HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: lhe@sics.se (Lars-Henrik Eriksson)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: You have to be rich to get the Authorities to listen
Date: 9 Apr 92 07:30:54 GMT
Reply-To: lhe@sics.se (Lars-Henrik Eriksson)
Organization: SICS, Kista (Stockholm), Sweden
Originator: lhe@yang.sics.se

In article <10882@chalmers.se>, d9bertil@dtek (Bertil Jonell) writes:
>In article <1992Apr8.100956.21440@kth.se> tomas_e@LINK.Physchem.KTH.SE writes:
>>Perhaps you have AXE in T{by, but where I live (Nacka) we have to bear with
>>the old electromechanical switch station another two years or so.
>
>  Besides, Telev{rken can't even manage to tranfer from the old systems to
>AXE without having to change the telephone numbers!

Swedish Telecom can very well transfer from the old exchanges to AXE
without changing telephone numbers. They have done so in many places.
There has also been a need, in many places, to revise the number plan
to avoid a lack of free numbers (you do know that the routing in the
telephone network is based on the phone number itself?). Obviously it
is convenient to change the numbers at the same time as they change
the exchange.

I am certain that Swedish Telecom would be very happy to learn from
you how to maintain availability of free phone numbers for new
subscribtions without having to occasionally change the numbering
plan. You can call them on phone number 90 200.

Besides, I'm tired of hearing your enless nitting on governmental
companies and agencies. Do you have to write snide remarks about
everything the public sector does just because it is the public
sector?
-- 
-- 
Lars-Henrik Eriksson				Internet: lhe@sics.se
Swedish Institute of Computer Science		Phone (intn'l): +46 8 752 15 09
Box 1263					Telefon (nat'l): 08 - 752 15 09
S-164 28  KISTA, SWEDEN
From: fslsh@ocs01.lerc.nasa.gov (Lennart S Hultgren)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Swedish Prime minister says Sweden gaining democratic freedom
Date: 15 Apr 92 18:55:50 GMT
Article-I.D.: eagle.1992Apr15.185550.6750
Organization: NASA Lewis Research Center

In article <1992Apr14.125545.21644@eua.ericsson.se> euafri@eua.ericsson.se (Fredrik.Ostman) writes:
>
>Oh I'm sorry, what I meant was I have a democratic right to *live in* my
>country and to *live in* my culture. Karl IX (I think) said Ergo
>Emigrarent about what the Danish nobility should do after Sweden had 
>conquered Denmark (which didn't happen that time). This view of one's
>oppponents seems to live on in Sweden, but is a system with political
>refugees really democratic? Wasn't this the normal way to get rid of
>dissidents in the Stalinist East-bloc? "Hey move out or we'll put you
>away for good in the Gulag!" This is what I meant.
>--

Do not muddle the issue! A political refugee is a person that is
forced to leave due to persecution because of his/her views.  A person
is *definitely* not a political refugee if the reason for leaving is
greater opportunity or because another system appears better.  If one
were to claim that high taxes forced the departure then one could
possibly qualify as an economic refugee -- however it would be
preposterous for somebody from a relatively wealthy country as Sweden
to claim this.

--
Lennart S. Hultgren           | SnailMail: Mail Stop 5-9   | Any similarity of 
Email: hultgren@lerc.nasa.gov | NASA Lewis Research Center | my views and those
Voice: (216) 433-6070         | Cleveland, OH 44135        | of my employer are
FAX:   (216) 433-8864         |                            | purely accidental
From: euafri@eua.ericsson.se (Fredrik.Ostman)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Swedish Prime minister says Sweden gaining de
Date: 9 Apr 92 07:00:59 GMT
Organization: Ellemtel Telecom Systems Labs, Stockholm, Sweden

Allon Percus writes:
>Fredrik.Ostman writes:

>>Of course swedish education costs. Paying it over
>>the tax bill instead of directly to the school only makes the economy
>>of it less efficient...

>Well right then, if you want a really efficient system why don't
>you just take the university system we have here in the U.S. and
>pay ~ 100,000Kr a year for your education.  Do you like that better?

Yes.

>Oh yes, it is indeed a well-known fact that if you pay for something
>directly it is very efficient and inexpensive.

