Comments on: Use Sweden’s Playbook

By: Alan

Alan — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 00:14:05 +0000

We can learn from the Swedes so long as we remember that Sweden is not the U.S. Sweden did not land men on the moon or create the airplane, transistor or personal computer. America’s great contribution to its citizens and the world is the liberation of the human spirit. If people want a guaranteed level of comfort, they can look to Europe as a model. The U.S., however, should remain biased toward providing opportunity over outcome, which generally means less rather than more government, a sentiment that finally may have gained a foothold during the recent debt-ceiling discussions.

By: Five Things You Should Know About the S&P Downgrade | TwitterTwit

Five Things You Should Know About the S&P Downgrade | TwitterTwit — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 22:17:38 +0000

[...] has much to learn from other nations that fixed their economies and budgets after financial crises. Sweden, for example, did a remarkable job addressing the fiscal challenges that followed its financial crisis in the [...]

By: TaxVox » Blog Archive » Five Things You Should Know About the S&P Downgrade

Sat, 06 Aug 2011 17:39:56 +0000

[...] much to learn from other nations that fixed their economies and budgets after financial crises. Sweden, for example, did a remarkable job addressing the fiscal challenges that followed its financial crisis in the [...]

By: Five Things You Should Know About the S&P Downgrade « Donald Marron

Five Things You Should Know About the S&P Downgrade « Donald Marron — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 03:31:57 +0000

[...] has much to learn from other nations that fixed their economics and budgets after financial crises. Sweden, for example, did a remarkable job addressing the fiscal challenges that followed its financial crisis in the [...]

By: Joining the “Announcement Effect Club” « Donald Marron

Joining the “Announcement Effect Club” « Donald Marron — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:40:34 +0000

[...] I’m happy to be a member (based on this post last October). [...]

By: Yes, It Is Possible to Cut Deficits « Donald Marron

Yes, It Is Possible to Cut Deficits « Donald Marron — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:55:19 +0000

[...] For related posts, see this and this. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)The U.S. Budget Challenge in International [...]

By: lucklucky

lucklucky — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 06:56:02 +0000

The only choice is between bad times and worse times, trying to “make up” the situation by printing money will only bring the worse. Concerning Sweden, it had a good international market to finance itself, it had the boom following the end of Cold War. Everyone was starting to do business with everyone else.
The comparison with House market is i think apt. Putting debt when the Market is growing and Houses are getting pricier have much less risk and it is much easier than when everything is going down or flat. Sweden did it in good times and was also only a “small house”. A small player can go between the raindrops.

I think this crisis also have other sub-crisis:

Capitalism efficiency 1 – Less people are necessary to produce what we need.

Capitalism efficiency 2 -Most people in developed world
have most stuff they need, except obviously essentials, like food, water energy and some replacements can hunker down for a long period.

Capitalism efficiency 3 – Like above, most public works, Houses are already made, unless there is a big technological change there is no need for many of work that made a big part of economy in XX Century.

Demography – Many Western countries have 0 to very low population growth.

1,2,3 are good things, this means economy should adjust to less work. Unfortunately many Firms are is not flexible enough. Of course it is also a culture thing.

I think 4 week days work is a necessary solution for many countries, there is no sense to have 10-20% or workforce unemployed doing nothing and even worse a lot of useless public bureaucrats plotting ways to waste resources. While maybe 50% workforce sweets.
Of course the 4 week days came with proportional pay cut, but since things get cheaper it is all advantages.

By: Donald Marron

Donald Marron — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:41:30 +0000

Hi chappy — You raise a very important, very general point: to what extent can any of these policy changes be sustainable. In the good old days (ok, in the mid-2000s) when folks used to talk about fundamental tax reform, the question I always had was whether we knew of ways to make it robust to future changes. People always point to 1986 as a watershed (which is was), but it certainly wasn’t robust against future changes.

By: Donald Marron

Donald Marron — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:38:49 +0000

Hi Lucklucky — Thanks for visiting my blog. Could you please say some more about your concern? Sweden certainly experienced a severe financial crisis and the prospect of severe fiscal problems in the early 1990s, not unlike what’s happened in the United States. But, as you say, it wasn’t a worldwide crisis. It affected some neighboring countries, but other parts of the world were doing better. How do you think that changes the policy recommendations today? Thanks.

By: lucklucky

lucklucky — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:38:36 +0000

It is scary to read this kind of opinion in a partial Economic Blog. Sweden crisis had not the same size than this crisis for the World Economy. It’s like saying that 0,5% of lender clients default a Bank is the same as 15% default.

I am not English so my text might have some errors. Apologies.