HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: etxonss@ufsa.ericsson.se (Staffan Axelsson)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: You have to be rich to get the Authorities to listen
Date: 10 Apr 92 14:23:29 GMT
Organization: Ericsson Telecom, Stockholm, Sweden

In article <1992Apr10.000258.16846@sics.se> lhe@sics.se (Lars-Henrik Eriksson) writes:
>In article <10922@chalmers.se>, d9bertil@dtek (Bertil Jonell) writes:
>>In article <1992Apr9.073054.1200@sics.se> lhe@sics.se (Lars-Henrik Eriksson) writes:
>>>Swedish Telecom can very well transfer from the old exchanges to AXE
>>>without changing telephone numbers.
>>
>>  Let the record show that when AXE was installed in Onsala, south of
>>Gothenburg, all households was asked if they wanted to 
>>  a) keep their old number and not get AXE
>>  b) get AXE and a new number.
>>
>>  Any alternative c) keep their old number and get AXE wasn't available. 
>>When questioned they blamed this on "the computer" which is a euphemism from
>>"We don't want to!" when it is used by big corporations and agencies.
>
>I don't doubt what you're saying, but you can't use this example to
>draw the conclusion that Swedish Telecom can not or have not replaced
>electromechanical exchanges by AXE without changing numbers. In fact,
>such a conclusion would be false, as there *are* lots of areas that
>have gotten AXE without getting new numbers.
>
>Your example is actually an example of good service on the part of
>Swedish Telecom (even an official service). Since all of Sweden won't
>get AXE for many years to come, subscribers in some areas are offered
>a connection to a nearby exchange (*not their own*) which has AXE.
>Since the telephone number contains routing information, you would
>have to get a new number in this case. In my humble opinion this is
>laudable and very good customer service.
>
>Actually, from your example it should be clear that the old exchange
>*wasn't* actually replaced by an AXE. Since you could keep your old
>number without getting AXE, the old station must still be there!
>
>>>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.
>>
>>  They can do as they are doing here in Gothenburg right now: Add a digit in
>>front of the number: All 7X XX XX numbers become 7 7X XX XX.
>
>Adding a digit or replacing the first digit is what they usually do.
>It is very unusual that the entire phone number is changed.
>

Are you sure your name isn't Lars-Magnus Eriksson  :-) :-) 

>-- 
>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

Staffan
From: d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se (Bertil Jonell)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Swedish Capitalists
Date: 14 Apr 92 14:09:12 GMT
Organization: Chalmers University of Technology

In article <702691217.F00004@blkcat.UUCP> John.DeCarlo@p109.f131.n109.z1.fidonet.org (John DeCarlo) writes:
>Well, I went to a talk by the Swedish Ambassador to the U.S. organized by my 
>Swedish School, basically about the changes with the new government.  Two 
>things he said are relevant to this discussion. 
>
>1) When the VAT was reduced from 25% to 18% on food/goods (?), the prices in 
>the stores didn't go down at all (or very little).  The store owners said "At 
>least the prices didn't go up." !!
 
  Yes, all stores did the same thing at the same time, there really weren't
no choice but to pay up. This is because of several factors:

  1) The anti-trust laws in Sweden is a lame duck if ever I saw one. Basically,
if a number of companies come forth and confess that they have been setting 
prices in collusion with eachother they will have to pay a *very* small fine.
     Take the price of gas for example. All oil companies raise it the 
same amount on the same day, and when questioned blame it on pure chance.

  2) There is an extra level between the producer and the consumer. In the
case of food, viritually all foodstuffs sold in quantity in Sweden pass through
one level of distributors more than in other countries. To compound this
problem, this extra level of distributors is held in a near-monopoly by a
handfull of big corporations that have the individual stores tied up for
life.

