
If Sweeden became a US state - briandear
https://mises.org/blog/if-sweden-and-germany-became-us-states-they-would-be-among-poorest-states
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HiLo
Haha I like that comment about how everybody is bashing the use of median
income while offering a more arbitrary and harder to measure metric instead.
Somebody correct me... but wouldn't that be a pretty good metric if it's pre-
tax, since that would be without healthcare costs on both sides anyways? I
would think that using anything but pre-tax "revenue" (median income for
individuals) you would have to argue why one cost (healthcare) should be
considered but other costs (shelter, food, autos, education) shouldn't. So I
guess you would want to carry it through to one of the logical ends, but to
use disposable income you would have to then be able to compare quality of
life on a quantitative basis, which rules that one out too (in my opinion).

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collyw
Healthcare ends up costing a lot more becuase it is not state run in the US,
and there are middlemen to pay.

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Arnt
FWIW, it's not state-run in Germany either, and there are middlemen. Still it
does the job and AFAICT at about one third to one half of what it costs in the
US. If you subscribe to the Economist you'll get a survey of reasons every few
years.

(Actually part of German healthcare is state-run. I think perhaps half of the
big hospitals in town are publicly owned; some by the city, some by the
state.)

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Arnt
This reminds me, perhaps unfairly, of the the "cost of living as businessman"
things that used to be published every year or so, that showed that Oslo,
Stockholm and Copenhagen were so and so many times more expensive that the
average city. Not just per cent, _times_.

The major factor behind that was child care: Hiring a full-time nanny for your
children is awfully expensive in Oslo, therefore being a businessman is
awfully expensive.

Now, Oslo is expensive. No question. But noone needs a full-time nanny there,
even if they might in Mumbai.

Perhaps the mental association is unfair. Perhaps the OECD data it's based on
includes a comprehensive model of such things. Sweden and Germany have
efficient health, childcare and education funding, the US does worse, all of
that could be factored into such a comparison and perhaps they are factored
into this one.

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orxornot
I guess the Swedish government could borrow a lot of money to lower their
taxes on income. That would look great in your stats, but the national debt
would quietly sky rocket behind the scene, just like in the US.

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1971genocide
Of-course america is going to be country with the most american dollars !

All this analysis tells me is that america is suffering from the same sort of
inflation that Spain suffered when it stopped becoming the economical power
house and Britain suffered during the 20th Century. What happens is money that
was issued as dollar debt to foreigners creeps back into the economy that
taxes in american dollar.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_capita)

This list should tell you everything - The difference in purchasing power
between a Swed and american is just 6,000 dollars.

This is not even accounting for how expensive healthcare /education is in
america - since america does a shitty job training its doctors compared to
European nations - and even cuba.

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Armisael16
This isn't talking about where US dollars are - it's comparing incomes. The
numbers are in USD for convenience's sake, but you could easily convert them
to euros, rubles, yen, or krona if you wanted.

Of the three lists on the page you linked, the smallest different is $8151,
not $6k.

You're right that the article doesn't account for purchasing power - they only
do it for US states. Of course, that doesn't help your case since Sweden is a
more expensive place to live than most of the US.

I won't touch your point about the Spanish Empire because I assure you that I
don't understand whatever it is you're trying to say well enough to discuss
it.

