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Post by Carl LaFong on May 6, 2024 12:05:00 GMT
Sweden has a global reputation for championing high taxes and social equality, but it has become a European hotspot for the super rich. On Lidingö island there are huge red and yellow wooden villas on rocky cliff tops, and white minimalist mansions with floor to ceiling windows. Less than half an hour's drive from Stockholm city centre, this is one of Sweden's wealthiest neighbourhoods. Serial entrepreneur Konrad Bergström flicks the light switch in his wine cellar, to reveal the 3,000 bottles he's got stored there. "French Bordeaux, that's what I love," he says, flashing a bright white smile. Elsewhere, there's an outdoor pool, a gym upholstered in reindeer leather, and a workshop-come-nightclub, complete with a large metal urinal. "I have a lot of musical friends, so we play a lot of music," explains Bergström. He made his money co-founding businesses including a headphones and speaker company, and this home is one of four properties he owns in Sweden and Spain. It's not a surprising lifestyle for a successful entrepreneur, but what might surprise global observers is how many people have become as wealthy as Mr Bergström - or even richer - in Sweden - a country with a global reputation for its leftist politics. Although a right-wing coalition is currently in power, the nation has been run by Social Democrat-led governments for the majority of the last century, elected on promises to grow the economy in an equitable way, with taxes funding a strong welfare state.…
But Sweden has experienced a boom in the super rich over the last three decades. In 1996, there were just 28 people with a net worth of a billion kronor or more (around $91m or £73m at today's exchange rate), according to a rich list published by former Swedish business magazine Veckans Affärer. Most of them came from families that had been rich for generations. BBC World Service - The Documentary Podcast, Super-rich Swedes By 2021, there were 542 "kronor billionaires", according to a similar analysis by daily newspaper Aftonbladet, and between them they owned a wealth equivalent to 70% of the nation's GDP, a measure of the total value of goods and services in the economy. Sweden - with a population of just 10 million - also has one of the world's highest proportions of "dollar billionaires" per capita. Forbes listed 43 Swedes worth $1bn or more in its 2024 rich list. That equates to around four per million people, compared to about two per million in the US (which has 813 billionaires - the most of any nation - but is home to more than 342 million people). "This has come about in a sort of a stealthy way - that you haven't really noticed it until after it happened," says Andreas Cervenka, a journalist at Aftonbladet, and author of the book Greedy Sweden, in which he explores the steady rise of Sweden's super rich. "But in Stockholm, you can see the wealth with your own eyes, and the contrast between super rich people in some areas of Stockholm and quite poor people in other parts."
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Post by Carl LaFong on May 6, 2024 12:05:19 GMT
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Post by Carl LaFong on May 6, 2024 12:07:14 GMT
The U.K. has 55 dollar billionaires, Sweden has 43.
U.K. has 6.4 times the population of Sweden.
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Post by Flying Monkeys on May 6, 2024 14:59:35 GMT
The U.K. has 55 dollar billionaires, Sweden has 43. U.K. has 6.4 times the population of Sweden. The UK education system does not embrace an entrepreneurial approach to life. Instead, it embraces getting a career in an existing company (the safe option) because it is run by wimps. Yet another reason our education system needs a massive kick in the arse.
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Post by Carl LaFong on May 6, 2024 15:25:29 GMT
The U.K. has 55 dollar billionaires, Sweden has 43. U.K. has 6.4 times the population of Sweden. The UK education system does not embrace an entrepreneurial approach to life. Instead, it embraces getting a career in an existing company (the safe option) because it is run by wimps. Yet another reason our education system needs a massive kick in the arse. Hard to imagine Sweden’s education system making a big deal of the importance of entrepreneurship though. Of course I may be horribly misjudging our liberal friends. Enjoying your holiday?
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Post by Flying Monkeys on May 6, 2024 21:13:21 GMT
The UK education system does not embrace an entrepreneurial approach to life. Instead, it embraces getting a career in an existing company (the safe option) because it is run by wimps. Yet another reason our education system needs a massive kick in the arse. Hard to imagine Sweden’s education system making a big deal of the importance of entrepreneurship though. Of course I may be horribly misjudging our liberal friends. Enjoying your holiday? Holiday is excellent, thank you.
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Post by tickingmask on May 7, 2024 7:13:54 GMT
The U.K. has 55 dollar billionaires, Sweden has 43. U.K. has 6.4 times the population of Sweden. Isn't that a good thing? I thought we didn't like billionaires - don't pay as much tax as they should, made all their money from the sweat of the brow of the noble British worker, are evil, I tell you, evil!
