Sweden has double the rate of billionaires as the US

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haha. Let's see their demographics.
How can you compare a country of ten million people - very homogeneous, with the U.S., which is easily the most populous multi-cultural county in the world?

They are not as homogeneous as you think. Twenty percent of the population is foreign born (13.6% in US). It has the highest proportion of asylum seekers in Europe.

I had to look this up. The largest group of "foreign born" is Finnish. Haha. Big difference

Syrians and Iraqis are the largest foreign born groups.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041828/sweden-foreign-born-population-origin/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haha. Let's see their demographics.
How can you compare a country of ten million people - very homogeneous, with the U.S., which is easily the most populous multi-cultural county in the world?

They are not as homogeneous as you think. Twenty percent of the population is foreign born (13.6% in US). It has the highest proportion of asylum seekers in Europe.

I had to look this up. The largest group of "foreign born" is Finnish. Haha. Big difference

Syrians and Iraqis are the largest foreign born groups.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041828/sweden-foreign-born-population-origin/

ok,Wikipedia said:
"The population exceeded 10 million for the first time on Friday, 20 January 2017.... Every fourth (24.9%) resident in the country has a foreign background and every third (32.3%) has at least one parent born abroad. The most common foreign ancestry is Finnish.[4]"

But most of the recent newcomers are probably Syrian and Iraqi as you said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A big prob and the downfall of US culture is pride. Americans are very defensive in general whenever they are in the position to consider if other countries may be doing things better or creatively or offer another perspective that we might leverage to make our systems better.

This thread is evidence of this. The OP presented a system by which Sweden has used so that there are wealthy Swedes. Instead of bashing them or saying they suck anyway and automatically bring US as a comparison, why can't we just analyze what the Swedes do whether smartly or poorly and not have to say off the bat - well they still suck and their billionaires aren't richer than our billionaires! Does it matter once you have a billion how many billions you have? I mean, a billion is kinda a lot no? Just say - that's really successful to have in a small country, that many financially successful people. Let's look at how that came to be.

? show me the percent of their black and Hispanic population.

Why?

Sweden has 10 million almost all white population. They're not a giant multicultural society like ours. It's a dumb apples to oranges comparison

Sadly the gun murder rate in Stockholm is 30 times that in London. Gangland violence is a problem. Everywhere has its problems to deal with, not just the US.

[Anonymous]

Sweden only has about 10M people and is not diverse at all. The US has about 330M and is a diverse country.

[Anonymous]

I would imagine a small country comprised of people who share common values about what their society should be like would be fairly easy to manage. And they pay relatively little of their GDP for defense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A big prob and the downfall of US culture is pride. Americans are very defensive in general whenever they are in the position to consider if other countries may be doing things better or creatively or offer another perspective that we might leverage to make our systems better.

This thread is evidence of this. The OP presented a system by which Sweden has used so that there are wealthy Swedes. Instead of bashing them or saying they suck anyway and automatically bring US as a comparison, why can't we just analyze what the Swedes do whether smartly or poorly and not have to say off the bat - well they still suck and their billionaires aren't richer than our billionaires! Does it matter once you have a billion how many billions you have? I mean, a billion is kinda a lot no? Just say - that's really successful to have in a small country, that many financially successful people. Let's look at how that came to be.

? show me the percent of their black and Hispanic population.

Why?

You know exactly why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would imagine a small country comprised of people who share common values about what their society should be like would be fairly easy to manage. And they pay relatively little of their GDP for defense.

The US subsidizes their defense for over half a century.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would imagine a small country comprised of people who share common values about what their society should be like would be fairly easy to manage. And they pay relatively little of their GDP for defense.

The US is the biggest economy in the world with $76,000 GDP per capita vs Sweden’s $56,000. The US spends $2,226 per capita on defence/military, more than Sweden but not sure its particularly relevant to this particular thread? Out of interest, the US spends 2.9% of GDP and Sweden says it reach 2.1% this year.

With those vast resources, the size of its domestic market, potential efficiencies and deep capital markets, it’s hardly surprising the US produces billionaires with great wealth. If Jeff Besos sells a $5 pair of socks to every American, he will make over $1.5 billion revenue. If a Swede sells a pair of socks to every countryman or woman, they’ll make $50 million. Probably not enough for a super yacht.

Surely it must be much easier to become a billionaire in this country? If you have a fantastic idea, it’s easier to raise cash and roll it out and you have a huge market with few market barriers. Even the top 10 wealthiest people in the grocery sector are billionaires. I can’t imagine there are too many billionaires selling bottles of milk in Sweden.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would imagine a small country comprised of people who share common values about what their society should be like would be fairly easy to manage. And they pay relatively little of their GDP for defense.

The US is the biggest economy in the world with $76,000 GDP per capita vs Sweden’s $56,000. The US spends $2,226 per capita on defence/military, more than Sweden but not sure its particularly relevant to this particular thread? Out of interest, the US spends 2.9% of GDP and Sweden says it reach 2.1% this year.

