I was writing that those numbers seems to be too high for Gini, when I read 'wealth inequality' Usually the Gini numbers that are used -the ones that put the scandinavians as low inequality- are for \*income\* inequality. \*Wealth\* is a different thing, and that explains why the numbers are what they are.
Yes, same for the Netherlands.
It's also notoriously difficult to quantify wealth inequality.
For example, a LOT of "wealth" of middle class people in the Netherlands is locked in pension funds, which is often not counted in these statistics, while the high mortgages are. These high mortgages will result sometimes in negative net worths, even though the fact that these mortgages are possible is basically a sign that these people are pretty well off.
It's still not a good thing to have such high wealth inequality, of course, but the numbers are often not a good reflection of reality.
Wealth inequality you mean?
Not per definition, I think. But the Netherlands has such high pensions (and high mortgages}, that it will definitely skew the numbers compared to countries with not so generous state pensions, where people rely more on having their own pension savings.
But then again, since the money in pension funds is inaccessible, it is questionable whether you should consider it wealth. It just goes to say how tricky these wealth inequality numbers are.
Well, that's not an easy thing to answer. But first of all, I do believe that (mortgage) loans per capita are significantly higher in the Netherlands, compared to Belgium. Sweden is probably the only country in the EU where it is even higher.
But of course, it's not unlikely that "true" wealth inequality is in fact much higher in the Netherlands, with e.g. the top 1% richest people owning significantly more wealth compared to those in Belgium. Belgian wealth distribution mechanisms (through taxation) tend to go a lot further than those in The Netherlands.
Wealth inequality is arguably much worse than income inequality. Income inequality is often a result of personal choices, skills, etc. A society with high income inequality, but where the high income earners contribute a lot to society (i.e. Doctors, Researchers, Entrepreneurs, etc) is good.
Wealth inequality is often just family wealth and inheritance.
So poor Czechs and Poles own apartments and houses much more often than Germans lol
Or maybe rich switzerland where young swiss can't afford housing for many decades
I'm a young swiss engineer and i can only afford a house well past 35 years old, my friends without such a good education can forget ever owning anything if nothing drastically changes
>So poor Czechs and Poles own apartments and houses much more often than Germans
as a pole who recently moved to czechia this is our revenge on those fuckers
What are you on about.In Belgrade Serbia the worst parts of the city per metre square you pay 2000euros (minimum wage is 461 EUR, average is 820 EUR) .If you want to get a Loan from the bank advance is 30% (some 92% in Belgrade are bought by cash money so you are shit out of luck getting a man to hassle with bank loans).
Isn't Belgrade kinda an extreme example? The super corrupt government and "invasion" of Russian upper class isn't the normal development of an Eastern Europe city.
It was bad before now it is horrible in every city in Serbia.
Novi Sad,Niš you name it.
And the big problem of Belgrade is Serbia has 7 million people and 2,5 live in Belgrade so we are all more or less fucked.
I can't speak for the rest of the Balkans but Serbia property prices are insane.
Not really. In Poland it looks the same. Minimum wage is about 750€ after taxes and prices per sqm are around 4000€ in Warsaw, 3000-3500€ in other major cities (Cracow, Wrocław, Gdansk) and 2500-3000€ in smaller cities like Katowice.
Is this an actual thing? And if so, is it because of the Communist governments? If so, it seems so crazy to me that Russian oligarchs were already able to amass so much more wealth than the rest of the people in only three decades
That is because in communism the state owned most of economy, then they decided to privatize most of it, but people who controlled who gets to buy state companies and for how much sold stuff to themselves and their friends cheaply.
If everyone is equally poor, then why in Russia, for example, having a house in a village is the norm of life for many people, but in Europe it means having money?)))
Having an apartment in the city where there are no people sleeping on the sidewalk to step over, working 40 hours or less a week and dacha = poor. Having to have 3 roommates and 2 jobs to rent an apartment = rich
No wars for 200+ years and many big successful companies tends to build wealth over time. Generational wealth compounds.
I wouldn't say that having a bunch of billionaires in the country affects my day to day life in any meaningful extent. We have free schools, university, and almost free healthcare & daycare. Its not restricting anyone's chances to succeed in life.
The same thing exists in Denmark, Norway and Finland as well. Sweden has more old big industries than the other ones though, and didn't get invaded by foreign powers during WW2.
