Questions about Sweden

[Mummelmann]

Puppyroach said:

Mummelmann said:

With housing prices on the steep rise and unemployment, especially among the youth and first time buyers, being really high without much sign of improvement, it might be a bad idea to stimulate more and bigger loans right now.

Swedish economical policies right now are not sustainable or very smart, the same goes for Norway (productivity way down, they elevate the influx levels from the oil fund to counteract the diminished margins and total and make up ridiculous posts and positions within the public sector to keep unemployment down). Scandinavia as a whole is doing better than most of the world; but it's kind of like saying that you're taller than a dwarf, it doesn't really mean that you're tall.
Scandinavia needs a more future-proof economic model, and fast, Sweden amasses debts and maintains its high unemployment rates, while Norway neglects infrastructure and puts municipalities in mountains of debt to the state and enforces regional cuts and saving.
All moves we're making are simply postponing a crisis; not counteracting it.

There's a lot to be proud of for Scandinavians, but proper economic foresight and future thoughts towards stability are not among them.

Well, unemployment has been on a steady decrease for some time now, especially among youth. Also, GDP growth was steady last year and debt as part of GDP is not big at all. So I wouldn´t be very worried at the moment.

Key phrase being "for the moment"; I'm thinking 5-10 years ahead. I'm not 100% sure, but in Norway, a part-time job or people who have yet to gain work permits or are on benefits for temporary health issues (as examples) do not count as unemployed. So those figures are only one part of the equation and the figures are still alarmingly high (and on the rise in Norway, with a lot of high-paid, highly educated staff being fired from companies like Statoil, causing problems with expensive housing that can't be purchased below their paygrade and loans that can't be served since there's a roof on benefits payments compared to full-time salaries in the higher echelons of employment).

For the moment, things are fine, or thereabouts, but we can't continue in the same way for very long. Of course; both countries having a locked political situation with opposition with great influence doesn't help either, coalitions are grossly inefficient at moving policies forwards and through.