With those vast resources, the size of its domestic market, potential efficiencies and deep capital markets, it’s hardly surprising the US produces billionaires with great wealth. If Jeff Besos sells a $5 pair of socks to every American, he will make over $1.5 billion revenue. If a Swede sells a pair of socks to every countryman or woman, they’ll make $50 million. Probably not enough for a super yacht.

Surely it must be much easier to become a billionaire in this country? If you have a fantastic idea, it’s easier to raise cash and roll it out and you have a huge market with few market barriers. Even the top 10 wealthiest people in the grocery sector are billionaires. I can’t imagine there are too many billionaires selling bottles of milk in Sweden.

Sweden is part of the common EU market, so Jeff Bezos could sell a 5 dollar pair of socks to around 450 million people from Sweden the same as selling from California to Texas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would imagine a small country comprised of people who share common values about what their society should be like would be fairly easy to manage. And they pay relatively little of their GDP for defense.

The US is the biggest economy in the world with $76,000 GDP per capita vs Sweden’s $56,000. The US spends $2,226 per capita on defence/military, more than Sweden but not sure its particularly relevant to this particular thread? Out of interest, the US spends 2.9% of GDP and Sweden says it reach 2.1% this year.

With those vast resources, the size of its domestic market, potential efficiencies and deep capital markets, it’s hardly surprising the US produces billionaires with great wealth. If Jeff Besos sells a $5 pair of socks to every American, he will make over $1.5 billion revenue. If a Swede sells a pair of socks to every countryman or woman, they’ll make $50 million. Probably not enough for a super yacht.

Surely it must be much easier to become a billionaire in this country? If you have a fantastic idea, it’s easier to raise cash and roll it out and you have a huge market with few market barriers. Even the top 10 wealthiest people in the grocery sector are billionaires. I can’t imagine there are too many billionaires selling bottles of milk in Sweden.

Sweden is part of the common EU market, so Jeff Bezos could sell a 5 dollar pair of socks to around 450 million people from Sweden the same as selling from California to Texas.

No doubt the common EU market makes a huge difference but it’s not as easy for a company or start up that doesn’t have resources like Amazon. There are 24 different languages, local market peculiarities, different advertising strategies for each country, local labour, corporate and consumer laws, different currencies (eg Sweden still uses kroner), etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haha. Let's see their demographics.
How can you compare a country of ten million people - very homogeneous, with the U.S., which is easily the most populous multi-cultural county in the world?

They are not as homogeneous as you think. Twenty percent of the population is foreign born (13.6% in US). It has the highest proportion of asylum seekers in Europe.

This is all from the last decade or so. Even with all of their social programs, they are struggling to integrate the “migrants” and the patience of the populace is wearing thin.

And? All you’re saying is that Sweden is having exactly the same sort of problem that many countries are experiencing. How is this relevant exactly?

Relevant because someone was arguing their success comes from homogeneity, while someone else said "no, because they have a large foreign-born population." So the relevance is: their economy was based on homogeneity, but it is and will soon be affected by a large illiterate population. Same as us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haha. Let's see their demographics.
How can you compare a country of ten million people - very homogeneous, with the U.S., which is easily the most populous multi-cultural county in the world?

They are not as homogeneous as you think. Twenty percent of the population is foreign born (13.6% in US). It has the highest proportion of asylum seekers in Europe.

This is all from the last decade or so. Even with all of their social programs, they are struggling to integrate the “migrants” and the patience of the populace is wearing thin.

And? All you’re saying is that Sweden is having exactly the same sort of problem that many countries are experiencing. How is this relevant exactly?

Relevant because someone was arguing their success comes from homogeneity, while someone else said "no, because they have a large foreign-born population." So the relevance is: their economy was based on homogeneity, but it is and will soon be affected by a large illiterate population. Same as us.

It's too simplistic to attribute economic success to homogeneity or diversity. Plenty of homogeneous countries have average economies. There is also evidence that diversity contributes to economic success but diversity can mean many different things. Plus the rate of producing billionaires is hardly necessarily a complete measure of economic success.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haha. Let's see their demographics.
How can you compare a country of ten million people - very homogeneous, with the U.S., which is easily the most populous multi-cultural county in the world?

They are not as homogeneous as you think. Twenty percent of the population is foreign born (13.6% in US). It has the highest proportion of asylum seekers in Europe.

This is all from the last decade or so. Even with all of their social programs, they are struggling to integrate the “migrants” and the patience of the populace is wearing thin.

And? All you’re saying is that Sweden is having exactly the same sort of problem that many countries are experiencing. How is this relevant exactly?

Relevant because someone was arguing their success comes from homogeneity, while someone else said "no, because they have a large foreign-born population." So the relevance is: their economy was based on homogeneity, but it is and will soon be affected by a large illiterate population. Same as us.

It's too simplistic to attribute economic success to homogeneity or diversity. Plenty of homogeneous countries have average economies. There is also evidence that diversity contributes to economic success but diversity can mean many different things. Plus the rate of producing billionaires is hardly necessarily a complete measure of economic success.

The US has a more successful economy based on GDP per capita and is also diverse.

[Anonymous]

Sweden is a social democracy. It has a thriving capitalist economy, high taxes and an extensive welfare state.

People have this simplistic notion that you need small government in order to have a thriving market and broad prosperity but that's wrong.