why engineers are drawn to the Bay Area. The sky-high cost-of-living may make it a break-even proposition, but the bit of prestige engineers get there is a selling point.
I dont make that much less than an american engineer with my experience, but 40% is washed away in taxes. Also, I generally work 0 overtime 37,5H weeks.