  3) The Swedish consumer is among the weakest in the world. There is no
consumer organization. Why is this? It is because there exists something
called Konsumentverket (Department of Consumers) which is the government
consumer organization. Government consumer organizations are about as good
an idea as government-run trade unions, government-run corporations or
even corporaton-run trade unions or corporation-run governments.
     Konsumentverket is pretty much another lame duck.

  4) Local boards that wants to protect the local businessmen by not allowing
the competition to set up shop within their jurisdiction.
  
>2) There is a saying in Sweden that if you own a food store and aren't a 
>millionaire after a year, you must be doing something wrong.

  Yes, an example of the above might be that foodstuffs made in Sweden,
exported to Denmark, slapped with Danish import taxes (?), run throguh
Danish chains of distribution and subjected to Danish sales tax are
cheeper than the very same foodstuffs sold in Sweden 10km from where they
are produced.

-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: touras@ee.rochester.edu (Vassilios Tourassis)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: EUROPEAN CONSUMER REPORTS?
Date: 9 Apr 92 18:28:22 GMT
Organization: Univ of Rochester, College of Engineering and Applied Science

Are there any CONSUMER magazines in Europe that provide evaluations of
EUROPEAN autos?

I am looking for something semi-reliable, like Consumer Reports in the US,
highlighting the relative safety, crashworthiness and reliability of
automobiles currently driven in Europe. Any pointers will be most welcome.

Vassilios
touras@ee.rochester.edu
From: Espen.H.Koht@dartmouth.edu (Espen H. Koht)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Medical Programs (was RE: Swedish Prime Minister says 
 Sweden)
Date: 12 Apr 92 21:20:05 GMT
 <1992Apr8.084014.1@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi> 
 <1992Apr8.102029.21619@kth.se> 
 <1992Apr8.155536.1@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi> <1992Apr8.16 
 <1992Apr8.223041.1@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi>
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

In article <1992Apr8.223041.1@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi>
huumala@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi writes:

> >
> Sad but true.  Yet I think that the average American probably still takes
> home more per year even after medical expenses than the average Swede. 
> If not that, he at least has more buying power in the states with his salary.
> But on the flip side you probably have more leisure time with your long 
> vacations.
  Without having any numbers at hand, from what I can remember that
average purchasing power in Scandinavia is not that far from the
American.  Somebody out there have any numbers? 
  Who's long vacations?  Vacation time in the US is pretty low compared
to Europe (although Japan of course has the least).

Espen
From: leisti@cc.helsinki.fi (Teemu Leisti)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Ruling parties in Norden
Date: 15 Apr 92 13:13:36 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

armagan@PRC.Unisys.COM (Armagan Ozdinc) writes:

> Could someone tell me what the current ruling parties in Nordic countries
> (Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark) are? Where do those parties
> stand in the political spectrum (social democrat, socialist, far-right,
> center-right, etc.)?

In Finland, the cabinet is a coalition of four parties.  The two main
ones are the Center party and the Conservative party, which is
right-of-center, but the same caveat made of the Danish parties has to
be made here:  What's right-of-center here may look distinctly leftist
from the US.  On some issues Center seems even more conservative than
the Conservatives; notably on the support system for the farmers, whose
special interest lobby Center has mostly been.  The PM is of Center.

The three main Finnish parties -- the two mentioned above and the Social
Democrats, currently in opposition -- are in fact rather hard to tell
apart these days.

The two small supporting parties are the Swedish People's party, which
has been in most coalition governments in recent memory, and the
Christians, who have one minister, who's a joke.  His fields of
competence are development cooperation (as in the Third World) and
alcohol policy.  Yes, that's right.  He doesn't speak any foreign
languages.  The Swedish are a special interest lobby of the Swedish-
speaking minority, and encompass a wide political spectrum.  The
Christians are very conservative, but fortunately they're a just a joke.

--  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: percus@husc9.harvard.edu (Allon Percus)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Dagens Nyheter April 6th on Swedish-speaking
Date: 8 Apr 92 16:06:23 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Apr8.120624.10845
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

In article <ISAC.92Apr8092539@rieska.oulu.fi> isac@rieska.oulu.fi (Juha Iisakka) writes:
>You are a paranoid. Most of people is not interested of poems.