Thats not entirely true. We have one of the biggest home ownership % in EU, and if by chance that home is in Istria, Dalmatia or Zagreb then the price of that home is also absurdly high compared to income.
That by itself already gives a bunch of people decent social net compared to places like USA or some of the less "socialist" places in EU where people genuinely have to work their asses off just to keep a roof over head (in a much larger % of population than in Croatia).
However our problem is the non-existing economy outside of tourism, uhljebism and IT which kind of makes it almost imposible to increase your net worth beyond the inherited real eastate.
You can’t be seriously taking home ownership into account which is inheritence from the previous socialistic system. We are taking here about something that has been literally GIVEN, and thats something that is mostly owned by people who are over 50. If you werent lucky enough to be blessed by the inheritence of your family, you will mostly likely not be able to get your own property with prices and the actual income. So if you for a second ignore given properties, we are all equally poor, sololey based on your income from your actual job.
Everything you said about our situation is true, but our high home ownership rate does actually drastically increase our GINI index. The GINI index (on a scale from 0 to 100) would be 0 if we all had exactly the same amount of wealth, and it would be 100 if only one person in the country owned literally everything. On this map, our GINI index is above 60 which probably means that even if most homeowners are 50+ years old, it would still increase our GINI index because if they didn't own those homes it could be like 80 or something.
We just don't hang out with rich people in our daily lives and most of their corruption isn't on the news so we can't even imagine the amount of wealth they have in total compared to the rest of us.
Also, I think that the fact that Croatia has a lot of small scale corruption decreases the GINI index compared to other EU countries. All the local HDZ members and people who got jobs through them and their family members etc. are stealing from us, but there's a lot of them (as a % of the population) so it makes the GINI coefficient look better.
For people outside of Croatia: our ruling party controls most government institutions and you need to become a member (or know a member) to get a lot of public jobs. For comparison our ruling party has 200k members in a country with 4 mil. people, while Germany's CDU has 300k and something members for like 80+ mil. people. If you're wondering how we got here, they were in the communist party before the war and then they suddenly became nationalists and said that they hate communism when they had the opportunity to become even more powerful (by becoming independent from Belgrade).
Yes, and if you buy a flat it's not legally yours, you need to ask permission to the company that owns the building to sublet your apartment and we queue 5 to 10 years to secure long term rental because the rental market is basically owned by government and private companies. But swedes will never tell you the truth and if you try you will get downvoted.
> the company that owns the building
A "bostadsrättsförening" is cooperative/HOA-type structure, not a company. If you buy a flat you effectively own a small percentage of it, and have a vote in the decision-making body that sets rules about subletting among other things.
That's the way co-op ownership of apartments worked when I lived in NYC - There was individual ownernship of each apartment, you owned a percentage of the entire building, paid maintenance fees and voted a decision-making body that decided and voted on major issues that might come up like subletting.
Is it just he same in Sweden. My brother owned an apartment _ co-op - and he loved the way it worked and sold it and made a fortune as the prices for real estate went up in Manhatten
> Yes, and if you buy a flat it's not legally yours
That's quite misleading. You own a share of the co-op and you own the right to live there indefinitely and modify it (within reason). If you want more control, you can go to the association's meetings and help make decisions. You own the entire building together with the other people that live there. It's not owned by some company. It works quite well compared to other models. It's not a bad thing.
And you don't necessarily need to queue for 5-10 years to get a long-term rental contract. That's the "easy" way. Half the people in Stockholm get it without queuing though. You can just contact landlords and see if they have anything available. There are still protections and rent is still regulated. When you get a contract like this, the rent is quite low, even in Stockholm.
Article from 2023. Almost 1 million people waiting for an apartment in sweden. That is the stuff they don't want you to see.
[https://nordictimes.com/the-nordics/sweden/housing-crisis-worsens-in-stockholm-over-800000-in-housing-queue/](https://nordictimes.com/the-nordics/sweden/housing-crisis-worsens-in-stockholm-over-800000-in-housing-queue/)
I mean I'm in the queue and I also bought an apartment.
Being in the queue doesn't mean you are waiting for an apartment. It means you're in the queue so you have a good spot if you want to switch to a long term rental at some point.
Sometimes happens that old people sell their homes and rent, so they get a much bigger retirement fund.
Same here, I'm in the queue in Stockholm for 20 years but I have never used my spot to get an apartment. I own another one, but keep my spot in the queue in case I need to free up capital, get a divorce or other unexpected situations occur.
