Sweden - The Impact on Unemployment, Productivity, and Crime (Andrew Oates, University of Puget Sound, Economics Senior Thesis 2006)

ꕤ Article SOURCE as marked EXTRACTS http://www.pugetsound.edu/files/resources/1359_ImmigrationInSweden.doc Sweden Immigration in Sweden The Impact on Unemployment, Productivity, and Crime Andrew Oates Economics Senior Thesis University of Puget Sound Fall Semester 2006 Crime Skeptics may argue that the increase in crime could easily be attributed to an increase in population, or that significant crime increases were experienced globally. The first argument is answered with simple data about population and crime. The population in Sweden was roughly 7 million people in 1950. Today, there are roughly 9 million. Total crime increased by nearly 600%, while the population only increased by about 30 percent. It is unlikely that this increase in crime would have occurred in Sweden without outside influence. It is possible that an increased number of immigrants, with different cultural values, are the cause of the increased crime. Since 1950, there has been a net increase in population due to immigrants equal to approximately 1 million people (Benito, 2005). The increase in immigration accounts for almost all of the increased population in Sweden since 1950. It is important to note that not all immigrants commit crime in their new home; rather it appears that certain immigrants are accounting for a dramatic percentage of the increased crime rates in Sweden. An argument for the increase in crime due to a change in values in the last century can be refuted by comparisons of crime rates to the United States. “The percentage of foreign-born [in Sweden] is roughly equivalent to the highest percentage of immigrants the United States ever had in its history (on the eve of World War I)” (Caldwell, 2005). Thus, the crime rates in the United States are not influenced by the difficulties that arise due to the initial merging of differing cultures. If we compare the percentage increases in overall crime, rape, robbery and assault between the U.S. and Sweden, it will become evident that the case in Sweden is unnatural. Several things are apparent from table 2.. First of all, the nature of the increased crimes in Sweden is of malicious motives, not monetary. The data shows that Sweden experienced an increase in assault crimes greater than the United States did. Robbery increased in the U.S. more than in Sweden during this time period. This reveals that the new crime in Sweden is unique, in that the increase in robbery can not be attributed to the clash of cultures in Sweden. Most important, the percentage growth of malicious crimes in Sweden are greater than that of the United States, and therefore, a global impact explanation is insufficient at explaining the entirety of the increase in crime in Sweden. In fact, criminal evidence in Sweden shows that a large percentage of the crime is attributed to immigrants. Immigrants are three times more likely to commit assault, and five times more likely to commit sex crimes than Swedes (The Local, 2005). Almost forty percent of the 1,520,000 offenses recorded between 1997 and 2001 were committed by people born overseas, or by people with at least one parent born overseas (The Local, 2006). This number is especially dramatic since the immigrant population only makes up twelve percent of the population. It is not the case, however, that all new immigrants in Sweden are criminals. According to a Swedish newspaper, Aftonbladet (Fjordman, 2006), “9 out of 10 of the most criminal ethnic groups in Sweden come from Muslim countries.” Also, according to Nima Sanandaji (2005), “some immigrant groups have a very low crime rate (such as those from East Asia).” Immigrant youths seem to be the largest contributors to the increased crime in Sweden. It is important to note that the most dramatic increases in crime are found in the crimes immigrants are most likely to commit. These particular crimes are committed to inflict pain to the native Swedish population, rather than for monetary gains. This reveals one possible motive behind the crimes: a hatred of the Swedish people. According to Åkesson’s interviews (Fjordman, 2006), immigrants feel as if they are looked down upon by native born Swedes. In return, immigrant youths have become hostile toward Swedes. An interview with one young immigrant in Sweden revealed a social war existing