I guess that makes Finnish culture something of an oxymoron then.


Allon Percus
From: euafri@eua.ericsson.se (Fredrik.Ostman)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Swedish Prime minister says Sweden gaining democratic freedom
Date: 14 Apr 92 12:55:45 GMT
Organization: Ellemtel Telecom Systems Labs, Stockholm, Sweden

Torkel Franzen writes:
>What, if anything, does your statement that you have a democratic
>right to your country and to your culture mean? All that has emerged
>so far is that you have a fondness for rhetoric and don't like to pay
>taxes.

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.
--
  ______                     _~
 (_/_ _  _  _/) _  . /)     / ) , _/)     _
__/ _/(_(/_(/__/(_/_/Z_    (_/_/)_/__/))_(I_/)_
From: sundinKC@dna.lth.se (Anders Sundin)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Desperation revisited
Date: 15 Apr 92 17:06:47 GMT
Organization: Organic Chemistry 2, Lund University, Sweden

I would like to thank everyone who sent me hate mail after my
posting "I desperately need lower taxes".

I agree with you all. If you read the article again you will see
that it was irony. I left of the ;-) *Irony ahead* Etc., because
I really think that such warnings remove the sting.
-- 
 Anders Sundin           e-mail: sundinKC@dna.lth.se
 Organic Chemistry 2             Anders.Sundin@orgk2.lth.se
 University of Lund              ok2aps@seldc52.bitnet
 P.O. Box 124            phone:  +46 46 108214
 S-22100 Lund, Sweden    fax:    +46 46 108209
Xref: sparky soc.culture.nordic:2616 soc.culture.europe:3513 eunet.politics:578
From: baardm@stud.cs.uit.no (Baard Misund)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic,soc.culture.europe,eunet.politics
Subject: Re: EC KILLS CHILDREN! (Was: Increasing amount of people against EU in Denmark)
Date: 6 Apr 92 13:29:42 GMT
Organization: University of Tromsoe, Norway

In article <ABRAHAM.92Apr4104720@loke.iesd.auc.dk>, abraham@iesd.auc.dk (Per Abrahamsen) writes:

|> All the Nordic countries has agreed on the open borders.  Denmark with
|> a vote in 1986, the others without a vote.

Touche'
From: tomas_e@LINK.Physchem.KTH.SE (Tomas Eriksson)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Swedish Prime minister says Sweden gaining democratic freedom
Date: 7 Apr 92 13:40:33 GMT
Reply-To: tomas_e@LINK.Physchem.KTH.SE
Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm

In article <10845@chalmers.se>, d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se (Bertil Jonell) writes:
>In article <1992Apr3.122924.10645@husc3.harvard.edu> donaghey@husc8.harvard.edu (Thomas Donaghey) writes:
>>The columnist
>>(who was in favor of social democracy)
>
>  I have nothing against that, but...
>
>>was asked by a medical student if
>>it was true that doctors in the US could make more than $1m per year, and
>>wrote "I had to reply that this was true for some specialties, but what I
>>did not have the chance to answer was that in the US students have to pay
>>huge sums for their education, which in Sweden comes free,
>				^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>  ...I have something against journalists peddling un- or halftruths regardless
>of it is of ignorance or by design.
>
>  The truth in this matter is that while the actual education (lectures) are
>free, the student have to pay all materials themselves, and due to the 
>generally broken housing market, very often live in an expensive apartment
>that they cannot count on having since it is rented from the person who rented
>it from the landlord. Add to this normal living expenses, which is high over
>here, and the forced membership in the Students union which you have
>to be a member in to be allowed to take the tests.
>  So how do people solve this? Well there is the so called 'Studiel}n' which 
>is a big part loan and a small part subsizie that have to be payed back,
>*with interest* when you are finished. The amount payed back per year is
>dependent on income, so if your wage is low enough (not an issue for doctors,
>but for many academic professions) the loan will grow faster than you
>pay it off.

