HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se (Bertil Jonell)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Swedish Prime minister says Sweden gaining democratic
Date: 14 Apr 92 11:53:46 GMT
Organization: Chalmers University of Technology

In article <1992Apr11.200657.8281@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> Espen.H.Koht@dartmouth.edu (Espen H. Koht) writes:
>    I really have a problem with this myth that tax money somehow
>disappears into a gaping hole somewhere.  To get some perspective on
>things look around yourself, admire your living-standard.  I dare
>Scandinavians to compare their living standard to that of any other
>country

  Nowadays not even Social Democratic economists claim that the wealth of
Sweden is a result of the wellfare state (including the high taxes). They
admit that it was 'the industry' (aka free enterprise) that created the
wealth the Social Democrats took it and redistributed it (and claimed that 
they had created).

  To be perfectly frank, the Swedish wealth was created *despite* Tage 
Erlander and Olof Palme and *because of* Hitler and Stalin. This is because 
the latter two destroyed the industry of Europe, giving Sweden (and to a 
lesser extent the US) an incredible competitive advantage.

>and come back and tell me you are getting ripped-off by the tax
>system.  

  We're ripped off by the tax system.

>Espen

-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: eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas, SUNET)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Swedish Capitalists
Date: 16 Apr 92 10:38:44 GMT
Reply-To: eric@sejnet.sunet.se
Organization: Swedish University Network (SUNET), Stockholm, Sweden
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-5

In article <11023@chalmers.se>, d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se (Bertil Jonell) writes...
>>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:

This is mostly true, but you are forgetting an important point: the change in
MOMS took place in january, ie when prices are normally increased. ICA &co.
claim that the decrease in MOMS rate just compensated normal inflation. While
I am sure they ended up putting more money in their pocket, it does partly
explain the situation.

There are other things which anger me much more with these shops. For instance,
I have been buying a particular (and totally unknown) brand of mineral water
for something like 1 year, the only one that came in these new plastic bottles
which you can return to the shop and get 4kr for. It was much cheaper than any
other brand of water, by something like 5.50kr a bottle, and of course better
for the environment, plus I always hated these soft bottles which keep slipping
away when you hold them. After about 1 year, it seems that the major mineral
water brands have caught up; they, too, have started using the new bottles, but
they were still more expensive by about 2.50kr, and I had no reason to change
brands. Then, one day, ICA decided that this was not good (I suppose after a
representative from Pripps or Raml|sa complained to them) and raised the price
of my water to align it with the major brands - to the last |re. Now you have a
nice communist system where all brands cost exactly the same and come in the
same bottle, and where did the extra 2.50kr/bottle go?

  Eric
From: euafri@eua.ericsson.se (Fredrik.Ostman)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Swedish Prime minister says Sweden gaining democratic freedom
Date: 13 Apr 92 07:37:25 GMT
Organization: Ellemtel Telecom Systems Labs, Stockholm, Sweden

Espen.H.Koht@dartmouth.edu (Espen H. Koht) writes:

>            Well, when you have to pay $15,000 to attend lectures, the
>difference is significant.

But if you have to pay $30,000 in taxes whether you attend lectures or not, it
isn't so hard to choose.

>I really have a problem with this myth that tax money somehow
>disappears into a gaping hole somewhere.

This is *no myth*! Planned economy is *inherently* *inefficient*.
This has been proved everywhere and every time it has beed tried, most
notably in the Soviet Union. In Sweden, we know that both primary and
secondary mnicipalities (kommuner och landsting) are gaping black holes,
that can be financed only by continuously *raised* taxes. Productivity
has falled by 3% per year since the 1960's. There is no way to change
this within the current system.

>To get some perspective on
>things look around yourself, admire your living-standard.  I dare
>Scandinavians to compare their living standard to that of any other
>country and come back and tell me you are getting ripped-off by the tax
>system.  

