The Swedes are Retiring Early

Back when the apologists of the welfare state wanted more of our money we got to hear a lot about the condition of the working class.

But now that the welfare state has become established and tenured it has become more secretive. We seem to know little about the lives of the poor, and the bureaucrats and the experts like it that way.

Every now and again, someone lifts a flap of the tent and you can look in. That happened this week when the Moderate Party coalition won the elections in Sweden.

When 25-year-old Swede Jessica Pettersson lost her job recently, she found that the welfare state bureaucrats wanted to classify her as mentally disabled. According to Nima Sanadaji,

Pettersson has a high school degree in economics and has worked in a post office and in a grocery store, among other jobs. After being out of work for a while, her supervisor at the unemployment agency told her that she ought to meet with a work-psychologist since "it is so hard to be without a job."

Huh? So she went to a psychologist and pretty soon found that as a result of testing she ought to be “classified as disabled since she wasn't good enough at mathematics.”

No big deal, you understand. It was “simply a matter of changing a code in her status as unemployed.” And she could get more subsidies and benefits.

Today 19.3 percent of those seeking jobs at the unemployment office are being classified as disabled.

What is going on here?

What is going on is that the government wants to hide the true rate of unemployment. In the Economist’s “Pocket World in Figures 2006” the unemployment rate in Sweden is given as 4.9 percent for 2003.

But, writes Johnny Munkhammar, the real rate of unemployment is much higher.

McKinsey estimated the total unemployment rate to be 15 per cent. Sweden has decreased the size of the labour force more than any other European country during the last 15 years, shuffling away hundreds of thousands of people from being called "unemployed" to "early retired".

Early retired? Yes. Get a load of this,

Youth unemployment is 22 per cent, the fifth highest in EU-25, and the number of people under the age of 30 that are "early retired" has increased from 13, 000 to 22,000 during the last six years.

Well, we knew the Swedes were different, but 22,000 early retired under the age of 30? Obviously the new generation of Swedes are not up to the level of the great soprano Birgit Nilsson and her stentorian voice and work ethic. They just can’t take the pace of the modern world.

In Britain, of course, a similar situation exists. The number of people on “incapacity benefit” is three times the number of official unemployed.

But don’t think we are so hot, pal. In the US the number of officially disabled doubles every decade.

Dems Defend Bush Against Chavez

Yesterday Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez called President Bush a devil.
Today two leading Democrats told Chavez he was a thug.

According to Fox News Rep. Charles Rangel (D- NY) told Chavez:

Don't come to the United States and think, because we have problems with our president, that any foreigner can come to our country and not think that Americans do not feel offended when you offend our chief of state... It should be clear to all heads of government that criticism of Bush administration policies, either domestic or foreign, does not entitle them to attack the president personally. George Bush is the president of the United States and represents the entire country. Any demeaning public attack against him is viewed by Republicans and Democrats, and all Americans, as an attack on all of us.

And Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) echoed Rangel’s remarks.

There is only one thing to say to Rangel and Pelosi. Thank you.

But. Here’s a thought for our Democratic friends.

Don’t you think that maybe you are running with the hare and hunting with the hounds here? You’ve had a grand old time, ever since November 2000, trashing the President of the United States, and frankly encouraging foreigners to believe that you don’t think that President Bush is legitimate and worthy of holding the office of president.

Actions have consequences. A foreign thug like Chavez wouldn’t make speeches about devils and sulphur at the United Nations unless they felt that they had encouragement.

That’s why, back in the old days, we used to talk about politics stopping at the water’s edge.

Just something to think about.

"The Great Risk Shift"

According to political science professor Jacob Hacker in his book The Great Risk Shift the United States has seen a big increase in risk for its ordinary citizens in recent decades.
According to Brink Lindsey, Hacker argues that the culprit is

America's sweeping transformation away from an all-in-the-same-boat philosophy of shared risk toward a go-it-alone vision of personal responsibility...


Over the last generation... we have witnessed a massive transfer of economic risk from broad structures of insurance, including those sponsored by the corporate sector as well as by government, onto the fragile balance sheets of American families.

Let’s accept his statement. There has been a reassignment of risk from corporate and government structures to individuals and families. you can tell that for Hacker it goes without saying that this is a loss. But is it?

After all, we now know that the reason that the transfer has taken place is because the promises made by corporations and government were empty, and made reckless assumptions about the future. Once proud corporations with magisterial defined-benefit programs are now broke and cannot perform their promises. The same is true of government. Social Security has a $10 trillion unfunded liability and Medicare has a $60 trillion unfunded liability.

Hacker’s solution is to move to an “‘insurance and opportunity society,’ that would safeguard economic security and expand economic opportunity, ensuring that all Americans have the basic financial security they need to reach for and achieve the American Dream.”

Sorry to butt in, Jacob, old chap, but wasn’t the welfare state supposed to do all that? Isn’t it supposed to be doing that at this very moment? So why do we need to butt in with a whole new program?

Tenured college professors like Hacker often don’t understand how risk operates. For instance, for an individual or a family is it better to trust to a corporate pension plan and a government program for their security, which means in effect giving some of their wage income to a corporation or government in exchange for promises? Or is it better to keep the money and send it off to Vanguard or Fidelity to be invested in stock and bond funds? In which scenario are you “putting all your eggs in one basket?”

Anyway, given that the corporate pension funds are all tapped out and the government’s entitlement programs will need huge tax increases to make good their promises, where is the money going to come from to provide the “insurance” that Hacker is calling for?

Universities Biased Against People Without 'Wives'

Women are underrepresented in the sciences and engineering because of “bias and ‘outmoded institutional structures’ in academia.”