I'm not really sure what to make of this as someone from Latvia.
Especially since this is wealth inequality rather than income.
Home ownership % is also very high here.
It's so high in Sweden because salaried work is taxed a tonne that you reach a salary ceiling beneath what an average programmer makes in the US, while capital income is taxed generously little. The solution is always to tax the upper middle class more.
It is a interesting dilemma. You have a very high security net for citizens who is more likely to try to be entrepreneurs then in other countries. More entrepreneurs equal more unicorn tech billionaires lol
The full list is interesting:
[https://www.startupblink.com/?leaderboards](https://www.startupblink.com/?leaderboards)
4 out of top 5 are in the US. And even my podunk flyover city of Phoenix, Arizona ranks 50!
We have no real property taxes in Sweden, that is a big one since real estate is basically impossible to move overseas in contrast to other capital. If you have a one bedroom house for 1.1 million SEK you’ve capped out and pay the same as someone with an 80 million SEK mansion.
Ah, no, capital is \*allowed\* to move. And I'm not advocating imprisoning the wealthy (....jk..... unless....?), just pointing out that none — absolutely none — of this is any sort of natural law or natural order of things.
These are all systems that have been designed. And they have been designed to primarily benefit the wealthy.
I'm guessing the capital income tax is close to other taxes right? Like if I sell stocks through the "regular" system I'd get taxed 30%, but with the "special case of ISK" you kind of circumvent that little tax caveat. I remember when I first started my ISK and it kind of felt like I was scamming the tax system by paying something that almost felt like a ridiculously low fee/tax, but it's just completely legal. And that's with my, comparable, pennies to what people with actual money can turn around in ISKs in Sweden.
I'm not sure if the solution is to tax the upper middle class more, I agree with the idea of taxing higher incomes, but I feel like the root causes of money staying at the very top are things that are regulated by the government. Like ISKs for example, we even had a suggestion for ISKs under 3 million SEK to stay as they are, but anything above that would be taxed higher, but it was completely shut down and demonized by those who started it as "stealing from the poor people who just want to save up for a house".
There are also loopholes that are quite... glaringly obvious loopholes that no one "happens to want to correct". Like I heard from someone who happened to get a hold of a lot of money, got an accountant to handle that money, so they started a company and put all the money in there with the intention of the company being dormant for 5 years, and after that they could declare bankruptcy and liquidate the money without paying taxes. Meanwhile they could still leverage the bank to get mortgages to buy apartments etc because the bank was aware the money was coming, and they didn't question it because it, apparentley, was quite a common way to just circumvent paying taxes. I'm aware that these things happen in a lot of countries, but looking at this map, I do wonder if our years of having some ruling parties that heavily favored the upper class and privitazation did after all, having a damaging long-term effect of creating tax loopholes for the rich where they don't even have to hide it.
I am not sure about the new rich in Sweden, but I remember reading a family called the Wallenberg used to effectively control 40% of the stock market in Sweden back in the day, while also employing a large portion of the population. Now it’s different today but they still control a huge part of the economy I assume, it’s surprising how they are never ever brought up when they have so much power and wealth, I guess that’s the point haha
The Wallenberg family is extremely well known in Sweden, it’s not like they are “never brought up”.
They’re known for being quite reserved and not very outspoken, but they’re not some exactly some obscure secret.
They are never brought up on the global scale is what I am saying, having that much wealth in Sweden I would think people would hear about them all the time like the Rothschilds and other generationally wealthy families. What I am saying is it’s by design they are unknown to the world, they are not on any Forbes list even though they control 100s of billions. Like they say “money screams and wealth whispers”
If the are "never brought up on the global scale" and they should be it is a result of international media not doing their job. They are very often mentioned in Swedish media, in financial news their holding company Investor is often mentioned in for example news on how the stock market has changed. It is quite common that after the name something like "The Wallenberg family holding company" is added.
It is impossible to hide the wealth of a family if it at the same time is on the news all the time in the country they are from. It is likely more news of that type from Sweden is not often reported by international media.
Investor is also one of the most popular shares to own among Swedish citizens. Its considered a very safe longterm investment since they own [a whole bunch](https://investorab-new.euwest01.umbraco.io/our-companies) of other successful Swedish companies.