in Sweden. “Power for me means that the Swedes shall look at me, lie down on the ground and kiss my feet…We rob every single day, as often as we want to, whenever we want to.” This hostility, they explain, is retaliation against treatment by the native Swedes as being inferior. The clash of culture in Sweden is also apparent by the low rate of mixed marriages (Caldwell, 2005). There have also been “honor-killings”, in that family members are killing each other for dating native Swedes. There are also underground immigrant crime syndicates functioning in Sweden’s largest cities. In the 1980’s, a Balkan organized crime network spread out across Scandinavia. Most of these mafia men come from the former Yugoslavia, and came to Sweden during the Bosnian and Kosovo wars in the 1990s (Fleishman, 2006). These crime syndicates traffic drugs, weapons, and prostitutes, and commit large scale robberies. In 2004, these organizations robbed more than $ 10 million from Norway’s central bank, and stole Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” and “Madonna” from a museum in Oslo. Although these particular attacks were against Norway, these criminals live throughout Scandinavia, and wars between organizations have publicized the underground network in Sweden for the last decade. “Even in relatively small Malmö, six Balkan mafia figures have been slain since 2002” (Fleishman, 2006). Sweden’s police force is doing little to combat this problem. With lenient punishment and strong privacy laws, the investigations of organized crime are making little progress. According to Bo Lundqvist, a detective in Malmö (Fleishman, 2006), “We need tougher laws, but that directly contradicts our open society…And we’re looking at individual crimes and not the larger picture.” Another police investigator who was to afraid to reveal his name said, “They brought this gangster mentality that wasn’t anything like the normal Swedish criminal.” These criminals have moved to Sweden because it is easy to commit crime, and punishment is lax. One mobster, Milan Sevo, received only a two-year sentence for weapons-related charges. He escaped from custody during one of his weekend passes to visit his family. When he was eventually recaptured, he served no extra time for running away. Another criminal, Naser Dzeljilji, received an 18 month sentence for drugs, weapons, and conspiracy offenses, but was released from an appeal (Fleishman, 2006). These cases reveal the leniency behind the Swedish penal system, and the attractiveness of immigrating to Sweden for foreign criminals. If the situation in Sweden is not as idyllic as assumed, why is it that immigrants continue to come to Sweden? There are several reasons to immigrate into Sweden, even with the knowledge of the current economic and social problems. Most important, immigrants are attracted to Sweden because of the promise of welfare (Caldwell, 2005). Foreign citizens immigrating to Sweden are given free medical care, free schooling, decent housing conditions, and free lessons in the native language. Also, Denmark and Finland have become stricter on their immigration policies, so current citizens in these nations will move to Sweden in order to bring in their family as well. “Danes under 25 who marry foreigners no longer have the right to bring their spouses into the country. Many such half-Danish couples now live in Malmo” (Caldwell, 2005). Conclusions The decrease in productivity due to immigration has a large impact on the economy in Sweden. Take, for example, a middle aged woman who runs a restaurant business in Halmstad. She feels the effects of the labor protection laws in Sweden. She has less than ten employees. If one of them becomes sick, or takes maternity leave, she needs to find someone to replace the employee. However, now she is paying twice as much for the same level of productivity. Moreover, if the employee is absent for more than six months, the woman must debate between locking another employee into an unbreakable contractual agreement and incuring the transaction costs of hiring and training another employee. Hiring an immigrant is also a nuisance for companies. The social democratic reaction to immigration was to protect its labor unions, and enact a reform that requires companies to provide 240 hours of full pay while the immigrant receives language training. The government effectively increased the transaction costs for hiring