Is life really better in Scandinavian countries?

[Anonymous]

I am a black person married to a Finn. I have also in-laws in Sweden and have spent time there. The (anti-black, anti-Muslim) racism in Scandinavia is quite intense. It is true that there are lots of brown people in Sweden (only a handful in Finland), but they are and always will be outsiders. I absolutely do not want my brown-skinned children to grow up there.

On the other hand, I think my in-laws have a great quality of life. Yes, they live in small homes and drive small cars and have less stuff, but none of that stuff is important. I love spending time in Finland and going to the public sauna, eating fresh berries and going for walks in the woods or cross-country skiing all day. That is a nice way to live and doesn't require lots of money and a big car. Finland also has the best doughnuts (munkki). Yum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My BIL is a medical doctor in stockholm. His wife works high up at a big tech company (well there are almost no legit tech companies in europe but it is the european subsidiary of a big US company). They can barely afford a condo in the suburbs of stockholm with two bedrooms thanks to terrible government planning, socialist intervention and a near zero supply of places to live. So if you would like to be in the kind of place where a tech executive and surgeon call a two bedroom, 70 year old condo "a great lifestyle," then I guess Sweden is the place for you.

Lol yeah America is just awash is affordable housing!!

It's awash in affordable housing for a couple who are a tech exec and surgeon NO MATTER where you live.

That’s what socialism does. It makes life harder for a highly educated couple with good jobs. You have to pay for all of these benefits for the masses. I have many friends in Northern European countries and they are all well educated with good jobs. Their lifestyles and QOL are all worse than comparable couples here in the US. The COL of similar to living in Manhattan except they live in mid-tier cities you’ve likely never even heard of. They mostly eat at home, live in small homes or apartments, have one car, vacation in Spain, both couples work, send their kids to large daycares. In comparison the American couples have Nannies, live in larger homes, multiple cars, similar vacation time, wife wouldn’t have to work if they scaled back.

There are a lot of factors driving this though. Lower worker productivity, less innovation, less access to capital markets, fewer natural resources, currency risk etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My BIL is a medical doctor in stockholm. His wife works high up at a big tech company (well there are almost no legit tech companies in europe but it is the european subsidiary of a big US company). They can barely afford a condo in the suburbs of stockholm with two bedrooms thanks to terrible government planning, socialist intervention and a near zero supply of places to live. So if you would like to be in the kind of place where a tech executive and surgeon call a two bedroom, 70 year old condo "a great lifestyle," then I guess Sweden is the place for you.

Lol yeah America is just awash is affordable housing!!

It's awash in affordable housing for a couple who are a tech exec and surgeon NO MATTER where you live.

That’s what socialism does. It makes life harder for a highly educated couple with good jobs. You have to pay for all of these benefits for the masses. I have many friends in Northern European countries and they are all well educated with good jobs. Their lifestyles and QOL are all worse than comparable couples here in the US. The COL of similar to living in Manhattan except they live in mid-tier cities you’ve likely never even heard of. They mostly eat at home, live in small homes or apartments, have one car, vacation in Spain, both couples work, send their kids to large daycares. In comparison the American couples have Nannies, live in larger homes, multiple cars, similar vacation time, wife wouldn’t have to work if they scaled back.

There are a lot of factors driving this though. Lower worker productivity, less innovation, less access to capital markets, fewer natural resources, currency risk etc.

Perhaps you might consider that having larger homes, more expensive vacations, nannies, and multiple cars does not make people happy. Those happiness surveys reflect a sense of contentment and security rather than DCUM's version of the good life as reflected in cars, vacations, and the square footage of homes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My BIL is a medical doctor in stockholm. His wife works high up at a big tech company (well there are almost no legit tech companies in europe but it is the european subsidiary of a big US company). They can barely afford a condo in the suburbs of stockholm with two bedrooms thanks to terrible government planning, socialist intervention and a near zero supply of places to live. So if you would like to be in the kind of place where a tech executive and surgeon call a two bedroom, 70 year old condo "a great lifestyle," then I guess Sweden is the place for you.

Lol yeah America is just awash is affordable housing!!

It's awash in affordable housing for a couple who are a tech exec and surgeon NO MATTER where you live.