I AM BEEING RIPPED-OFF BY THE TAX SYSTEM.
I fail to see the logic in that you should use an inefficient system
just because you're rich. I would rather say rich people who *waste*
their money are immoral. As for comparing, when I went to school as
a six-year-old, Sweden had the highest standard-of-living in the world.
We don't any longer, and the falling tendency is only getting stronger.
--
  ______                     _~
 (_/_ _  _  _/) _  . /)     / ) , _/)     _
__/ _/(_(/_(/__/(_/_/Z_    (_/_/)_/__/))_(I_/)_
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic,soc.culture.europe,eunet.politics
From: yasgur@vuse.vanderbilt.edu (Gurbuz Yasar)
Subject: Re: Pros and Cons of EU (was Re: Increasing EU opposition in Denmark)
Organization: Vanderbilt University School of Engineering, Nashville, TN, USA
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 00:30:12 GMT

Summary: 
Expires: 
Followup-To: 
Distribution: 
Organization: Vanderbilt University School of Engineering, Nashville, TN, USA
Keywords: 

This is only a test.
From: euafri@eua.ericsson.se (Fredrik.Ostman)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Swedish Prime minister says Sweden gaining democratic freedom
Date: 15 Apr 92 07:24:07 GMT
Organization: Ellemtel Telecom Systems Labs, Stockholm, Sweden

d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se (Bertil Jonell) writes:
>  So when they grew up and got to power, the free school lunches was 
>started. This is still a political holy cow of such magnitude that school-
>boards refrain from updating the books, let the furniture and real-estate
>deteriorate, fire teachers and institute teacher-less 'teaching' all in 
>order to keep providing the free shcool lunch.

And the "free school lunch" mustn't cost more than 5 crowns a day in a
country with some of the highest food prices in the world. Nourishing!
Tasty! Yum-yum! Actually, the Free School Lunch is so holy, that the
location of hamburger bars in the vicinity of schools is *prohibited*!
Pupils going to eat hamburgers instead of enjoying their less-than-a-buck-
value Free School Lunch are considered a *social problem*.
--
  ______                     _~
 (_/_ _  _  _/) _  . /)     / ) , _/)     _
__/ _/(_(/_(/__/(_/_/Z_    (_/_/)_/__/))_(I_/)_
Xref: sparky soc.culture.nordic:2597 soc.culture.europe:3498 eunet.politics:569
From: abraham@iesd.auc.dk (Per Abrahamsen)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic,soc.culture.europe,eunet.politics
Subject: Re: Pros and Cons of EU (was Re: Increasing EU opposition in Denmark)
Date: 5 Apr 92 11:56:44 GMT
	<1992Apr3.204709.4897@nntp.hut.fi>
	<1992Apr4.234630.11089@Csli.Stanford.EDU>
Organization: HUGIN Expert A/S


>>>>> On 4 Apr 92 23:46:30 GMT, delval@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Alvaro del Val) said:

Alvaro> What makes you think that the EU is somehow going to prevent a
Alvaro> national government from providing services to its citizens
Alvaro> that go beyond (are better than) those required of all
Alvaro> countries in the EU?

Maybe the fact that EC already does this in a lot of (minor) areas.
Why should we expect EU to be different?
From: rtp1@quads.uchicago.edu (raymond thomas pierrehumbert)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Swedish Prime minister says Sweden gaining democratic freedom
Date: 10 Apr 92 03:49:10 GMT
Reply-To: rtp1@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations


I write:
>Dagis is
>only 15% of the cost of what we pay here

To which d9bertil (the "9" is silent) replies:

  Nope, it still costs (aproximately) the same. Imagine that 1000 families
have 2 kids each, and that each kid cost $1000 to place in day-care. Each
family will then spend $2000 on day-care. If they pay 85% through taxes they
will only have to pay $300, so it appears cheaper, but the total cost is
the same. 
.... (further discussion)

---------------------------

Well, of course the COSTS of dagis to SOMEBODY are about the same,
assuming roughly equivalent quality.  For example, a really
good full-day program here in Chicago costs about $10000 per year
for a 2-year-old.  In Stockholm we paid the top out of pocket
rate, which was about $1000 (a couple years ago).  But the
Barnomsorgbyran was at that time chipping in about $10K per
child, which is about what it costs to run a really first
rate program.  