Anyway now we have changed the non dom regulations, watch this number drop like a stone. Sweden will soon have more billionaires than us, period. Oh, and didn't Sweden abolish inheritance tax and wealth tax? Whereas the Tories bottled their proposals for inheritance tax reforms, while the incoming Labour government that will almost certainly be with us within the next year will immediately abolish the main home allowances for inheritance tax and start imposing wealth taxes faster than you can say 'billionaire'.
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Post by mowlick on May 7, 2024 7:29:44 GMT
The U.K. has 55 dollar billionaires, Sweden has 43. U.K. has 6.4 times the population of Sweden. Isn't that a good thing? I thought we didn't like billionaires - don't pay as much tax as they should, made all their money from the sweat of the brow of the noble British worker, are evil, I tell you, evil!
Anyway now we have changed the non dom regulations, watch this number drop like a stone. Sweden will soon have more billionaires than us, period. Oh, and didn't Sweden abolish inheritance tax and wealth tax? Whereas the Tories bottled their proposals for inheritance tax reforms, while the incoming Labour government that will almost certainly be with us within the next year will immediately abolish the main home allowances for inheritance tax and start imposing wealth taxes faster than you can say 'billionaire'.
Balls.
The Swedes are careful with their money, whereas as soon as the British get a bit ahead of the game they piss off to the Mediterranean and invest it in Ouzo and Greek tottie
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Post by Carl LaFong on May 7, 2024 7:33:19 GMT
The U.K. has 55 dollar billionaires, Sweden has 43. U.K. has 6.4 times the population of Sweden. Isn't that a good thing? I thought we didn't like billionaires - don't pay as much tax as they should, made all their money from the sweat of the brow of the noble British worker, are evil, I tell you, evil!
Anyway now we have changed the non dom regulations, watch this number drop like a stone. Sweden will soon have more billionaires than us, period. Oh, and didn't Sweden abolish inheritance tax and wealth tax? Whereas the Tories bottled their proposals for inheritance tax reforms, while the incoming Labour government that will almost certainly be with us within the next year will immediately abolish the main home allowances for inheritance tax and start imposing wealth taxes faster than you can say 'billionaire'.
www.theguardian.com/inequality/2023/nov/27/uk-spends-more-financing-inequality-in-favour-of-rich-than-rest-of-europe-report-findsThe UK spends more than anywhere else in Europe subsidising the cost of structural inequality in favour of the rich, according to an analysis of 23 OECD countries. Inequalities of income, wealth and power cost the UK £106.2bn a year compared with the average developed country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), according to the Equality Trust’s cost of inequality report. When compared with the top five most equal countries, however, inequality costs the UK £128.4bn a year in damage to the economy, communities and individuals. Fixing the NHS crisis, including funding the maintenance backlog, hiring more staff and increasing wages, would cost about £66.7bn over 15 years. “Inequality has made the UK more unhealthy, unhappy and unsafe than our more equal peers,” said Priya Sahni-Nicholas, the co-executive director of the trust. “It is also causing huge damage to our economy: we have shorter healthy working lives, poorer education systems, more crime and less happy societies.” Britain in the 1970s was one of the most equal of rich countries. Today, it is the second most unequal, after the US. Sahni-Nicholas said: “There is a direct financial cost to inequality: the consequences of structuring society to allow for massive profiteering for the richest at the expense of the rest of us have been enormous.” Overreliance on financial systems that allow for massive profits and wealth-hoarding has hollowed out our infrastructure, she added, encouraging massive regional disparities and leaving the UK vulnerable to shocks and recessions. The report found that the richest 1% in the UK are the most expensive top 1% group in Europe, paying the lowest taxes of such a group in any large European country. The benefits of allowing this to continue are “almost impossible to defend”, said Danny Dorling, the author of Inequality and the 1%. “Inequality is more than just economics: it is the culture that divides and makes social mobility impossible,” he said. “The mere accident of being born outside the 1% will have a dramatic impact on the rest of your life: it will reduce your life expectancy, as well as educational and work prospects, and affects your mental health. The cost of the super-rich is just too high for the rest of us. We must urgently redress the balance.”… It simply can’t go on this way.