That’s what socialism does. It makes life harder for a highly educated couple with good jobs. You have to pay for all of these benefits for the masses. I have many friends in Northern European countries and they are all well educated with good jobs. Their lifestyles and QOL are all worse than comparable couples here in the US. The COL of similar to living in Manhattan except they live in mid-tier cities you’ve likely never even heard of. They mostly eat at home, live in small homes or apartments, have one car, vacation in Spain, both couples work, send their kids to large daycares. In comparison the American couples have Nannies, live in larger homes, multiple cars, similar vacation time, wife wouldn’t have to work if they scaled back.

There are a lot of factors driving this though. Lower worker productivity, less innovation, less access to capital markets, fewer natural resources, currency risk etc.

Perhaps you might consider that having larger homes, more expensive vacations, nannies, and multiple cars does not make people happy. Those happiness surveys reflect a sense of contentment and security rather than DCUM's version of the good life as reflected in cars, vacations, and the square footage of homes.

It is actually really simple: different strokes for different folks. The hard part is keeping in place a system that can accommodate such diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Worked in a Scandinavian country for many years and the poster who noted the homogeneity of the population is spot on. There is little discussion on how racist and unwelcoming they are to immigrants or non-white people. It’s not even subtle.

People criticize American individualism but most Americans would be shocked to live in a Scandinavian country and be expected to be the same religion (not religious), dress the same, lifestyle the same, food the same, I could go on….you must conform.

I’m so glad to be American and do whatever I want within reason. I can be who I want to be.

Even a month ago someone in Norway was convinced of hate crimes by posting something offensive on the internet. Can you imagine posting something hateful on Facebook and being sent to jail?

Have you ever been to Scandanavia? For example, Sweden is second only to the US in racial diversity with 20 percent non-white inhabitants thanks to generous asylum criteria for refugees. It’s got mosques, synagogues and temples which might give you a clue that not everyone practices the same religion. And it’s got 1 year maternity/paternity leave. I tried to google to see what you were babbling about regarding Norway and being put in jail for putting something on Facebook and couldn’t find it. Why don’t you include a source so we can judge.

Not that PP but the first thing that came up for me on the first try when I googled was this : https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/18918131.2021.1872762

In January 2020, two persons in Norway were condemned by a unanimous Supreme Court of Norway for comments posted on ‘closed’ Facebook groups. With the two decisions, the Supreme Court confirmed for the first time the boundaries of hateful, racist, and discriminatory speech in the context of online utterances in social media. It also established a new sanctioning standard for hate speech.

I'm not sure I would count a statement of condemnation as the same thing as imprisonment. Isn't that rather hyperbolic?

The person is going to jail for 2 years for what they posted on FB.

Stop explaining to that person, they don't want this information they want to exist in ignorance

[Anonymous]

YOURWAY2NORWAY


Some of you might find the yourway2norway videos interesting. They’re both informative and often hilariously funny takes on what it’s like to live in Norway. One of the two guys who create them is part Sea Sami and part Chilean and Italian, which gives him a very different and very sensitive perspective on Norwegian culture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My BIL is a medical doctor in stockholm. His wife works high up at a big tech company (well there are almost no legit tech companies in europe but it is the european subsidiary of a big US company). They can barely afford a condo in the suburbs of stockholm with two bedrooms thanks to terrible government planning, socialist intervention and a near zero supply of places to live. So if you would like to be in the kind of place where a tech executive and surgeon call a two bedroom, 70 year old condo "a great lifestyle," then I guess Sweden is the place for you.

Lol yeah America is just awash is affordable housing!!

It's awash in affordable housing for a couple who are a tech exec and surgeon NO MATTER where you live.

That’s what socialism does. It makes life harder for a highly educated couple with good jobs. You have to pay for all of these benefits for the masses. I have many friends in Northern European countries and they are all well educated with good jobs. Their lifestyles and QOL are all worse than comparable couples here in the US. The COL of similar to living in Manhattan except they live in mid-tier cities you’ve likely never even heard of. They mostly eat at home, live in small homes or apartments, have one car, vacation in Spain, both couples work, send their kids to large daycares. In comparison the American couples have Nannies, live in larger homes, multiple cars, similar vacation time, wife wouldn’t have to work if they scaled back.

There are a lot of factors driving this though. Lower worker productivity, less innovation, less access to capital markets, fewer natural resources, currency risk etc.

Perhaps you might consider that having larger homes, more expensive vacations, nannies, and multiple cars does not make people happy. Those happiness surveys reflect a sense of contentment and security rather than DCUM's version of the good life as reflected in cars, vacations, and the square footage of homes.