You could argue that the bureaucracy leads to some inessential
overhead, but that wasn't my main point.  I wasn't saying
that having dagis provided by government saves money in
absolute terms. I was only arguing that in comparing American
tax rates with Swedish tax rates, a couple making use of dagis
ought to figure in the true value of the state subsidy of dagis.

Now, inevitably, if the state is taking your taxes and subsidizing
something, then you gain if you are a user of that something and
lose if you aren't. But the point is that society has decided
that some services are so essential that they should be accessible
to all.  In the US, public schooling above age 5 has been put
in this category, but not day care for younger children.  As a
result, you have poor families unable to work, desparate mothers
leaving children locked up at home or in dangerous firetrap
unlicensed daycare, or even such occasional abominations as
the mother who became so desperate (and warped) that she locked
her daughter in her car while she was working. 

If there is anything wrong with social services in Sweden, it
is that the costs don't sufficiently reflect ability to pay.
I don't think it would be fair for my own dagis costs here to
be subsidized down to $1000, but certainly I would support
subsidies for those who are less well off.
From: runeba@ifi.uio.no (Rune Bakken)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: You have to be rich to get the Authorities to listen.
Date: 7 Apr 92 11:31:18 GMT
Reply-To: runeba@ifi.uio.no
Organization: What? Me? Organized?? You must be kidding!!!
Originator: runeba@sanngjet.ifi.uio.no


In article <1992Apr6.152756.20073@athena.mit.edu>, raustein@athena.mit.edu (Yngve Koehler Raustein) writes:
> In article <10816@chalmers.se>, d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se (Bertil Jonell) writes:
> 
> |>   About half a year ago they started something called the 071-numbers which 
> |> are commercial services available from third parties on certain numbers with
> |> a 071 prefix. The type of services seems to be mostly games and heavy 
> |> breathing judging from the ads in the papers and calling the numbers will
> |> cost you several SKr per minute. The profit is split between Televerket and 
> |> the third party.
> |> 
> |>   I'm pretty sure that there is something similar in the US.
> 
> Yes, the 900-numbers.  (Have they introduced anything similar to the
> toll free 800-numbers in Scandinavia?)
> 
> Yngve

It depends how you define "Scandinavia"
In Norway we have 050- numbers which is as close as one can get a toll-free
number (800) in Norway, You pay only local-call fee  ca. US$ .15 for a call period.
(3 min. daytime 8-17 mon-fri else 9 min.)
I am not sure of the other countries though ...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.rune 
-- 
Rune Bakken                   Dept. of Informatics, University of OSLO
email: runeba@ifi.uio.no      Don't blame me: I'm only a student!!
Xref: sparky soc.culture.nordic:2704 soc.culture.europe:3578 eunet.politics:595
From: percus@husc9.harvard.edu (Allon Percus)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic,soc.culture.europe,eunet.politics
Subject: Re: Pros and Cons of EU (was Re: Increasing EU op
Date: 8 Apr 92 16:02:50 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Apr8.120251.10844
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

In article <3257@inca.comlab.ox.ac.uk> news@comlab.ox.ac.uk writes:
>Actually, without further radical change in the E.C. this is impossible.
>You have to be *resident* in an E.C. (i.e. have paid its Taxes for a
>while) to take advantage of non-emergency health services etc.  If you
>get a major chronic illness you tend to get shipped right back to
>the country you are a citizen of.   Even for emergency care you tend
>to get a much tougher (costly!) deal in most E.C. countries than citizens.