That is what a an Academy of Sciences panel has decided, according to Cornelia Dean.

“Unless a deeper talent pool is tapped, it will be difficult for our country to maintain our competitiveness in science and engineering,” the panel’s chairwoman, Donna E. Shalala, said at a news conference at which the report was made public. The report, “Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering,” is online at www.nationalacademies.org.

So what are they proposing? Dean writes that

Among other steps, the report recommends altering procedures for hiring and evaluation, changing typical timetables for tenure and promotion, and providing more support for working parents.

OK. What does the report say?

Trustees, university presidents, and provosts should provide clear leadership in changing the culture and structure of their institutions to recruit, retain, and promote more women -- including minority women -- into faculty and leadership positions... show[ing] evidence of having conducted fair, broad, and aggressive talent searches... [holding departments] accountable for the equity of their search processes and outcomes...[setting up] body that would recommend standards.

At least they aren’t proposing beneficial legislation.

The trouble is that many universities have a

work environment in which “anyone lacking the work and family support traditionally provided by a ‘wife’ is at a serious disadvantage.”

That is certainly true. Anyone without a ‘wife’ is at a serious disadvantage in this world.

The whole flap about women in the workforce grows out of the German “creativity” and “genius” cult that grew up in the early nineteenth century. It’s all wrong of course. Before we need a “deeper talent pool” at our universities we need mothers and fathers at home, attending to the real creative project of humanity: children.

Still, you gotta admit that for many women (and men) it’s much more fun to duck out and play at the U with the girls (and boys).

The Three Currents of Islam

According to Bernard Lewis there are three currents in modern Islam, the revival that is trying to deal with the crisis of modernization.

Before modern times the Islamic countries had a fairly pacific government. Rulers had to deal with “established orders—the bazaar merchants, the scribes, the guilds, the country gentry, the military establishment, the religious establishment, and so on.”

But in response to the challenge of the west “A new ruling class emerged, ruling from the center and using the apparatus of the state for its purposes.” Add to that the Nazi influence that seeped into the Middle East through Vichy France and you have a witch’s brew of centralization and brutalization.

Unfortunately the three authentic Islamic responses to the crisis of modernity are Wahhabism, the Iranian Revolution, and Al-Qaeda, all of which are fully jihadist in the Islamic sense that they all subscribe to violent conquest of the rest of the world.

Wahhabism is a problem because it is teaching the children of Islam in the West. The Iranian Revolution is a problem in the same sense that the Soviet Union was a problem. And Al-Qaeda honestly thinks that it knocked out the Soviet Union and is well on its way to knocking out the United States.

The challenge, according to Bernard Lewis, is that it’s a black and white situation.

Either we bring them freedom, or they destroy us.

But Tony Blankley believes that we have not yet begun to fight.

[Wars] often start with a morally ambiguous view of the enemy, a more limited conception of the war's magnitude and a restrained application of violent tactics.

Eventually, moral clarity is obtained, war objectives expand -- often to grandiosity -- and tactics become ferocious.

He cites the Civil War and WWII as examples.

It is not pleasant to think of the events that will lead to the escalation of Western tactics to the level of ferociousness.

B-XVI Regensburg: Who Has the Problem?

If you didn’t know that we have a cultural war going on you can see it today in the differing takes on the pope’s Regensburg speech of September 12, 2006.

Liberal columnist E.J. Dionne thinks we have a problem. And The Wall Street Journal thinks that Islam has a problem. Says Dionne:

[R]eligious dialogue will not progress very far if it starts off with a slap in the face.

And then he goes on to wax all nostalgic about John Paul II. You know we’ve got a real pope when liberals go all misty-eyed about the notorious conservative Polish pope they loved to hate.

But the Journal is lovin’ it.

This is not an invitation to the usual feel-good interfaith round-tables. It is a request for dialogue with one condition--that everyone at the table reject the irrationality of religiously motivated violence.

Amen to that, brother.

Compassionate Conservatives Win in Sweden

Here in the United States President Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” has disappeared in a hurricane of Bush hatred.

But in Britain Conservative Party leader David Cameron has given new life to the Tories with an emphasis on green, windmills, and work/life balance.

Now the Moderate Party in Sweden, led by Frederick Reinfeldt, has romped home to an election win in the world capital of the welfare state with a program that promises not to change too much too fast.

Yes, but what will Reinfeldt actually do? CNN has a run down. The main issue was the Swedish welfare system.

While insisting that he has no intention of dismantling the system, which is something of a sacred cow in Sweden, Reinfeldt has argued that, if the country is to compete economically, urgent reforms are needed.

What reforms? Well, a tax cut, for a start, “a reduction in unemployment benefit from 80 percent of previous income to 65 percent,” but above all a determination to “change things through safe steps.”

Lefties like Polly Toynbee in Britain can see the writing on the wall.

What an irony that the victors - 41-year-old Fredrik Reinfeldt's New Moderates - modelled themselves on New Labour...


Here's the other great lesson from Sweden. They forgot about women - yes, even in Sweden. New Labour has won the past three elections only on the strength of women's votes - yet Labour too has forgotten the importance of connecting with them...


But in opposition look how Cameron's campaign is devoted to pleasing women, in tone, style, words and demeanour: the polls tell him women are more green, family-minded and worried about work-life balance.

And the thing is, Cameron’s mood music is having an effect. The swing to the Tories is 6 percent among women but only 2 percent among men.

The last, brief rightwing government in Sweden left heavy footprints. It cut the welfare state and damaged education by bringing in private schools[.]

Oh yes, did you know? In Sweden they have school vouchers. You can send your child to the school of your choice. What a radical, woman-friendly concept! But safe, you understand, very safe.