I agree with you, Allon.
--
  ______                     _~
 (_/_ _  _  _/) _  . /)     / ) , _/)     _
__/ _/(_(/_(/__/(_/_/Z_    (_/_/)_/__/))_(I_/)_
From: tomas_e@LINK.Physchem.KTH.SE (Tomas Eriksson)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Medical Programs (was RE: Swedish Prime Minister says Sweden)
Date: 8 Apr 92 10:20:29 GMT
Reply-To: tomas_e@LINK.Physchem.KTH.SE
Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm

In article <1992Apr8.084014.1@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi>, huumala@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi writes:
>> The medical program is also 5,5 years, i.e. 
>> longer than in USA. (It's an undergraduate program.) Then you have 2 
>> years residency/internship before you become a registered physician.
>> I do not envy them.
>
>Wait a second.  I am not a doctor nor a medical student, but I have been
>an ambulance attendant at one time and did look into med-school.
>You claim that the 5,5 years undergraduate program is longer than the U.S.
>program.  I beg to differ.  First you need your undergraduate degree before
>you can even apply for med-school.   Theoretically 4 years, but it takes an
>average of 4 and a half years going full time.  Very few people complete
>their undergraduate degree in 4 years now-a-days.

Well, you're right... almost. Deduct at least one year from U.S. college
to make up for their inferior high school. :-) Then remember that you 
get a <professional> doctorate over there when you've completed 
med-school. So you add four postgraduate years to become medicine doktor 
in Sweden. Which still means it's still longer. Another point is that the
four  undergraduate years in college are probably much easier (and 
cheaper, if you have to pay for them directly, and not indirectly 
through taxes) than the four years in med-school. In Sweden you have 5,5 of
those tough years.

Tomas
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tomas Eriksson                                          tomas_e@physchem.kth.se
            Surface Force Group, Department of Physical Chemistry,
               Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
From: d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se (Bertil Jonell)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Why the Swedes squeal so much
Date: 16 Apr 92 14:58:12 GMT
Organization: Chalmers University of Technology

In article <1992Apr14.172300.6223@lth.se> sundinKC@dna.lth.se (Anders Sundin) writes:
>Bertil Jonell writes:
>>                         1980    1889    Change in percentage
>> =============================================================
>> 1000's of visits        5753    5254    -4%
>> number of doctors       3023    3992    +32%
>>
>> [...]
>> The real reason why we squeal so much over that we pay so much is that
>> *we see that we get less and less*, and soon we will probably get as little
>> as you get, but pay several times more!
>
>This situation is easily amended. You only have to lay off 25 percent of the
>current staff at hospitals to be back at 1980 again.
>Why don't you write to Carl Bildt to tell him about this brilliant idea of how
>to save hundreds of millions in one fell swoop?

  You mean steal your idea and take the credit for it? This is not America,
you know!:)

  Seriously, I don't think that will work. Apparently, there is today,with
the large amounts of doctors (and even larger amounts of adminstrators, most
hired to research ways to lower costs) a need for *more* healthcare in 
Sweden, as evidenced by the long waiting imes for many kinds of treatments.

  I assume that the doctors work hard during the number of work-hours they 
are contracted to put in, so the result of just decreasing the number of 
doctors with 32% would be a reduction in the care produced with 32%. The heart
of the problem is that the doctors really work too little. Why don't they
work enough? It is because they take all the overtime pay in time off. Why
do they take all the overtime pay in time off? It is because if they took it
in money, that money would viritually disappear due to the marginal effects
of the tax system. Instead they take it in time off and use that time to
work in their own private practice where they are taxed as a corporation.

> Anders Sundin           e-mail: sundinKC@dna.lth.se

-bertil-
--
"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or
 strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an
 exercise for your kill-file."
From: fslsh@ocs01.lerc.nasa.gov (Lennart S Hultgren)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Swedish Prime minister says Sweden gaining democratic freedom
Date: 15 Apr 92 13:33:34 GMT
Article-I.D.: eagle.1992Apr15.133334.9792
Organization: NASA Lewis Research Center

