So How Bad Is It Overseas?

[Zardnaar]

There is much smaller gap, like if I convert swedish compensation numbers into american ones and assuming 2000 hours worked for both, productivity was listed as same by OCED and compare them to USA, it become like $50-60k vs like $33k at bottom 10% and like $130k vs $160k at top 10%. Difference between compensation between bottom and top 10% being like 2.2 vs 5 times, I guess redistribution probably also are greater in Sweden, so it may be even more extreme. I assume the other scandinavian countries are around the same. Norway and Sweden have about the same life expectency so I assume Sweden's graph for life expectency based on income look close to Norway's.

USA median compensation, which is about $32/h or $64k by those numbers would be rather close to 10% percentile I assume for the scandinavian countries, which kinda seems to be the case with life expectency between USA and Norway in those graphs. Also median compensation according to the inflation index used have in real terms not improved since 2009 for USA, but not declined either.

Percentiles for USA

Not sure what you're trying to prove. Of you said Sweden over all is better to live in than USA I think most people here would agree with you.

If anything Sweden has a rose tinted glasses, grassis always greener type aspect and has for decades. We don't see Swedens problems outside looking in.

Kinda similar to my country because people watch youtube videos which usually show you the pretty parts and don't mention the cost to much.

We had one idiot on Reddit post soneth8ngblije "Australian wife and myself wasn't to immigrate average wages". They wanted to live in Queenstownsvtiwn the most expensive part of the country. Resort towns snow caped mountains, alpine lakes etc.

And internet makes problems worse either exaggerating them or sweeping them under the carpet.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I don't see why it would be particular hard to live like this family today, a rather modest house, spending probably most of their money on food, very basic technology and probably frugal with spending money on anything else than just the very basics.

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't see why it would be particular hard to live like this family today, a rather modest house, spending probably most of their money on food, very basic technology and probably frugal with spending money on anything else than just the very basics.

Cost of the house now days. Back then house was 2-3 years income now it's 7-14 years income.

And back then the government was building the house and gave you the deposit to buy it.

Financial advice here.

1. Be born to rich patents.
2. Move to Australia

So if you're young and don't do one of those two things you're an idiot .

Unemployment rate was 3. Not % 3 people unemployed. Go to the bank fir a loan they also give you a job, government gives you the deposit and an immigrant could arrive Monday morning and start work Monday afternoon.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Cost of the house now days. Back then house was 2-3 years income now it's 7-14 years income.

House prices seems so random in Sweden, in my area some cost like 2 years income and some many times more, although you only need 15% downpayment with interest rate have been quite low and actually repaying the mortgages have not really been much of a requirement, which is one reason why private debt is so high in countries like Sweden and Denmark (although the people probably have positive net worth given the houses probably going to be worth more than the loans overtime), like the loans are so cheap. Real wages adjusted for interest rate have increased more since 1995 than real wages with fixed interest rate. Also like 30% of the interest rate is tax exempted.

So even if houses was cheaper, the housing cost like rent or interest rate as part of the consumption budget have not changed much since like 1970 and was lower in 2010s than in 1990s which was the peak.

Like you can find something like this around where I live, to buy that house, you would need to save like 180 000 sek to qualify for mortgage. Although more likely they cost 2-4 million sek and thus 300 000 - 600 000 sek, which maybe take 1-3 years for two working adults to save up for assuming they live one salary and save the other. There is not much reason for one parent to stay at home in Sweden due to child care and such being very cheap and there is not tax advantage of married couples or such and the culture itself I say is pretty anti house wife/husband. An assembly line worker at Volvo maybe get like 24 000 sek after taxes a job that probably require nothing more than like passing high school.

 

[Zardnaar]

House prices seems so random in Sweden, in my area some cost like 2 years income and some many times more, although you only need 15% downpayment with interest rate have been quite low and actually repaying the mortgages have not really been much of a requirement, which is one reason why private debt is so high in countries like Sweden and Denmark (although the people probably have positive net worth given the houses probably going to be worth more than the loans overtime), like the loans are so cheap. Real wages adjusted for interest rate have increased more since 1995 than real wages with fixed interest rate. Also like 30% of the interest rate is tax exempted.

So even if houses was cheaper, the housing cost like rent or interest rate as part of the consumption budget have not changed much since like 1970 and was lower in 2010s than in 1990s which was the peak.