Medicine students probably have the most expensive literature and the 
shortest summer vacations. The latter means that they have very little 
possibility of earning any money in the summer. And male medical 
students do their military service in those short summer vacations.
(Most of them are trained to be battalion surgeons in the army.) Swedish 
medical students are probably the most work-loaded and most poor 
students in this country. 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.

Oh, yes, you can't just go the Karolinska Institute and say "Hi, I'd 
like to study medicine for free!". Competition for admission to the 
medical program is, and has always been, and probably always will be, 
extremely tough.

Tomas

M.Sc. Chemical Engineering "for free" :-)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tomas Eriksson                                          tomas_e@physchem.kth.se
            Surface Force Group, Department of Physical Chemistry,
               Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
From: tomas_e@LINK.Physchem.KTH.SE (Tomas Eriksson)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Norden vs. Scandinavia
Date: 6 Apr 92 11:35:42 GMT
Reply-To: tomas_e@LINK.Physchem.KTH.SE
Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm

fischer@iesd.auc.dk (Lars P. Fischer) writes:
>>>>>> "Tomas" == Tomas Eriksson (e@LINK.Physchem.KTH.SE)
>Tomas> Would you care to explain why Denmark has become so much smaller to us
>Tomas> historically ignorant? :-)
>
>Because the Swedes are militant aggressors.

Which of course does not exclude the possibility that the Danes also
are (or at least were) militant agressors... The difference is that 
Denmark in those days was less successful than Sweden in the game of 
militant agression. Tough luck. :-)

At least, Sweden never decapitated all the Danish nobility we could lay 
our hands on. Hmmm, I cannot really decide if it was a bad or good thing 
the Danes did to Sweden. (I'm referring to Stockholms blodbad = the
bloodbath of Stockholm.)

Tomas
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tomas Eriksson         tomas_e@physchem.kth.se         (ter110@phys.anu.edu.au)
            Surface Force Group, Department of Physical Chemistry,
               Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
From: t88swa@tdb.uu.se (Sven Wallman)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Swedish Prime minister says Sweden gaining democratic freedom
Date: 15 Apr 92 17:57:36 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Scientific Computing, Uppsala Univ.

euafri@eua.ericsson.se (Fredrik.Ostman) writes:
: Remember, the quasi-stalinist social democracy of the Olof Palme type only
: existed in Sweden for 30 years. It has had real impact on Swedish society
: for about 20 years. That is a very small part of the Swedish history.
: It will soon be only a nasty memory. Keep up the good work, Calle!

quasi-stalinist? the leader of the liberal party said that sweden wouldn't
have looked any different if the liberals had had the power instead.
you sound lke a member of the european labor party, but they thought Palme
was a member of the nazi-party.
--
Sven Wallman, S:t Larsg. 5, 753 11 Uppsala, Sweden, +46 1812 9237
From: abraham@iesd.auc.dk (Per Abrahamsen)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: I desperately need lower taxes.
Date: 17 Apr 92 17:54:52 GMT
	<WOLFGANG.92Apr13134326@sam.first.gmd.de>
	<1992Apr14.091533.15727@eua.ericsson.se>
	<ABRAHAM.92Apr14224747@galilei.iesd.auc.dk>
	<1992Apr15.071821.29555@eua.ericsson.se>
Organization: HUGIN Expert A/S


>>>>> On 15 Apr 92 07:18:21 GMT, euafri@eua.ericsson.se (Fredrik.Ostman) said:

abraham@iesd.auc.dk (Per Abrahamsen) writes:

abraham> If you can't afford paying the fire insurance for a 2 million (X)
abraham> house, then your house probably isn't worth 2 million (X) anyway.

abraham> If you can't afford paying the health insurance for a 2 million (X)
abraham> surgery, then your life probably isn't worth 2 million (X) anyway.

abraham> It actually makes sense once you have the right mind set.

euafri> Yes it does. 