That’s fine but everyone I know in Scandinavia wants as much space as possible and to drive newer cars. They also dislike how their kids are always sick from daycare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My BIL is a medical doctor in stockholm. His wife works high up at a big tech company (well there are almost no legit tech companies in europe but it is the european subsidiary of a big US company). They can barely afford a condo in the suburbs of stockholm with two bedrooms thanks to terrible government planning, socialist intervention and a near zero supply of places to live. So if you would like to be in the kind of place where a tech executive and surgeon call a two bedroom, 70 year old condo "a great lifestyle," then I guess Sweden is the place for you.

Lol yeah America is just awash is affordable housing!!

It's awash in affordable housing for a couple who are a tech exec and surgeon NO MATTER where you live.

That’s what socialism does. It makes life harder for a highly educated couple with good jobs. You have to pay for all of these benefits for the masses. I have many friends in Northern European countries and they are all well educated with good jobs. Their lifestyles and QOL are all worse than comparable couples here in the US. The COL of similar to living in Manhattan except they live in mid-tier cities you’ve likely never even heard of. They mostly eat at home, live in small homes or apartments, have one car, vacation in Spain, both couples work, send their kids to large daycares. In comparison the American couples have Nannies, live in larger homes, multiple cars, similar vacation time, wife wouldn’t have to work if they scaled back.

There are a lot of factors driving this though. Lower worker productivity, less innovation, less access to capital markets, fewer natural resources, currency risk etc.

Perhaps you might consider that having larger homes, more expensive vacations, nannies, and multiple cars does not make people happy. Those happiness surveys reflect a sense of contentment and security rather than DCUM's version of the good life as reflected in cars, vacations, and the square footage of homes.

That’s fine but everyone I know in Scandinavia wants as much space as possible and to drive newer cars. They also dislike how their kids are always sick from daycare.

Again, it’s kind of simple - there really are no circumstances where less choices, less diversity and less options are better than more of each.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a personality thing: I want all the opportunities and all the responsibilities. Others don’t. I don’t want to live in a place where everything is done for me but there is a cap on what I can do/achieve. Others may be ok with it.

I think that’s fair. My personality is much more comfortable with a “cap.” I’m so over hyper capitalism. If you’re like me, it’s all about figuring out ways to resist.

How about you do what you need to do to live the way you want and let others do the same. I don’t want to get in your way and you shouldn’t get in mine.

+1. Then be over hypercapitalism. I live a very not flashy life here. I’m not relying on others to do as I’m doing in order to be comfortable with my own life choices. I don’t need to engage in the meaningless semantics of “resisting”; I am also not imposing my lifestyle on others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a personality thing: I want all the opportunities and all the responsibilities. Others don’t. I don’t want to live in a place where everything is done for me but there is a cap on what I can do/achieve. Others may be ok with it.

I think that’s fair. My personality is much more comfortable with a “cap.” I’m so over hyper capitalism. If you’re like me, it’s all about figuring out ways to resist.

How about you do what you need to do to live the way you want and let others do the same. I don’t want to get in your way and you shouldn’t get in mine.

+1. Then be over hypercapitalism. I live a very not flashy life here. I’m not relying on others to do as I’m doing in order to be comfortable with my own life choices. I don’t need to engage in the meaningless semantics of “resisting”; I am also not imposing my lifestyle on others.

Good for you but don’t tell anyone what to be over or under. Just do your thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:YOURWAY2NORWAY


Some of you might find the yourway2norway videos interesting. They’re both informative and often hilariously funny takes on what it’s like to live in Norway. One of the two guys who create them is part Sea Sami and part Chilean and Italian, which gives him a very different and very sensitive perspective on Norwegian culture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a personality thing: I want all the opportunities and all the responsibilities. Others don’t. I don’t want to live in a place where everything is done for me but there is a cap on what I can do/achieve. Others may be ok with it.

I think that’s fair. My personality is much more comfortable with a “cap.” I’m so over hyper capitalism. If you’re like me, it’s all about figuring out ways to resist.

How about you do what you need to do to live the way you want and let others do the same. I don’t want to get in your way and you shouldn’t get in mine.

+1. Then be over hypercapitalism. I live a very not flashy life here. I’m not relying on others to do as I’m doing in order to be comfortable with my own life choices. I don’t need to engage in the meaningless semantics of “resisting”; I am also not imposing my lifestyle on others.