Like you can find something like this around where I live, to buy that house, you would need to save like 180 000 sek to qualify for mortgage. Although more likely they cost 2-4 million sek and thus 300 000 - 600 000 sek, which maybe take 1-3 years for two working adults to save up for assuming they live one salary and save the other. There is not much reason for one parent to stay at home in Sweden due to child care and such being very cheap and there is not tax advantage of married couples or such and the culture itself I say is pretty anti house wife/husband. An assembly line worker at Volvo maybe get like 24 000 sek after taxes a job that probably require nothing more than like passing high school.

View attachment 670282

Can you convert to USD?

Swedens not really a massive immigration destination and probably has a regulated market. Your population has barely gone up 10% last 20 years.

Crank that up to 2-3% per annum or 300k per year keep it up for say 20 years and see how it works out. Thow in very cheap interest rates for 15 years and tax incentives to invest in property.

That's basically Australia, NZ, Canada, USA.

https://www.canstar.com.au/home-loans/expensive-cities-buy-property/

9/10 are in those 4 countries.

 

[Birdjaguar]

You can see the same trend for USA and Norway in terms of poor having short life expectency and rich having long life expectency, but there is a serious difference between the countries probably due to the much greater inequality in USA. Like difference between bottom 1% and top 1% life expectency can be greater than a decade.

Norway has 5 million people and the US has 330 million. The "serious differences" between the two countries are too numerous to list but also include size: Norway has 24,000 sq miles and the US 3.6 million. The scale of the issues each face are too far apart to make meaningful comparisons. Math and statistics never tell the whole story.

 

[EvaDK]

Norway has 5 million people and the US has 330 million. The "serious differences" between the two countries are too numerous to list but also include size: Norway has 24,000 sq miles and the US 3.6 million. The scale of the issues each face are too far apart to make meaningful comparisons. Math and statistics never tell the whole story.

Norway is roughly 150,000 sq miles, which makes it slightly larger than Germany at 140,000 sq miles.

Germany has more inhabitable land for sure, but the Norwegians have plenty of land for their relatively small population, just like the Swedes.

 

[Hygro]

I have, unironically, seen a clear correlation between standard of living and GDP per capita. It’s no standalone measure but it’s pretty decent for a lot. But it also won’t tell you a lot. I’m sure it’s gnarly but I would love to see Burundi. I have a strong suspicion they aren’t anywhere near as poor as the numbers say.

Burundi, Iceland, and Cuba hold some secrets. Mexico showed me how poor $11,000 per capita can be, and Nicaragua showed me how rich $2,300 can be. But the differences are still undeniable and Mexico is overall a lot richer.

Going to the Netherlands when per capita GDP was way down, in 2012, vs way up by 2015, showed me just how real that measure was in capturing that everyone straight up in Holland felt poor and struggling one year, and then rich af another. Never had I seen a population glow with health as the Dutch of North and South Holland in 2015 (not the rest of the country).

 

[Birdjaguar]

Norway is roughly 150,000 sq miles, which makes it slightly larger than Germany at 140,000 sq miles.

Germany has more inhabitable land for sure, but the Norwegians have plenty of land for their relatively small population, just like the Swedes.

I was wrong and cannot figure out why I got it so wrong. Thanks.

The link below says ~125,000. In any case compared to the US it is pretty tiny.

List of countries by area - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

simple.wikipedia.org

 

[Zardnaar]

I was wrong and cannot figure out why I got it so wrong. Thanks.

The link below says ~125,000. In any case compared to the US it is pretty tiny.

List of countries by area - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

simple.wikipedia.org

People ate really bad at estimating crowd size and land size.

Your original number was very low though.

 

[EvaDK]

I was wrong and cannot figure out why I got it so wrong. Thanks.

The link below says ~125,000. In any case compared to the US it is pretty tiny.

List of countries by area - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

simple.wikipedia.org

The discrepancy (125,000 or 150,000) is imo the result of the 125,000 number mistakenly excluding the Norwegian island of Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean. It's 24,000 sq miles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Can you convert to USD?

Swedens not really a massive immigration destination and probably has a regulated market. Your population has barely gone up 10% last 20 years.

Crank that up to 2-3% per annum or 300k per year keep it up for say 20 years and see how it works out. Thow in very cheap interest rates for 15 years and tax incentives to invest in property.

That's basically Australia, NZ, Canada, USA.

https://www.canstar.com.au/home-loans/expensive-cities-buy-property/

9/10 are in those 4 countries.

Probably best way is to look at this:
https://data.oecd.org/conversion/purchasing-power-parities-ppp.htm

According to OCED a $ should be worth around 9 sek +- 0.5 the last 22 years, obviously the norminal value is much more extreme, but that is why I would avoid looking at it.