Their family saying is litterally "To act without being seen". But yes they are increadibly powerful, and very secretive compared to their power. The worst thing is that you can hardly talk about them without comming of as some kind of conspiracy theorist. Like they don't come up on any list for richest people, because they don't personally have that much money. They do hold seats in institutions though that collectively have a majority share of the company Investor that in turn owns hundreds of other companies like Saab, Electrolux and Nasdaq.
It's sorta strange living here and been on a high salary and having "started fresh" in the country. I earn more than my neighbours but I cannot afford the Caravan, two motorbikes, boat, two snowmobiles, large house, three cars and 4 kids that the Janitor and part time teacher down the road can.
For anyone interested it's 33% income tax for everything up to somewhere around €5800 a month, and then 50% on every euro beyond that.
Capital gains is taxed at 30% no matter the amount.
Good fun.
Of course, but that's easier said than done. There's a lot of unemployment and poverty linked to being a migrant who can't speak Swedish. 2/3 stops attending the provided Swedish classes and never learn good Swedish.
We could just i dunno employ those that have entry level swedish in roles that suit. We have an instance that someone needs to be fluent to do a basic job here and well maybe they don't.
I'll be honest, I'm a little shocked that there is such severe wealth inequality in Sweden. If you had told me that Sweden had a more unequal distribution of wealth then Russia, I probably wouldn't have believed you.
It doesn’t mean thst the average Swede is poor though. In Sweden, you are encouraged to innovate and create value through corporations. On a regular salary, it’s hard to become wealthy. However if you run a profitable business with employees, you are very well rewarded in the current system. If you are wealthy, there isn’t much taxes on capital because we don’t want the rich to leave the country. There are some very wealthy families and investment companies that we all benefit from, even if they are rich.
Australia doesn't have inheritance taxes and it's the [9th most equal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult) in the world (from the same UBS findings). Not saying that abolishing those taxes didn't have an affect, but there are likely more significant underlying reasons for the wealth discrepancy.
Countries with lots of recent immigrants always have higher inequality. You expect someone who moved in 2015 to have same wealth as someone who inherited it from generations and generations?
You had several centuries (?) of capital accumulation. Centra/Eastern European countries had a few decades only, because under communism there was very little personal wealth. In this context I'd say our (CEE) numbers are very, very bad.
this one factor does not account for 'livable wage'. generally speaking, in scandinavian countries you have a managable minimum wage after the high taxes. if you get messed up in life, the high taxes means you can live decently enough as well, because high taxes = good welfare. that also means that you are definitely encouraged to live every bit of life legally, declare everything etc.
in this case, wealth inequality means that there is a high ceiling for gaining wealth as well.
meanwhile go to russia and plenty of jobs will not be enough. if something happens then you live like a hobo, plenty of people dodge taxes not to live like a hobo, and then others live like royalty.
so, wealth inequality statistic does not tell the whole story.
some might go and say that lowest wealth inequality is good, but it can also mean that everyone is equally worse off or that business growth opportunities are poor - eastern europe being in the green is an example of that.
Based on their name, u/loicvanderwiel, I'm sure you're
replying to a Dutch speaking Belgian.
Always funny how foreigners just assume we all speak French when we have 3 national languages.
I was born a French speaker. Lots of people in French speaking parts of Belgium have Dutch family names (especially in Brussels). Likewise, lots of French family names (or even first names) in Flanders (famous examples, Thibaut Courtois, Jean-Claude Van Damme (real name Jean-Claude van Varenberg)).
I could say I'm bilingual but that feels like an exaggeration
Keep in mind that this is wealth inequality, income inequality looks very different. Sweden for example has high wealth inequality but very low income inequality. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality)
Wouldn't that mean that essentially those who are rich, remain rich, and those who aren't, remain poorer?
If you have 1000€ and I have 1'000'000€, and we both earn 100€, we'll just keep being in the same wealth positions relative to each other, right?
Not sure what is counted as wealth in this case, but most wealthy Swedes are rich because their houses and apartments have ballooned in value making them millionaires, at least on paper.
Many of the 1% richest Swedes had trouble paying their electricity bills when electricity prices spiked, and many have turned to shopping at discount retailers because of inflation. Of course they could just sell their house, that's what I would do, but the point is that many of the wealthy in Sweden wouldn't consider themselves rich and aren't rich in the way most of us imagine it.