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Post by tickingmask on May 7, 2024 11:48:50 GMT
The UK spends more than anywhere else in Europe subsidising the cost of structural inequality in favour of the rich, according to an analysis of 23 OECD countries. Inequalities of income, wealth and power cost the UK £106.2bn a year compared with the average developed country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), according to the Equality Trust’s cost of inequality report. That's more like it! Billionaires, bad! Boo! Hiss! Why do we have 55 dollar billionaires in our country, that's what I want to know? They should all bugger off and take all their money somewhere else. In the meantime the number of billionaires in Sweden has grown dramatically, and in completely unrelated news, by pure coincidence surely, Sweden got rid of inheritance tax in 2005 and wealth tax in 2007. Do you think this was a good thing or a bad thing?
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Post by Carl LaFong on May 7, 2024 12:00:15 GMT
The UK spends more than anywhere else in Europe subsidising the cost of structural inequality in favour of the rich, according to an analysis of 23 OECD countries. Inequalities of income, wealth and power cost the UK £106.2bn a year compared with the average developed country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), according to the Equality Trust’s cost of inequality report. That's more like it! Billionaires, bad! Boo! Hiss! Why do we have 55 dollar billionaires in our country, that's what I want to know? They should all bugger off and take all their money somewhere else. In the meantime the number of billionaires in Sweden has grown dramatically, and in completely unrelated news, by pure coincidence surely, Sweden got rid of inheritance tax in 2005 and wealth tax in 2007. Do you think this was a good thing or a bad thing? I never said so many billionaires wad a good thing. I wad just amazed that Sweden of all places would have twice as many as the US per capita. I think it was a bad thing to abolish inheritance tax. Saw an aeticle the othet day that their public health service is really stuggling. This may explain it.
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Post by tickingmask on May 7, 2024 12:22:58 GMT
I think it was a bad thing to abolish inheritance tax. You see, that's where you and I fundamentally disagree. The weasel wording of that Guardian article says it all: "Inequalities of income, wealth and power cost the UK £106.2bn a year..." ... no, it didn't cost the UK a penny. If every rich person left the UK, the UK wouldn't suddenly have an extra £106.2bn to splash around. All that figure symbolises is the amount of extra tax the UK might get if it soaked the rich as much as the small-minded envious little socialist mindset thinks it should be soaked for. Success should be punished, don't you see? Of course heaping more taxes and adding new types of wealth tax would raise bugger all, since the rich people it targeted would simply relocate somewhere else (as many of them are now doing after the idiotic government got rid of the non-dom regulations). How much tax would we get from them after that happens? Zilch, nil. nada. That's why socialism has failed miserably everywhere it has been tried, and no doubt why Sweden decided to get rid of inheritance and wealth taxes in the first place. It looks like the UK is going to have to learn this lesson the hard way. Again.
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Post by PaulsLaugh on May 7, 2024 12:47:02 GMT
The U.K. has 55 dollar billionaires, Sweden has 43. U.K. has 6.4 times the population of Sweden. Isn't that a good thing? I thought we didn't like billionaires - don't pay as much tax as they should, made all their money from the sweat of the brow of the noble British worker, are evil, I tell you, evil!
Anyway now we have changed the non dom regulations, watch this number drop like a stone. Sweden will soon have more billionaires than us, period. Oh, and didn't Sweden abolish inheritance tax and wealth tax? Whereas the Tories bottled their proposals for inheritance tax reforms, while the incoming Labour government that will almost certainly be with us within the next year will immediately abolish the main home allowances for inheritance tax and start imposing wealth taxes faster than you can say 'billionaire'.
The more billionaires a nation can brag about, then the greater the average bugger’s illusion he too is a success. In 2023, there were around 748 billionaires in the United States. Get behind me, peasant. It has nothing to do with how well educated the population is, actually the more poorly educated they are, the more likely the wealth gap. This illusion of success at wealth and/or power is kinda like being a New England Patriots fan thinking you’re a hot shit among NFL aficionados because of Tom Brady’s success at throwing a football. This is why people get so freaked out now when their team doesn’t win the championship or their cult religio-political cult leader is treated like the common criminal he is. They can’t accept legally verified by multiple legal agencies election results because they are supposed to be the top, not on the bottom. They are Winning! This is same mental state that is driving the popularity of you know who, is the least worthy human of success and power ever, that’s who.
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Post by Carl LaFong on May 7, 2024 13:34:23 GMT
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Post by mowlick on May 7, 2024 17:11:06 GMT
The U.K. has 55 dollar billionaires, Sweden has 43. U.K. has 6.4 times the population of Sweden. 15% of the UK's population is foreign born, in Sweden it is 25%
Sweden has the advantage of lots of pushy immigrants, the UK not so much
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