In article <1992Apr14.114134.24419@sics.se> lhe@sics.se (Lars-Henrik Eriksson) writes:
>In article <1992Apr13.153146.3403@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov>, fslsh@ocs01 (Lennart S Hultgren) writes:
>>In article <1992Apr13.071623.18372@eua.ericsson.se> euafri@eua.ericsson.se (Fredrik.Ostman) writes:
>>> [Ramblings omitted]
>>
>>You seem pretty fed-up with the situation in Sweden.  A simple
>>solution would just be to emigrate to a country where the tax
>>situation and philosophy is more to your liking.  If you can not find
>>one that fits your ticket then maybe Scandinavia is not so bad after
>>all.
>
>I disagree with most everything that Fredrik \stman says, but I like
>this kind of arguing even less. Your native country is your cultural
>background, where you have your friends etc. It is not something you
>give up lightly.
>
>If Fredrik thinks that Sweden is so awful, he has every right and
>reason to try to change it to the better (from his point of view)

no argument with anything so far

>without being told that he could emigrate.
>

Why not as long as he is not *told* or *made* to do so?  Besides,
please read the next sentence in my original posting.  The point is
that one option (by no means the *only* one) is to simply leave and
the careful examination of that option *might* make you better
understand the pros and cons of your current situation.
--
Lennart S. Hultgren           | SnailMail: Mail Stop 5-9   | Any similarity of 
Email: hultgren@lerc.nasa.gov | NASA Lewis Research Center | my views and those
Voice: (216) 433-6070         | Cleveland, OH 44135        | of my employer are
FAX:   (216) 433-8864         |                            | purely accidental
From: baardm@stud.cs.uit.no (Baard Misund)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Who'll be the next American President?
Date: 10 Apr 92 12:06:46 GMT
Organization: University of Tromsoe, Norway

In article <1992Apr10.013842.10907@husc3.harvard.edu>, percus@husc9.harvard.edu (Allon Percus) writes:
|> In article <1992Apr09.035334.110072@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu> gtr0@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (GLEN TORLEIF RYEN) writes:
|> >P.S.  I apologize that this post isn't Nordic in nature, but I had to respond
|> >to what I considered an insult to me and every other Eagle Scout in the world.
|> 
|> The WORLD???!!!
|> 
|> The "Eagle Scout" sounds like a purely American thing to me and, with
|> absolutely no offense or insult intended, slightly on the childish side.
|> 
|> Allon Percus

Yes, the world !!!!!! I know Eagle scouts who live in Norway, Germany, 
France etc... Childish, hah, you ignorant Thalassiosira nordenskoeldii.
Beeing an Eagle scout will help you get into Colleges and Universities
in the states. If two people were applying/competing for a place at 
college with the same grades from high school, the Eagle scout would be 
the one who got accepted.

Anyway, this discussion belongs in rec.scouts.

B.M.
From: rlerdorf@zeus.UWaterloo.ca (Rasmus Lerdorf)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Handball
Date: 10 Apr 92 17:41:51 GMT
Reply-To: rlerdorf@zeus.UWaterloo.ca
Organization: University of Waterloo

In article <1992Apr9.080528.24538@jyu.fi> ryyti@jyu.fi (Jarmo Ryyti) writes:
> In article <1992Apr8.141417.23121@eua.ericsson.se> euaaen@eua.ericsson.se  
(Anders Engwall) writes:
> I do not remember his name now. In canadian ice-hockey was a player
> one of the best during resent years who originated from Malta. 

From Malta?  I don't recall any such player.

By the way, seeing that Norway won the B-World Cup in Handball, who won the A?   
I used to play a lot of Handball in Denmark (HK-73 i Frederrikssund) and  
remember Denmark as an extremely strong Handball nation.  Are they considered  
an A team along with Sweden?  The sport is almost completely non-existent on  
this side of the pond.
--
Rasmus Lerdorf	rlerdorf@zeus.uwaterloo.ca	SD Eng '93
From: huumala@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Medical Programs (was RE: Swedish Prime Minister says Sweden)
Date: 8 Apr 92 06:40:14 GMT
Organization: Nokia Telecommunications.

> The medical program is also 5,5 years, i.e. 
> longer than in USA. (It's an undergraduate program.) Then you have 2 
> years residency/internship before you become a registered physician.
> I do not envy them.