This is not true.  I was living in Denmark for six months last year,
didn't have to pay taxes as I was a student and not earning a Danish
salary, but I had full medical coverage.  Anyone planning to stay in
Denmark longer than 3 months gets one of the yellow medical insurance
cards automatically upon registration with the Kommune authorities.
All you need for this is to show them the visa which lets you be
there for over 3 months in the first place.

(Of course, anyone buying anything in Denmark is already paying
a non-trivial 25% VAT in the first place, so I wouldn't say anything
comes free...)

Allon Percus
From: eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas, SUNET)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Who'll be the next American President?
Date: 10 Apr 92 19:25:38 GMT
Reply-To: eric@sejnet.sunet.se
Organization: Swedish University Network (SUNET), Stockholm, Sweden
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-5

In article <1992Apr10.120646.3922@mack.uit.no>, baardm@stud.cs.uit.no (Baard Misund) writes...
>In article <1992Apr10.013842.10907@husc3.harvard.edu>, percus@husc9.harvard.edu (Allon Percus) writes:
>|> 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.
> 
>Yes, the world !!!!!! I know Eagle scouts who live in Norway, Germany, 
>France etc... Childish, hah, you ignorant Thalassiosira nordenskoeldii.

Are all Eagle scouts as childish as you just demonstrated yourself to be? I
hope not.

>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.

I ought to send a copy of this to your local scout association. I get the
feeling that they would be disappointed to see you defend their organization on
the basis of incidental prejudices of that kind. But, of course, I understand
that when you haven't got much else to show on your CV and are aiming for a US
university, it may be a good idea to talk about your being just one lousy merit
badge away from Eagle scout rather than mumble something vaguely related while
keeping your eyes down and your hands in your lap. Ah, but that reminds me of
an older discussion about military medals and their effects on job hunts - we
don't have to go through this again, I hope.

  Eric
From: steinarb@idt.unit.no (Steinar Bang)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Archaic Viking dialect in the news
Date: 15 Apr 92 11:30:14 GMT
	<22948@goofy.Apple.COM>
Distribution: soc
Organization: Norwegian Institute of Technology, Trondheim, Norway

>>>>> On 11 Apr 92 18:07:16 GMT, ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik) said:

> What about the Swedish spoken on Gotland and Oland, isn't that also
> very ancient, related to the original Swedish spoken by vikings?
> This dialect reminds me of my own Finnish-Swedish one, a lot of
> vowel combinations missing in standard Swedish, and use of gender
> (as in German).

What do you mean by use of gender, as in German?
Both standard Swedish and Norwegian use genders on the nouns. I'm not
sure about Swedish, but Norwegian has three (though conservatives only
acknowledge two, using feminine nouns is soooo vulgar y'know...:-)

- Steinar

[Woops! I responded to someone from Apple! What if rms finds out! :-)
 Well,... Hrmm,... do smooth the damage: Kent, be sure to tell John to
 stop suing everybody and his great-aunt, next time you see him
 willya! :-)]
From: leisti@cc.helsinki.fi (Teemu Leisti)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Denmark and EU.
Date: 7 Apr 92 09:01:32 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

In article <9204061106.AA25217@bk.bk.dk>, rjh02@bk.dk (Rene Jul-Hansen) writes:

> The problem with the Danish debate is the quality of the information at
> hand, since both Pros and Cons do their utmost to scare people into
> voting whatever they would like them to vote.
> 
> It is truly difficult to establish a valid guess or estimate for what
> the future holds in store for Denmark both inside and outside the EU,
> but I think that most people would appreciate if the debate would gain
> a level or two in quality. 

Sounds exactly like the EC debate in Finland.

