...often gets a hard time from us in the UK - when she's not the target for slightly insulting caricatures about Abba or the chef from the Muppets she's regularly expected to bear the heavy weight of social democratic admiration the world over, with our very own Polly Toynbee often leading the charge. On those ocassions the picture is usually more nuanced than her fans are prepared to admit but just stumbled across something that might be a little more straightforward and certainly to Sweden's credit.
The Humanitarian Response Index is a survey drawn up by Dara International which ranks 23 aid donors from the OECD according to the effectiveness and impartiality of their relief efforts in eight crisis-hit countries. It tries to measure the extent to which they respect the principles that should guide humanitarian action, such as humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence, as well as best practices in donor financing, management and accountability.
Sweden takes top spot with Norway & Denmark coming in 2nd and 3rd place respectively. The UK is 9th, the US 16th and those, ahem, deeply religious and therefore compassionate countries Portugal and Italy holding up the rear! I don't think the full report is available yet and I'm sure if someone poured over the methodology they might find some wriggle room in terms of how the rankings were arrived at but I still think this is an important index and something Sweden deserve credit for topping. Right-leaning blogs keen to score political points are usually very quick to flag rankings on tax-take, immigration or crime stats etc. but I'd be surprised if this is something many pick up. If there really is something broken in our society I'd like to think that fixing it also nudged us several places up this listing.
The Humanitarian Response Index is a survey drawn up by Dara International which ranks 23 aid donors from the OECD according to the effectiveness and impartiality of their relief efforts in eight crisis-hit countries. It tries to measure the extent to which they respect the principles that should guide humanitarian action, such as humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence, as well as best practices in donor financing, management and accountability.
Sweden takes top spot with Norway & Denmark coming in 2nd and 3rd place respectively. The UK is 9th, the US 16th and those, ahem, deeply religious and therefore compassionate countries Portugal and Italy holding up the rear! I don't think the full report is available yet and I'm sure if someone poured over the methodology they might find some wriggle room in terms of how the rankings were arrived at but I still think this is an important index and something Sweden deserve credit for topping. Right-leaning blogs keen to score political points are usually very quick to flag rankings on tax-take, immigration or crime stats etc. but I'd be surprised if this is something many pick up. If there really is something broken in our society I'd like to think that fixing it also nudged us several places up this listing.
Labels: Politics
1 Comments:
“Sweden has the highest total tax revenue as percentage of GDP of any other ranked country (as of 2005). It's also the only country in the world with a total tax revenue higher than 50 % of GDP” Niall Ferguson puts “State Governed Expenditure” at about 70% . So you work for the government creche to grave .
They have the longest life expectancy in the world and the highest per capita ratio of Nobel Laureates. Politically correct to a nicety they have, ( according to the World Economic Forum” ), closed 80 % of the gender gap and thus, “serve as a useful benchmark for international comparisons”( We are 11th and the US.. ahem 31st just ahead of Kazakhstan ).Compulsory “parental” , not just maternity , leave adds up to 480 days per child and it was named as the “best country in Europe when it comes to welcoming immigrants “ .The World Economic forum pronounced it the fourth most competitive in the world .
It sounds like a miracle doesn’t it . It is of course nothing of the sort.
Two Swedish economists (of Timbro) recently published (Dec 2004 ) that asks how European countries would fare if suddenly admitted into the American union. The results? If the UK, France, or Italy became U.S. states, they would rank as the fifth poorest of the fifty, ahead only of Arkansas, Montana, West Virginia, and Mississippi. The richest EU country—Ireland—would be the 13th poorest. Sweden would be the 6th poorest. In fact, the study found that 40% of all Swedish households would classify as low-income in the U.S. So lets get it in proportion.
More importantly ,there are only nine million people in Sweden’s vastness . Inward migration from outside Europe is negligible and they sit on fabulous mineral , forestry and coal reserves . They are also possessors of along tradition of neutrality from which their economy stole a march on the rest in post war booms as fact conveniently forgotten by the left.... . We had the Nazis to fend off 60 million people to fit in ,plus a stream of world wide social problems to pay for . The per-capita wealth of the Swedes is just a trick of numbers..
The character of the Swedes seems peculiarly able to get by with trading material sufficiency for slavery anyway. They are robotically conformist and dull to the point of temple throbbing agony. For example, on September 3, 1967 at 5am, the whole country went from driving on the left to driving on the right, despite the fact that 80 per cent of the population had voted against the change in a referendum. Imagine trying the same stunt here ! Italy...forget about it . Alcohol is hard to get and punitively taxed and anecdotally ,there are few laughs, or even smile between the herd. It is well known that Sweden is always near the top of the suicide ratings for developed countries
This is what the Socialists dream of then . A supine downtrodden fat milch cow race of translucent flesh sacks kept sleek until 111 , able to produce broods of similarly bovine crèche fodder, all harvesting inherited wealth whilst staring at each other in the gloom. .....Could be
So what does Sweden really teach us ?
That it is possible to take a country swollen with resources , with endless space , no housing costs , and an educated work force and still make it the most misery sodden penumbrian wasteland in the Western World. What’s more , the left know it. In the old days there was the mystic grandeur of Mother Russia to pose against America’s supposed gaudy materialism .Now the socialist’ dream’ is reduced to a lie about a tiny country with a tinier soul. They would cut their own throats before they gave up their cheerful wine soaked posturing in our relatively free country. By coincidence the Swedes are starting to feel the same way about their stalag , under a new and less authoritarian government.
If you like it so much why don`t you live there ? It has always been a good question and it still is . I rank it right up there with “Where do you send your children to school then ?”
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home