Wait a second.  I am not a doctor nor a medical student, but I have been
an ambulance attendant at one time and did look into med-school.
You claim that the 5,5 years undergraduate program is longer than the U.S.
program.  I beg to differ.  First you need your undergraduate degree before
you can even apply for med-school.   Theoretically 4 years, but it takes an
average of 4 and a half years going full time.  Very few people complete
their undergraduate degree in 4 years now-a-days.  Supposedly you can get
into med-school with any B.S. degree, but you will probably fail the entrance
exams unless you have a B.S. in medicine or something similar.  Most people
who do not have that type of B.S. end up taking about a year of extra courses
before they manage to pass their entrace exams.  Add your 4 and a half years
of undergraduate work to your 4 and a half years in med-school and you have
9 years of schooling already.  Then you have 2 years of residency/internship
before becoming a registered physician.

You may argue that the B.S. is not part of med-school, but it is all part of
the schooling required to become a doctor.  I do not envy the U.S. medical
students at all.  I have my B.S. in electrical engineering and found that
I would probably have to study at least another year before even applying for
med-school.  No thanks.  I had enough of being broke.  I went to work to earn
money and can not get out of the habit of eating regularly.  Not a joke either,
going to University in the states, I found that I was not the only one who
could not afford to eat regularly.

t. Dean





the schooling required to become a doctor
From: leisti@cc.helsinki.fi (Teemu Leisti)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Finnish Economy
Date: 7 Apr 92 09:22:02 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

jtbell@hubcap.clemson.edu (Jon Bell) writes:

> Buried in the inside pages of today's (5 April) newspaper ("The State", of
> Columbia, South Carolina) is the following bit of news from Finland:
> 
> 
> "Prime Minister Esko Aho's year-old Cabinet called an emergency session
> on Saturday in an attempt to stabilize the economy and support the weakening
> currency.
> 
> "Aho called the meeting after up to $2.2 billion flowed out of Finland on
> Friday.  Currency dealers, lacking confidence in the weak Finnish economy
> and fearing a devaluation, traded markkaa for foreign currency from the
> central bank and deposited it abroad.
> 
> "The transfers cut central bank reserves by a third and fed speculation that
> the currency would have to be devalued on Monday."
> 
> 
> When _any_ news from Finland appears in a South Carolina newspaper (or for
> that matter in most U.S. newspapers), that usually means it's _big_ news in
> Finland.  Can anyone provide some details?   My newspaper probably won't
> bother to print a followup report...

The newspaper got it right.  The Finnish economy has been falling for
the past year and a half.  Unemployment is up to about 12%, or well over
300 000 people, and rising.  A couple of months ago there was a run on
the markka which finally forced the central bank to devalue by 14% (if I
remember correctly).  Another similar devaluation would have meant the
fall of the current cabinet and a serious blow to the credibility of
Finnish macroeconomic policy, or what's left of it.

During the weekend, the cabinet cobbled together a package of budget
reductions for the next few years.  Social security expenditures are to
be cut across the board.  However, the huge export subsidies for the
farmers remained untouched, and no structural changes are proposed.  The
cabinet seems to be simply responding to crisii, not showing very much
initiative or vision.

The director of the Bank of Finland was also dumped during the weekend,
and another person (a woman, by the way) appointed in his place.

Unlike the last time, the Bank of Finland had secured the support of
other central banks, including that of Germany, in its bid to keep the
markka stable.  Yesterday this seemed to be working, and another
devaluation within a short time may be avoided.

--  Teemu Leisti  /  U. of Helsinki, Finland  /  leisti@cc.helsinki.fi

The Net:  A wonderful invention enabling one to make enemies
          quickly and easily across the globe.
From: matsd@LINK.Physchem.KTH.SE (matsd@physchem.kth.se (mats dahlgren))
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Swedish Prime minister says Sweden gaining democratic freedom
Date: 7 Apr 92 20:45:09 GMT
Reply-To: matsd@LINK.Physchem.KTH.SE
Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm

In article <1992Apr7.070411.6411@sics.se>, lhe@sics.se (Lars-Henrik Eriksson) writes: 
>If would be well nigh technically impossible to avoid the VAT on
>energy tax. Sure, when you or I, as individuals, buy gas at the gas
>station, it would be no difficult matter to do it. BUT, consider your
>local taxi company. They buy lots of gas - paying energy tax - which
>*you* pay for when you take a taxi. Now, you pay VAT on taxi trips.
>How would you make an arrangement such that you would not have to pay
>VAT on that part of the fare that corresponds to the energy tax on the
>gasoline the taxi driver bought? Can you provide a *working* solution
>to this?