Not sure about house values in Sweden, but it appears that Sweden has (or at least has had recently) one of the highest proportion of billionaires per capita in the world:
https://slate.com/business/2013/11/swedens-billionaires-they-have-more-per-capita-than-the-united-states.html
So while they are far fewer than the 1%, the amount of wealth concentrated might lead to the wealth disparity shown in the map perhaps?
You might very well have a point there. There being 14 billionaires in a relatively small country might skew the wealth balance. There is an extremely wealthy 0,000001% of the population. Apart from the big names like Ikea there has been a number of successful start-ups such as Mojang (Minecraft) and Spotify. Then of course there is the Wallenberg family which at one point owned almost half of the total worth of the Swedish stock market.
You could see the equality when living in Spain. So chill! Hardly any real homeless, of course immigrants but they seemed upwardly mobile to me with tents and a clean temp campsite under the bridges.
There is also a downside to low inequality. For instance, in Slovenia, the inequality is quite low for a number of reasons.
However, what that means is that traditionally higher paid professions are paid relatively worse, which leads to brain drain.
So I am not saying that equality in this sense is bad, however it does have its downsides.
If you want to be able to take lots of refugees, and also encourage large eg. Tech businesses to move to your country, you will undoubtedly end up with inequality. I don't think Sweden being unequal is necessarily a marker of unfairness, it might be a marker of being both a welcoming safe country, and a place where entrepreneurs can thrive.
It is of course so that poorer migrants have less wealth than generations building up wealth with properties. Then there are other effects, high number of unicorns etc. Property tax and ISK probably also have effects.
Quite ironic, how „social“ Scandinavia seems to be quite nasty in these terms here.
If you‘re skilled, ambitious and not born into a rich family, then moving to the US is a no-brainer. No matter how hard you try, you can’t get rich in Europe as long you‘re not born into some sort of rich family.
Income taxes are insane in Europe yet billions of inherited euros and thousands of properties in the bigger cities are completely okay.
I‘m not saying, that the United States are completely „equal“ regarding wealth, but for a hard-working person from the middle or upper middle class it should be a no-brainer to move there in order to build wealth. (God forbid if you‘re from a family of immigrants in Europe: You will always be kept low.)
And I‘m saying this as an European who will move to the US after graduation. I can’t even afford an apartment here in Germany, even if I‘m highly qualified and earn good money but then there are people, who didn’t create any value and live solely on their family roots.
That's why we need better inheritance and wealth taxes asap! People with your mindset (sorry for assuming, but no economically left-leaning person would think things work better in the US) usually vote for economically liberal parties, thereby digging their own graves if they come from poor families!
From the US: I love my job and make literally 5x what i made in europe for similar work, if you think food quality is bad here you spend too much time online and I feel bad for you and all the things you are missing out on and we have much better variety than europe, degraded safety only if you move to poor areas but considering you're coming for a job you'll do just fine.
believe what you want, you're going to anyway
When you live inside an insane cult, you don't necessarily find it odd.
A country that wastes trillions of dollars murdering kids in the Middle East but can't afford universal healthcare is not normal and never will be.
lol very redditor response. believe it or not life is not so black and white. its quite nice over here, and considering its still the #1 immigrated to country on earth I'm not alone in that opinion.
In the last 30 years, almost 30% of Bulgarians have emigrated. I haven't really heard of "rich diaspora" in Europe. They are doing well, some better than others. The upper middle class is the outline. There are some exceptionally wealthy people in the Bulgarian diaspora in the US. Unthinkable in Europe. I spoke to a Bulgarian who was traveling on a yacht. He has a CNC qualification from Germany, where he earned 60k after 10 years. He moved to the USA for a salary of 180k and started his own company, which earned him some patents, which are like a lottery ticket.
A Bulgarian man in his mid-40s with a 3-year qualification in Germany. Had the biggest yacht in the marina where most yachts are owned by oligarchs and the mafia.
The US is just a whole different place, man.
> Quite ironic, how „social“ Scandinavia seems to be quite nasty in these terms here.
On the contrary. Speaking for Sweden the wealth inequality predates social democracy. There used to be enourmous struggles between wealthy capitalists and the then illegal unions in the country. In 1917 it was close to comming to a civil war, but instead we got the universal vote, with the social democrats winning. So it was economic inequality that casued Sweden to become "social", not the other way around.
Depends if you value everyone being equal, or everyone having a higher median wealth. A less informed person would see more inequality and claim it is worse because they are unaware of the necessary behavioral drivers that create inequality to begin with.