immigrants, and to such an extent that immigrants became left behind. Because the government neglected to incorporate the increased population into the economy, Sweden no longer has any effective means for absorbing them into the labor market. Currently, Sweden is a boat, sailing near a whirlpool. They are caught in the current that will eventually lead them to disaster, but haven’t noticed. If they could foresee the problem, there could still be time to steer clear. Unfortunately, the crew is below decks, lounging on Ikea furniture. This analogy accurately depicts the present state of Sweden. The government in Sweden is handling immigration by forcing the migrants into situations where they cannot find work. They are then handing out generous welfare payments to these people, to preserve the idea of equality in the nation. Native Swedes are upset that immigrants are taking up so much of the tax money that they pay, while not working, and committing crimes. Therefore, Swedes are not working as hard; causing productivity to decrease; resulting in smaller profits and tax revenues. Meanwhile, the immigrants are committing crimes due to a feeling of separation from the Swedish culture, with little or no punishment from the institution. In fact, immigrants may realize that by committing crimes, they actually receive more handouts from the government. The impact of this will be the eventual collapse of Sweden’s welfare state. It is arguable whether or not the social democratic government is responsible, by not incorporating the new labor force into the economy. According to Johan Norberg (2006), “[Sweden] has been critically weakened by the system it helped create. Far from being a solution for the new sick men of Europe, Sweden must face serious and fundamental challenges at the heart of its social model.” If so, a major problem in solving this issue is the population’s reluctance to reform the government. The social democrats were just voted out of office in September, in favor of a more moderate government. However, in order to win the election, the moderate government had to change its policies on welfare to be consistent with the social democrats. The population is afraid of change, because they have become dependent on the welfare system. They are reluctant to vote for a reform that might limit the handouts received from the government. Apparently the furniture is really comfortable, because nothing is being done to handle the crisis. The irony of this situation is that countries are looking to Sweden as the model for successful government intervention in a globalizing world. Perhaps they do not see that if Sweden had continued its level of productivity during the fifties throughout the century, they would have higher growth and greater efficiency than any other nation in Europe. Perhaps they don’t see the hidden information that places the unemployment rate at 12%, rather than 6%. Maybe they don’t see the dramatic increase in crime levels, the incentives to commit these crimes, and the lack of indication that it will stop anytime soon. It was the immigrants that brought this change, but the ideals of the social democratic government that caused it. The policies of this government are not bad. They were successful in Sweden for almost sixty years. However, in the face of immigration, the values of the social democracy have created a mess, and need to be reformed, or done away with. There is no way to be certain if a Social Democratic ideal will ever be successful in the future. It worked in Sweden because of the homogeneous state of its society. There might never again be an environment of this nature, for which the implementation of a socialist ideology would be possible. EXTRACTS SOURCE http://www.pugetsound.edu/files/resources/1359_ImmigrationInSweden.doc ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT Nooooooooooooo, it's the end of the welfare state! So this is maybe why all those neocon puppet politicians are so keen on immigration? It's to bust up the welfare state? That was really interesting reading. I've only focused on the extracts above, as I'm not that into information about the economy itself ... I'm more interested in the social (and maybe not so social) aspects. ______________ NOTE:   Earlier highlights are lost. Had to ditch the formatting because I'd pasted directly to Blogger from a Word document, which was screwing up my template codes. ꕤ