Yes.  It's very simple.  Lift off the VAT from all special taxes. If you
want another solution to your taxi-problem, there are two which
come to mind: 

1.  Take away the VAT on taxi trips.  I know this is contrary to the 
    intention in the taxation reform, but I don't think the reform was 
    100 percent good.  

2.  Take away the energy tax.  If you don't want ordinary people, 
    "Medelsvensson", to benefit from this, let the transportation
    companies (such as taxi co.'s) get a refund of the energy tax, or
    deduct it from the VAT they pay to the state. 

As you probaly can see, I don't mind if the total taxation is decreased.  
I cannot accept the state (i.e. politicians) saying there is a need to 
increase some taxations to lower others, as long as the state wastes 
some 37 000 000 000 kronor each year or so on the military.

>Perhaps the most important point is this: I sense an undertone in your
>posting that it is unfair to pay VAT on energy tax. Let me assure you
>that if a way was found to avoid this, the goverment would increase
>the energy tax and/or VAT to recover the lost amount.

I'm afraid you're right.  But this does not justify the state doing so.


mats d.

********************************************************************************

  mats dahlgren 
  Dept. of Physical Chemistry		Mail:	matsd@physchem.kth.se
  The Royal Institute of Technology	Phone:	+46 8 790 8595
  S-100 44  Stockholm, Sweden           Fax:	+46 8 790 8207

              All opinions expressed above are private opinions.
From: ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Swedes in Finland
Date: 10 Apr 92 23:43:12 GMT
Organization: MacDTS Mongols

In article <1992Apr2.052955.26726@jyu.fi>, ryyti@jyu.fi (Jarmo Ryyti) writes:
> 
> In article <22259@goofy.Apple.COM> ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik) writes:
>> >..hehe, what I've heard there are villages in Minnesota USA, and 
> >even a village somewhere in Queensland Australia where the majority
> >speaks Finnish daily (emigration places from the 19:th century). 
> Jarmo Ryyti writes,
> 
> Just recently A Congres on Security and Co-operation in Europe started
> in Helsinki. One of the main issues are there the situation of the minorities
> in Europe. One should notice that first time since 1975 when the first
> meeting was held the issues on minority rights are an agenda on the congres.
> 1975-1992 there were some states who opposed the idea to take minority rights
> on agenda, first there were socialist countires (nowx) then France and SWEDEN.
> SWEDEN CONSIDERED THAT THERE ARE NO MINORITIES IN SWEDEN BUT IMMIGRANTS.

You forgot to add Australia, Canada and United states to the list of countries
that does not use the term minority for people that deliberately have moved
to another country in order to improve their living standard.

Cheers,
Kent
From: rcf@pnet01.cts.com (Bob Forsythe)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Hard times in Norway?
Date: 14 Apr 92 15:16:09 GMT
Organization: People-Net [pnet01], El Cajon CA


baker@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Andrew Baker) writes:
>In article <1992Apr12.151608.16612@crash.cts.com> rcf@pnet01.cts.com (Bob Forsythe) writes:
>>     What the U.S. does is decide that anyone who isn't employed by the time
>>their unemployment insurance runs out doesn't want to be employed, and
>>therefore takes them off the unemployment rolls.  Makes for a lovely little
>>statistical lie.
>
>This is completely false.  The U.S. government surveys a random group of
>people asking them (1) whether they worked last week, and (2) whether they
>looked for work last week.  People who answer "no" and "yes" respectively
>are considered to be unemployed.  People who answer "no" to both questions
>are not considered to be part of the labor force.  While this definition
>might differ from that of other countries, the statistic is not intended to
>be used for international comparisons, and anyway if you want to compare
>different countries, per capita GNP or GDP (presumbably normalized by
>purchasing power) is a much better statistic (if I can get a 15% higher
>salary in return for being unemployed 6% of the time, that's fine with me).
>And this has little to do with unemployment insurance; e.g., a new person
>looking for his/her first job is considered to be unemployed until finding
>this job, but this individual will certainly not receive any unemployment
>compensation.


     Sounds about the same to me.  Someone is unemployed whether they looked
for a job or not.  I wasn't speaking to international comparisons, just to the
manipulation of stats WRT American unemployment.  There are a lot of reasons
someone might not look for a job in a specific week.  To write them out of the
labor force hardly addresses the percentage of unemployed in this country.

-Bob
rcf@pnet01.cts.com