4 ms·

Why is that?

• fein 13y ago
  The housing market and quite a few banks are effectively being taken over by Swedish banks. People are buying property but the mortgages are paying into the pockets of non national banks, so money spent to have a home in Lithuania is leaving the country to pay for social services in Sweden. It's a bit of a political debate for some.
  • pathy 13y ago
    I can understand such frustrations (especially in light of the financial crisis) but they seem a bit naive. The system is more complex than just moving the money out of the country and funding Swedish social services with it. Sounds more like a populist argument along the lines of: "Oh those dirty banks are stealing our money."
  • leoc 13y ago
    Anyone who is convinced that having foreigners owning the banks is a particularly bad arrangement should first take a look at where Ireland's determination to have its banking industry domestically-owned eventually led it.
    • draugadrotten 13y ago
      >Anyone who is convinced that having foreigners owning the banks is a particularly bad arrangement should first take a look at where Ireland's determination to have its banking industry domestically-owned eventually led it. They should also check out what Icelands nationalisation of the banks led to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%9311_Icelandic_financial_crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%9311_Icelandic_finan...
  • seanmcdirmid 13y ago
    This is like claiming that McDonalds China is shipping money back to the USA, when in actuality, they are just reinvesting it back in China...and kicking back profits to shareholders who are hardly American. The only way that this could have a shred of truth is if the Sweden banks had to pay Swedish taxes rather than Lithuanian taxes. Given how taxes work, you generally get taxed where you do business, not where you are headquartered, so this is most definitely false. More likely the Swedish banks are investing capital in Lithuanian for the benefit of their not necessarily Swedish owners.
  • icecreampain 13y ago
    > social services in Sweden What's fun to note about social services in Sweden is that they're bleeding money like a motherfucker: more people are using the hospitals, schools, welfare checks, etc. More and more people are jobless and unproductive, even more unproductive people are being imported every year (over 140.000 immigrants are estimated to arrive during 2014), the services are prone to nepotism and very generous salaries for politicians and bosses (sometimes they're synonymous), etc. The Swedish economy is a bomb waiting to explode, and Swedes are too afraid to speak about it for fear of being called racist or islamophobe or what not. So... SNAFU. Just like the rest of Europe. Sucks to not be a politician / municipal boss right now. They're the only ones who have it blissfully easy.
    • seanmcdirmid 13y ago
      Or you could just be reading libertarian propaganda that continuously predicts impending doom for USA, Western Europe, Japan, Australia...I think these are communicated by the same people who used to stand out on streets wearing signs stating "the end is near."
    • tresta 13y ago
      Yes, there are a lot of immigrants in sweden. All of them that I have met (except for the ones from the E.U) have been productive members of society. There's the turk system administrator, the iranian who's also going to be a system administrator (once he gets a visa and my employer can actually hire him), the chinese guys, the pakistanians and so on.... Ironically the people from the E.U. that I know have been the people that are actually abusing the system. Like the welshman who is being "burned out" (no, he's not), and the irish guy who keep bouncing between jobs, and there are more people like this.