GREECE - Germany reasserts hegemony over the eurozone - Ryan Cooper Article

ARTICLE SOURCE http://theweek.com/articles/566079/how-germany-defeated-syriza--reasserted-hegemony-over-eurozone How Germany defeated Syriza — and reasserted its hegemony over the eurozone Ryan Cooper July 13, 2015 It looks like a deal between Greece and eurozone elites has finally been reached — and it is a horrendous one. Greece's Syriza government has utterly capitulated, agreeing to a tremendous new austerity package with no debt restructuring whatsoever; huge cuts to pensions and worker protections ("labor liberalization"); and selling off €50 billion in unspecified government assets to pay off debt. The deal doesn't even guarantee funding — only after these conditions are met can a new loan package be negotiated. The Financial Times calls it "the most intrusive economic supervision program ever mounted in the EU. " Even to a hardened cynic, the "bargain" is nothing short of staggering in its awfulness. The eyes of even the most sober market analysts are practically bugging out of their heads at the sheer viciousness of it. (To give you a small idea of how badly Syriza caved to Germany and other European powers: The Institution for Growth, which will apparently take possession of the Greek government assets, is part of a fund called KfW, whose chairman is none other than German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble.) If the Greek parliament passes the proposal, Greece will have effectively ceded economic sovereignty to eurozone elites. None of the underlying economic issues have been improved — on the contrary, they will all be made much worse. This means the crisis is certain to recur at some point. The only silver lining is that the true nature of the eurozone has been revealed to all: It is an empire based on force, not the physical kind, but economic. Bend to Germany's will, or see your economy destroyed. It's worth taking a step back to remember how we got here. Before 2008, capital flowed from the eurozone core to the periphery, chasing higher yields. Normally this would be moderated by exchange rate adjustments and monetary policy, but in a common currency the first is impossible and the second was set for the core's needs only. Hot money flowed south, sparking inflationary overheating in the periphery and building up price imbalances. When the crisis came, the lack of exchange rate adjustments and monetary policy once again proved fateful, and cash-strapped nations could not finance fiscal stimulus. After the crisis, the eurozone should have stepped in with stimulus and debt restructuring to restore employment and growth, as the U.S. did with the Recovery Act of 2009. As Steve Randy Waldman writes, "What was required was a Europe-wide solution to a European problem." Instead, economic elites talked themselves into thinking the problem was one-sided, and demanded massive austerity in return for loans to avoid default. The result in many countries has been brutal recession, in some cases rivaling that of the Great Depression. Before the crisis, Greece was dishonest about its finances and made many bad decisions. But the roots of Greece's problems are inherent eurozone defects, not shady accounting. Spain is much more scrupulous and had almost no budget deficit before 2008, and has done nearly as bad as Greece has. Syriza was elected in January on a promise to end austerity, but the party has been totally outmaneuvered. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras apparently did not think euro exit was possible, and rumors are that his party made no contingency plans to introduce a replacement currency. In a riveting interview, former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis explains why. He says that eurozone elites were never negotiating in good faith. Instead they were stringing the Greeks along with pointless busywork (given this bargain, an easy thing to believe). He lost all faith in talks, and after the huge victory in the July 5 referendum, he proposed an aggressive scheme in line with what economist JW Mason has suggested: the introduction of euro-denominated IOUs to ease the liquidity crisis; a unilateral partial default; and greater autonomy for Greece's central bank from the European Central Bank. Unfortunately, it was untested policy territory, and Tsipras chickened out. Bereft of support, Varoufakis resigned. With no backup plan, Syriza had no leverage, and so had to take whatever German Chancellor Angela Merkel was dishing out — in this case, an economic shotgun to both kneecaps. It's an open question whether Tsipras will be able to get this turd through the Greek parliament, and odds are good it will shatter the majority coalition, requiring new elections. As Wolfgang Münchau points out, at least the deal brings some needed clarity to events. The eurozone is now openly "run in the interests of Germany, held together by the threat of absolute destitution for those who challenge the prevailing order." The lessons for those radicals who would challenge Germany, such as Spain's Podemos, are clear. Any nation that won't docilely submit to economic bleeding will receive no quarter. Self-serving claptrap about the rebels' fecklessness will be quickly constructed and propagated. Unemployment in Spain is 24 percent. In Portugal it is 13 percent. In Italy it is 12 percent — a country where there has been virtually no productivity growth since the introduction of the euro in 1999. Should a radical party want to break German hegemony, it would do well to learn from the failures of Syriza. It may sound foolish to risk everything on an aggressive grab for economic sovereignty — but if these countries want their problems fixed in years, rather than in decades, there may be no other option. SOURCE http://theweek.com/articles/566079/how-germany-defeated-syriza--reasserted-hegemony-over-eurozone --------------------- COMMENT Enjoyed this article.  Bit of a catch-up for me, as I haven't kept track of Greece.  Didn't expect to understand ins and outs of the economic dramas in Greece, so I haven't taken time to do reading on the subject. Sounds really bad.  How can they not have an exit plan?  That's just insane.  And it looks as though they're putting off the inevitable, having already put the public through an austerity regime, in the lead up to this.  And for what?  Greece, apparently, still doesn't have restructuring or guarantee of funding. [Weird all over the place highlighting & text colours are for myself.   Can't make up my mind how to highlight, as my browser shows highlights overlapping text when published.]