--  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: Espen.H.Koht@dartmouth.edu (Espen H. Koht)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Swedish Prime minister says Sweden gaining democratic 
 freedom
Date: 11 Apr 92 20:21:41 GMT
 <1992Apr3.122924.10645@husc3.harvard.edu> <10845@chalmers.se>  
 <1992Apr8.080908.12987@eua.ericsson.se>
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

In article <1992Apr8.080908.12987@eua.ericsson.se>
euafri@eua.ericsson.se (Fredrik.Ostman) writes:

> Bertil Jonell writes:
> >Thomas Donaghey writes:
> 
> >>education, which in Sweden comes free,
> >            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >the actual education (lectures) are free,
>                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> You know what old Milton and others always say, There Is No Such Thing
> As A Free Education. 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.

    I'd like to see you support this statement.  I think of lot of
arguments against it, for one:  
 - the government is non-profit.  When you have to finance education
through the private sector, there will be somebody at each stage that
will demand 'profit', which goes somewere other than your education.
 
> You can easily get an education that doesn't pay
> off. You can easily get an education that you don't even use. Maybe you
> can't get that special type of education that would pay off greatly, because
> the beaureucrats didn't realise the need for it.

   This argument cuts both ways.  Here in the states it is getting
quite out of hand.  The educational system can only churn out laywers
and doctors which there are already plenty of, but scientists (who are
needed) are in short supply.

> It's very difficult for
> you to control the quality of the education -- when the government pays,
> only quantity, measured by statistics, counts.

  When the profit motive interferes with education it also becomes very
difficult for you to control the quality of education - when someone is
in it to make money that is what they care about.

Espen
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
From: Jakob Nielsen <nielsen@bellcore.com>
Subject: Re: Ruling parties in Norden
Organization: Bellcore - Bell Communications Research
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1a2
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 92 18:40:32 GMT

In article <1992Apr13.174114.16796@gvl.unisys.com> Armagan Ozdinc,
armagan@PRC.Unisys.COM 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.)?

This is unfortunately not necessarily an easy question to answer.
Consider the example of Denmark. One of the parties in the government is
Venstre which is sometimes called the Moderate Liberal Party in English
(there is also a Radical Liberal Party in Denmark). The very word Venstre
means Left in Danish, by the way.

You would now think that this party was a slightly leftist party. In
Denmark, it is considered to be somewhat on the right, however. If one
considers the politics of the party, the situation becomes even more
complicated. I do not think they have come straight out and said what
taxes they want, but it would seem that they are in favor of a marginal
tax rate of about 50%. In the U.S., such a tax rate would indeed be
considered a wildly leftist tax increase (the marginal tax rate in New
Jersey is 38% when adding federal and state taxes). In Denmark this same
tax proposal is considered a dramatic rightist change from the current
marginal tax rate of 68%.

Thus, the exact same politics can be considered either leftist or
rightist. It is all relative. 
--
Jakob Nielsen, nielsen@bellcore.com, fax (201)  829-2645
Bellcore, MRE 2P-370, 445 South St., Morristown, NJ 09792-1910, USA
From: euafri@eua.ericsson.se (Fredrik.Ostman)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Swedish Prime minister says Sweden gaining democratic freedom
Date: 9 Apr 92 06:58:22 GMT
Organization: Ellemtel Telecom Systems Labs, Stockholm, Sweden

Eric Thomas writes:
>Fredrik.Ostman writes...

>>You can easily get an education that doesn't pay
>>off. You can easily get an education that you don't even use. Maybe you
>>can't get that special type of education that would pay off greatly, because
>>the beaureucrats didn't realise the need for it. It's very difficult for
>>you to control the quality of the education -- when the government pays,
>>only quantity, measured by statistics, counts.

>Count the Swedes who can't spell Swedish. Do the same for Americans. Compare.

This is so silly, always comparing with America. Why not compare with some
other part of the world? Because there are *so* many Americans on the net?
By the way, I learnt/didn't learn to spell in school, not at the university.
I think the same goes for America, and these schools are free of charge even 
there? On the other hand some of the best universities in the world are 
American.
--
  ______                     _~
 (_/_ _  _  _/) _  . /)     / ) , _/)     _
__/ _/(_(/_(/__/(_/_/Z_    (_/_/)_/__/))_(I_/)_