It also solves some difficult ethical problems.  Given limited
resources, who should receive the expensive treatments?  The young
with his life before him, or the old who have served the society for
many years?  With insurance, the answer is simple: The one who can pay
the highest insurance, his life is worth most.

For example, if you have a job and no kids, it will be easy to the
health insurance, especially given the much lower taxes.  Your life is
worth a lot.  When you get children you have to pay for their food,
their education (remember?), the kids health insurances, etc., so you
will need to get a cheaper health insurance yourself.  Obviously, the
life of parents is worth less than the life of people without kids.  A
hard ethical choice avoided.

euafri> Surgery won't cost more because you pay it without involving
euafri> the taxman.  It will cost less.

Here, on the other hand, I have to disagree.  It is not obvious that
the almighty doctor in the Danish system is more expensive than the
insurance man with his army of lawyers.

As a data point, the US health sector is the most expensive per
citizen (by a large margin) among the OECD nations, while Denmark's
health sector is one of the cheapest.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
From: baker@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Andrew Baker)
Subject: Re: Hard times in Norway?
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 22:33:25 GMT

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.
From: ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Dagens Nyheter April 6th on Swedish-speaking Finns
Date: 16 Apr 92 19:43:55 GMT
Organization: MacDTS Mongols

In article <1992Apr7.064901.6367@sics.se>, lhe@sics.se (Lars-Henrik Eriksson)
writes:
> 
> In article <1992Apr6.133803.2689@nntp.hut.fi>, jkp@cs (Jyrki Kuoppala) writes:
> >Hmm, I don't think I've ever heard about Edit S|dergran.  Should I?
> >Is the rest of the world celebrating everyone who know writes and
> >speaks multiple languages and has gone to a different-language
> >university, or what's the point here?
> 
> Well, Edit S|dergran was one of Finland's greatest poets. Of course,
> she did write most of her work in Swedish, and (to my knowledge) none
> in Finnish.
> 
> So the answer to your question "Should I" depends on what you think is
> important: quality or language.

This is not the only case - many other famous Finns are famous 
in the rest of Scandinavia with the exception of Finland. The problem
is the language, they speak Swedish. 

Anyway, it's good export material - the country is certainly loosing
brains to other countries. As a Finn don't think this is a good thing.

Cheers,
Kent
From: percus@husc9.harvard.edu (Allon Percus)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Swedish Prime minister says Sweden gaining democratic freedom
Date: 13 Apr 92 18:17:08 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Apr13.141709.11048
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

In article <1992Apr13.153146.3403@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov> fslsh@ocs01.lerc.nasa.gov (Lennart S Hultgren) writes:
>In article <1992Apr13.071623.18372@eua.ericsson.se> euafri@eua.ericsson.se (Fredrik.Ostman) writes:
>> [Something...]
>
>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.

Yes, if culture, language, family ties, and employment prohibitions are
of no consequence I suppose this could be one solution.


Allon Percus
From: shay@osiris (George Shay)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Looking for pen-pals
Summary: Like to find a North European Female pen-pal(Preferrablly under 40)
Keywords: I like to find a female pen-pals in Northern European countries.
Date: 6 Apr 92 15:11:18 GMT
Article-I.D.: ux1.1992Apr6.151118.448
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

I like to find a female pen-pal in northern european countries(Norway,
sweden, denmark, etc). Hope she is under her forties(not necessarily). I am
just very interested in the culture in these countries. I want to take
some time to know it better before I visit this area late this year or early
next year.

Me: Well educated, have a master degree in engineering, work as a computer
professional in Hi-Tech industry, in my late twenties. Like sports(playing
tennis regularly, used to be a amature soccer player, like almost all
popular sports games), arts, music, and a lot more.

So, drop me a line, let's talk.