Sweden - Election - Unemployment & other analysis

Young voter push as election hovers Published: 12 Sep 2014 08:17 GMT+02:00 Sweden's election is now just two days away and the main parties are pushing to attract young and undecided voters. One in three voters have not yet chosen who to vote for, according to a poll for Sveriges Radio on Thursday. Among young people that figure rises to almost two in three. The figures follow a campaign during which youth unemployment has been a hot topic. Sweden elections: who's who? The Swedish economy and its AAA credit rating might be envied by most European countries, but unemployment among people aged 15 to 24 has been oscillating between 20 and 25 percent over the past years -- about three times higher than overall joblessness. Sweden's general election campaign has even spilled over into Norway as political rivals pursue votes among the tens of thousands of mostly young Swedes emigrating to find work. Close to full employment, Norway is seeking foreign workers to meet labour shortages, and many Swedish waiters, nurses, dentists, engineers are crossing the border. Jimmie Åkesson, leader of the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, has been campaigning in Oslo. He argues that the reason so many Swedes have to emigrate is that foreigners are taking their jobs back home. "When Sweden grants twice as many residence permits as it creates jobs, that's what you get," he told news agency AFP. However, Malin Sahlén, an economist who has written a book on the issue, believes that the reasons for the high unemployment are different. She argues that low-qualification jobs are rare in Sweden's economy and that high protection of employees on permanent contracts make employers resort to hiring temporary workers, which tends to create frequent gaps of unemployment when those workers change position. "According to Eurostat, 14 percent of the jobs in Europe are low-paid, and that figure is only 3 percent in Sweden," she said. Meanwhile Thursday's party leader debate on TV4 ended in a brawl over nuclear power. In the final stages of the discussion, the Alliance party leaders pushed Social Democrat leader Stefan Löfven on how he intends to tackle the issue. Centre Party leader Annie Lööf provoked a strong reaction in the debate. Watch a clip of the leadership debate here Löfven has previously spoken out in favour of retaining Sweden's nuclear power stations, but during the debate he would only speak broadly about offering a "future analysis" of the country's energy demands and the need for a Red-Green bloc agreement on he issue. Centre Party leader Annie Lööf asked him to be more specific, producing a copy of a report by the Swedish Energy Agency and taking it over to him. He held his hand up in protest and appeared as if he was trying to push her away. "This is just bickering. You can keep it there," said Löfven. Carin Jämtin, party secretary for the opposition Social Democrats told Sveriges Radio there were still a lot of votes to play for: "The last part of the election campaign is very important. We will knock on doors, take part in debates and talk with voters in other ways right up to the end of polling day," she told Sveriges Radio. Per Nilsson, head of analysis for the ruling conservative Moderates says his party will also do what it can to attract the undecided voters: "It's not about targeting a specific part of the electorate with surgical precision", he told Swedish Radio, adding "we're going out with a broad message about how we want to make Sweden better together with our colleagues in the Alliance." Elections take place on Sunday with a major exit poll expected soon after voting closes at 20:00. http://www.thelocal.se/20140912/young-voter-push-ahead-of-polls

Good piece to set aside.

Gives an idea of the climate.

Sweden - 'Sweden Democrats' / Nationalists on the Rise - High: Immigration, Unemployment