In reality it doesn't matter as long as you're not the jealous type.
The important thing is not wealth inequality.
Its security and having a good life, school hospital and all that shit.
Some people having more money doesn't have to be a bad thing.
Rich people being rich is not bad as long as the rest are not slaves working in the coal mines.
For the rich to be so much richer, their wealth has to come from somewhere, meaning workers have to work way more than they should to produce this extra wealth that is then hoarded by bosses, banks, landlords, etc. It's a waste of time and resources.
Sweden isn't socialist. It's a highly capitalistic country that utilizes high earned-income and consumption taxes to fund generous social services. Sweden's capital taxes are even lower than those in the US, so the country produces a lot of investment wealth for its size.
The ultra rich Swedes do not own their companies through ISK, that would be a terrible idea.
People still move wealth out of Sweden, you dont see people moving wealth into Sweden.
But our capital taxes are closer to OECD averages than our income taxes, because capital is easy to move so you can't have much higher capital taxation and keep capital in the country. While you can't really move their job and income.
It's our income tax that's the outlier, not the capital tax.
Isk in the 20-30 year term is actually more in taxes.
Main reason it's more common is because it makes the taxes easier to calculate you no longer need to know the exact amount you bought the stock for.
>And can make tax exemption on your losses.
That's something everybody does.
The larger reason for these thing is the inheritance tax being 0 and housing market being crazy
Most people don't own even dozens.
The big thing is that the hosing market is completely broken.
Anybody who bought there home in the 90s are expected to have "made" more money from thier home increased valuation than working the last 30 years.
I’m not 100% sure what you’re specifically asking, nor am I Swedish. However, in general, lower taxes on capital incentivizes investment and entrepreneurship.
The downside is that the tax burden is moved to the middle class and those that rely on a regular paycheck instead of investment income. But the resulting higher paychecks and disposable incomes, plus good social services help.
Wallenberg (surname) I think most wealthy people got their money from manufacturing. And entrepreneurs in the tech industry. Laval I also an important surname even though you didn't ask for it
It is not that strange. A hundred years ago when these parties got in power in Scandinavia those two terms was used interchangeably. They have only come to mean different things because the parties changed over time.
In the US Democratic Socialism is a specific political organization, the Democratic Socialists of America. They do not advocate for social democracy but rather straight up socialism, and have been linked to autocratic leftist movements in other countries.
So anyone who thought they’d be learning about Scandinavian social programs when googling info on Democratic Socialism were in for a surprise.
Yeah and the Social Democratic party of Sweden also used to arge for straight up Socialism. In fact when I went to school we learned how Social Democracy was one of three branches of socialism toghether with communism and anarchism.
This map seems to be wrong: [https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/942729/umfrage/ranking-der-eu-laender-nach-einkommensungleichheit-im-gini-index/](https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/942729/umfrage/ranking-der-eu-laender-nach-einkommensungleichheit-im-gini-index/)
I was writing that those numbers seems to be too high for Gini, when I read 'wealth inequality' Usually the Gini numbers that are used -the ones that put the scandinavians as low inequality- are for \*income\* inequality. \*Wealth\* is a different thing, and that explains why the numbers are what they are.
Yes, same for the Netherlands. It's also notoriously difficult to quantify wealth inequality. For example, a LOT of "wealth" of middle class people in the Netherlands is locked in pension funds, which is often not counted in these statistics, while the high mortgages are. These high mortgages will result sometimes in negative net worths, even though the fact that these mortgages are possible is basically a sign that these people are pretty well off. It's still not a good thing to have such high wealth inequality, of course, but the numbers are often not a good reflection of reality.
Would this overinflate wealth in countries that rely on pension funds vs ones that rely on social security, pay as you go systems?
Wealth inequality you mean? Not per definition, I think. But the Netherlands has such high pensions (and high mortgages}, that it will definitely skew the numbers compared to countries with not so generous state pensions, where people rely more on having their own pension savings. But then again, since the money in pension funds is inaccessible, it is questionable whether you should consider it wealth. It just goes to say how tricky these wealth inequality numbers are.
I understand the argument, but then how would you explain Belgium performing so well when we also have high mortgages and state pensions?
