Sweden, Shocking News from (original)

["John Gelles" <jjgelles@xxxxxxxx>]

	Please forgive my imposing on PKT by correcting
	a MS Mail bug effect.  The message below is the
	one I thought I was sending last night. It is an edited
	version of the one that MS Mail actually sent.  The
	differences are not great, but Sven and Per may note
	them.  One of my reasons is to warn that MS Mail
	may hold something in an invisible window and send
	it to your chagrin.

	Meantime, Dr. Fatemi has been kind to me. The
	full facts in Sweden are vitally important.  To many
	of us it seems strange that a leading mixed economy
	can have suffered so severe a decline in so short a
	time.  In my gut, I trust Sven.  And I also echo
	Dr. Fatemi's call for a thorough look to find what
	may be best in neoliberal democracy to enhance its
	humanism.  We do not want to repeat the history
	represented by excessive swings of the pendulum
	left and right in the non-totalitarian industrial world.

The message I "sent" last night should have been:	

----------
From: John Gelles <jjgelles@xxxxxxxx>
To: pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Sweden,  Shocking News from
Date: Wednesday, August 12, 1998 8:36 PM

	This news from Sweden which I believe to be true
	(on account of its source) and contrary to what I had
	always thought -- is shocking.   Per and Sven must
	send a brief letter to the New York times on the
	wreckage of lives Thatcherism has brought in your
	country.  Many here used to say, Sweden is the best
	managed place on Earth, and that only the weather
	was off -- causing more suicide than in a warmer clime.
	Now, we in the USA ought to here the truth about
	Thatcherism in practice Swedish style

	John Gelles

----------
From: S R Larsson <larson@xxxxxx>
To: POST-KEYNESIAN THOUGHT <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Sweden -- Some Local Color Please
Date: Wednesday, August 12, 1998 9:33 PM
.....
1. About 40% of the Swedish households live on $15,000 per annum net
tax or less. The median household in America lives on nearly $40,000.
That's pre-tax, but you don't pay Swedish taxes...

2. There are about 500 000 people in Sweden who, officially, have nothing
to live on. No welfare, no income, no transfers from the public sector. A
considerable number of them get regular meals from charity organizations.
Many people living on welfare get so little they can't give their kids
three meals per day (this is a FACT).

3. People living on welfare are to an increasing extent being denied dental
care. Instead dentists simply pull the teeth out unless the patient is able
to pay for more expensive treatment. There are many known cases of medical
malpractice at hospitals due directly or indirectly to budget cutbacks. It
was recently estimated that hundreds of elderly people under public health
care simply starve to death every year because there is not staff enough to
help them eat. My wife works at an elderly care center and she can bear
daily witness about this phenomenon.

4. Drug abuse has exploded over the past few years. Teenagers smoke
heroine, take LSD and other heavy drugs to an extent never seen before.

5. The crime rate in Sweden has surged. Although some statistical bugs
makes it hard to compare directly, there was a study last year that placed
the number of crime victims in Sweden third among OED countries, behind
England and the US. Teenage gangs drift around in downtowns, rob and steal
and behave like anti-social animals. In Gothenburg alone (a city of 450 000
plus suburbs) there are 500 robbery assaults on individuals per year in the
downtown area only.  Add to that what goes on in the gang-ruled housing
project suburbs...

6. There is not union busting in Sweden. They don't need to bust unions.
They are proud of having contributed to low wages, "responsible" fiscal
policies (heavy budget slashing) and other features of modern Swedish
social and economic development.

7. I suppose it could be called business corruption when one family owns
all (yes, ALL) major export companies, pays for virtually all externally
financed research in economics and is eligible to frequent "secret"
meetings with the government.

	... Sven ...