Comment by EgeBamyasi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by EgeBamyasi | Hacker News Reader

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What Johnny thinks fails to mentions is that since 2006(a major shift in the parlament from socialism(No, not soviet socialism, rather "I dont care how much money you have in your pocket, you are no difference from a poor man, NOW GET BACK IN LINE!") to right wing(Well hello there Mr. Blue Blood, you see that poor man in the line right at the front? Yeah him, well go take a piss on him and take his place. You deserve it, you are after all rich!)) more and more of the good things about Sweden have disappeared.

The leader of Alliansen, Moderaterna, have in the past voted against universal suffrage(1904-1918), 8 hour workdays(1919,1923), the right for women to vote(1919), two weeks paid vacation(1938), free lunches at schools(1946), three weeks paid vacation(1951), civil union(1994)<br /> Thats not even the tip of the iceberg, thats just a snowflake about to land on top of it.

Sweden used to be about social security, the need of the many outweigh the need of the few, arts and giving anybody a fighting chance. That was the Swedish model

Its getting colder, and its getting cold really fast. The Swedish model 2011: getting rid of the expensive social security and lowering the taxes for the wealthy.

Actually, what brought prosperity to Sweden was capitalism, not socialism. Those good things you mention are good things in intention, not necessarily in results. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENDE8ve35f0&feature=autof...

Of course capitalism is a must for building up a welfare, it provides the technical and economical foundation for a working socialist state, I´m not going to argue about that.

How ever as a Swede I have seen the direct changes in the community due to the parliament shift, not all bad of course. But when a country that used to take care about its own, all of a sudden points the middle finger to those who is in need I feel angry and disappointed and somewhat alienated from my own country. I was brought up being told that tax money was going to hospitals, schools, Unemployment benefits etc etc. because everyone has the right to these things, and everyone has the duty to finance it. Now what is happening is that we have the same tax rate as before, except if you are wealthy, then the taxes have dropped or even disappeared, and more and more of the things that where a right in Sweden is becoming a privilege for the people who don´t need it and financed by the lower portion in the social ladder.

Oh, and now we have something called RUT-Avdrag. Its basically a thing where the state pays 50% if you employ a maid or call in someone to clean your house. It was to "create more work" and "to help ordinary stressed career people". As it turned out it haven't created so many new jobs. And the average middle class stressed career person would save more money by taking 4 hours of work to clean by him/her-self than to rent a cleaning person for 4 hours. This was one of the first things Alliansen did for Sweden after they took over the parliament. Oh yeah, and wealth tax was quickly gone too.

Sure, there are some things that should be privatizationed, the railroad to name one(it doesn't work, at all) but you don´t fuck with the health care and the school system and the unemployment benefits to name a few(That made Sweden the awesome country it was) to finance stuff such as RUT-Avdrag and getting rid of wealth tax, and then tell the world "Hey! Look at us and our marvelous economic model"

Also, the person who wrote the blogpost is a party member of Moderaterna witch is responsible for all these changes, so its his view.

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