Good for you but don’t tell anyone what to be over or under. Just do your thing.

Um, I think that was the PP’s point: you can have your thing without imposing it on others.

Reading comprehension goes a long way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Worked in a Scandinavian country for many years and the poster who noted the homogeneity of the population is spot on. There is little discussion on how racist and unwelcoming they are to immigrants or non-white people. It’s not even subtle.

People criticize American individualism but most Americans would be shocked to live in a Scandinavian country and be expected to be the same religion (not religious), dress the same, lifestyle the same, food the same, I could go on….you must conform.

I’m so glad to be American and do whatever I want within reason. I can be who I want to be.

Even a month ago someone in Norway was convinced of hate crimes by posting something offensive on the internet. Can you imagine posting something hateful on Facebook and being sent to jail?

Have you ever been to Scandanavia? For example, Sweden is second only to the US in racial diversity with 20 percent non-white inhabitants thanks to generous asylum criteria for refugees. It’s got mosques, synagogues and temples which might give you a clue that not everyone practices the same religion. And it’s got 1 year maternity/paternity leave. I tried to google to see what you were babbling about regarding Norway and being put in jail for putting something on Facebook and couldn’t find it. Why don’t you include a source so we can judge.

You think 20% non-white is diverse?

I think it is OK for white people to have countries.

A sampling of "other" countries:
https://www.infoplease.com/world/social-statistics/ethnicity-and-race-countries

Bangladesh: 98% Bengali
Benin: 99% "African"
Burundi: Hutu (Bantu) 85%, Tutsi (Hamitic) 14%, Twa (Pygmy) 1%
Cambodia: Khmer 90%, Vietnamese 5%, Chinese 1%, other 4%
Cameroon: Cameroon Highlanders 31%, Equatorial Bantu 19%, Kirdi 11%, Fulani 10%, Northwest Bantu 8%, Eastern Nigritic 7%, other African 13%, non-African less than 1%
China: Han Chinese 91.9%, Zhuang, Uygur, Hui, Yi, Tibetan, Miao, Manchu, Mongol, Buyi, Korean, and other nationalities 8.1%
Republic of Congo: Kongo 48%, Sangha 20%, M'Bochi 12%, Teke 17%, Europeans and other 3%

Do you run around to these countries and complain about diversity?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My BIL is a medical doctor in stockholm. His wife works high up at a big tech company (well there are almost no legit tech companies in europe but it is the european subsidiary of a big US company). They can barely afford a condo in the suburbs of stockholm with two bedrooms thanks to terrible government planning, socialist intervention and a near zero supply of places to live. So if you would like to be in the kind of place where a tech executive and surgeon call a two bedroom, 70 year old condo "a great lifestyle," then I guess Sweden is the place for you.

Lol yeah America is just awash is affordable housing!!

It's awash in affordable housing for a couple who are a tech exec and surgeon NO MATTER where you live.

That’s what socialism does. It makes life harder for a highly educated couple with good jobs. You have to pay for all of these benefits for the masses. I have many friends in Northern European countries and they are all well educated with good jobs. Their lifestyles and QOL are all worse than comparable couples here in the US. The COL of similar to living in Manhattan except they live in mid-tier cities you’ve likely never even heard of. They mostly eat at home, live in small homes or apartments, have one car, vacation in Spain, both couples work, send their kids to large daycares. In comparison the American couples have Nannies, live in larger homes, multiple cars, similar vacation time, wife wouldn’t have to work if they scaled back.

There are a lot of factors driving this though. Lower worker productivity, less innovation, less access to capital markets, fewer natural resources, currency risk etc.

Perhaps you might consider that having larger homes, more expensive vacations, nannies, and multiple cars does not make people happy. Those happiness surveys reflect a sense of contentment and security rather than DCUM's version of the good life as reflected in cars, vacations, and the square footage of homes.

Everyone of these surveys uses universal health care as a component of happiness.

[Anonymous]

It is nice to not have to worry about health care and have work - life balance. When you are sick, you can see a doctor and stay home until you are better. When your kid is sick, you can take off work and stay home. If you end up unemployed for a while, you still have health care. It’s okay to take three weeks off to travel to Thailand or spend summer at the lake house. Enjoying nature is a way of life and relaxation a priority. Now you may live in a smaller apartment or house, and if you are a 1%er your life would probably be more luxurious in the US, but for the average middle class family, life is much more relaxed in Scandinavia (and some other European countries).