Swedish nationalists rise as influx of Syrian refugees grows By Johan Carlstrom and Niklas Magnusson, Bloomberg News, Bloomberg STOCKHOLM — The Sweden Democrats, a nationalist party that targets deep cuts to immigration, is poised to double its support in elections next month as Swedes prepare for a change of government. Several polls show the party garnering more than 10 percent of votes, enough to ensure that neither the government of Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt nor the Social Democrat-led opposition can win a majority on Sept. 14. Both blocs have refused to collaborate with the Sweden Democrats, even as the electorate tries to drag the group into the mainstream. Support for the party, which came into being in the 1980s following a merger of political movements including a group called Keep Sweden Swedish, has swelled as the country absorbs a growing number of immigrants and asylum seekers from the Middle East. The development casts a shadow over Sweden's reputation as an open society that has regularly topped United Nations rankings in accepting asylum seekers. "We're becoming more tolerant toward immigration, but at the same time there's very strong, broad opposition against our liberal policies," said Andrej Kokkonen, a researcher at Gothenburg University. "The Sweden Democrats have capitalized on that." Sweden expects more than 80,000 asylum seekers this year, after a 70 percent jump in the first six months. Refugees are entering the country at a pace not seen since the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, according to the Migration Board in Stockholm. The government is urging Swedes to take a more compassionate view towards asylum seekers in an effort to turn the xenophobic tide. "I'm now pleading with the Swedish people to have patience, to open your hearts, to see people in high distress whose lives are being threatened," Reinfeldt said in a speech on Aug. 16. "Show them that openness, show them tolerance." Sweden received the most asylum applications per person in the world from 2009 through 2013, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The share of Swedes born abroad was 15.9 percent last year compared with 11.3 percent in 2000. Immigration rose 12 percent to an all-time high last year. Party leader Jimmie Aakesson, who has sought to reinvent the Sweden Democrats to make it more palatable to the broader electorate, says he wants to cut asylum immigration by 90 percent. A poll done by television broadcaster SVT in May showed 44 percent of Swedes think their country has accepted too many immigrants, up from 37 percent a year earlier. Only 10 percent want a more open policy toward foreigners. Support for the Sweden Democrats has risen to 10.9 percent from the 5.7 percent the party got in the election four years ago, according to a poll published Aug. 18 by United Minds and Aftonbladet. The three-party opposition, led by the Social Democrats, was backed by 46.5 percent, compared with 38.8 percent for Reinfeldt's four-party government, the poll showed. In European Parliament elections in May, the Sweden Democrats won 9.7 percent of the vote, matching a surge across the region for parties opposed to immigration and skeptical toward the European Union. The U.K. Independence Party and French National Front this year became their countries' biggest political groups in the European parliament. Sweden's growing support for its anti-immigration party follows a series of riots that shocked the nation. In Stockholm suburbs characterized by above-average joblessness, Swedes last year watched youths from immigrant backgrounds torch cars during street battles with police. "It's good that they address certain issues that the other parties don't really dare to do something about like immigration but I don't completely support them," said Martin Welander, 20, a business student at Oerebro University. "The other parties have tried to suffocate all criticism of immigration." Erik Wallander, 30, a system developer, describes the policies of the Sweden Democrats as "unpleasant." "People who are unemployed and don't have it so good look for someone that's easy to blame," he said. "It's pretty convenient to point to immigrants." Swedish unemployment is the highest in Scandinavia, even as a report Thursday showed joblessness dropped to 7.1 percent last month from 9.2 percent the previous month. The figures aren't adjusted for seasonal swings. A year earlier, the jobless rate was 7.2 percent. About 16 percent of people born abroad didn't have a job last year, compared with 6.3 percent for ethnic Swedes. Finance Minister Anders Borg said this month developments in Iraq and Syria mean there'll be a "significant" increase in costs that will "hit public finances." Aakesson said in an interview in May that Sweden's "mass unemployment is primarily imported." Immigration risks destroying the welfare state by creating "parallel societies" of people "that don't think of themselves as part of Swedish society," he said. Aakesson is now trying to replicate the success of other Nordic parties set on tightening immigration. In Norway, the Progress Party joined the government for the first time last year while the Danish People's Party has been a power-broker for more than a decade, shaping some of Europe's toughest immigration standards. Even some of Sweden's immigrants have started to question the nation's policies toward outsiders. Enikoe Blixt, 37, a biomedical analyst in Linkoeping who's originally from Hungary, said that while the Sweden Democrats are "too xenophobic," the country needs to be better at absorbing its immigrants. "There should be more of a requirement to learn the language and greater demands on these people that come here to really integrate into society," Blixt said. The goal is "to avoid these people from becoming segregated." http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-wp-blm-news-bc-sweden21-20140821-story.html

Appears to be a swing to the right.

Anti liberalism.

Anti immigration platform.

800,000 immigrants expected 2014

Interesting info to add to Sweden picture/climate.