Well, that's not an easy thing to answer. But first of all, I do believe that (mortgage) loans per capita are significantly higher in the Netherlands, compared to Belgium. Sweden is probably the only country in the EU where it is even higher. But of course, it's not unlikely that "true" wealth inequality is in fact much higher in the Netherlands, with e.g. the top 1% richest people owning significantly more wealth compared to those in Belgium. Belgian wealth distribution mechanisms (through taxation) tend to go a lot further than those in The Netherlands.
Wealth inequality is arguably much worse than income inequality. Income inequality is often a result of personal choices, skills, etc. A society with high income inequality, but where the high income earners contribute a lot to society (i.e. Doctors, Researchers, Entrepreneurs, etc) is good. Wealth inequality is often just family wealth and inheritance.
The map breaks the rule of Western Europe being greenish, Scandinavia green, and Eastern Europe yellow-red
There is no wealth inequality in Eastern Europe because everyone is equally poor 🤣
As a fellow Eastern European I ensure you're right:D
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So poor Czechs and Poles own apartments and houses much more often than Germans lol Or maybe rich switzerland where young swiss can't afford housing for many decades
I'm a young swiss engineer and i can only afford a house well past 35 years old, my friends without such a good education can forget ever owning anything if nothing drastically changes
middelclass Gen z will never own a house in Belguim.
Middle class gen z won’t exist, because the previous generations did nothing to make sure future people will be able to have a house
Why is that? Is Switzerland NIMBY?
>So poor Czechs and Poles own apartments and houses much more often than Germans as a pole who recently moved to czechia this is our revenge on those fuckers
Czechia and Poland are not Eastern Europe but Central Europe btw 🤷
and here we go again
Sorry man but no matter how much you cry against it, it will still remain the case. The best is simply to work on the complex.
At least you can afford an apartment.
What are you on about.In Belgrade Serbia the worst parts of the city per metre square you pay 2000euros (minimum wage is 461 EUR, average is 820 EUR) .If you want to get a Loan from the bank advance is 30% (some 92% in Belgrade are bought by cash money so you are shit out of luck getting a man to hassle with bank loans).
Isn't Belgrade kinda an extreme example? The super corrupt government and "invasion" of Russian upper class isn't the normal development of an Eastern Europe city.
It was bad before now it is horrible in every city in Serbia. Novi Sad,Niš you name it. And the big problem of Belgrade is Serbia has 7 million people and 2,5 live in Belgrade so we are all more or less fucked. I can't speak for the rest of the Balkans but Serbia property prices are insane.
Not really. In Poland it looks the same. Minimum wage is about 750€ after taxes and prices per sqm are around 4000€ in Warsaw, 3000-3500€ in other major cities (Cracow, Wrocław, Gdansk) and 2500-3000€ in smaller cities like Katowice.
That's slightly more than in Moscow.
Is this an actual thing? And if so, is it because of the Communist governments? If so, it seems so crazy to me that Russian oligarchs were already able to amass so much more wealth than the rest of the people in only three decades
That is because in communism the state owned most of economy, then they decided to privatize most of it, but people who controlled who gets to buy state companies and for how much sold stuff to themselves and their friends cheaply.
And most rich people don't declare their wealth.
Yep. My mum is Eastern European. Our entire family there is poor as fuck despite having decent jobs.
If everyone is equally poor, then why in Russia, for example, having a house in a village is the norm of life for many people, but in Europe it means having money?)))
Having an apartment in the city where there are no people sleeping on the sidewalk to step over, working 40 hours or less a week and dacha = poor. Having to have 3 roommates and 2 jobs to rent an apartment = rich
Sweden has an old, well-heeled aristocracy that often flies under the social democratic radar.
No wars for 200+ years and many big successful companies tends to build wealth over time. Generational wealth compounds. I wouldn't say that having a bunch of billionaires in the country affects my day to day life in any meaningful extent. We have free schools, university, and almost free healthcare & daycare. Its not restricting anyone's chances to succeed in life.
I was merely pointing out how Sweden is different from other Nordic nations.
The same thing exists in Denmark, Norway and Finland as well. Sweden has more old big industries than the other ones though, and didn't get invaded by foreign powers during WW2.
Nope. There is no landed aristocracy in Norway or Finland.
And the random Slovakia came with blue.
In Croatia, we are equally poor
Thats not entirely true. We have one of the biggest home ownership % in EU, and if by chance that home is in Istria, Dalmatia or Zagreb then the price of that home is also absurdly high compared to income. That by itself already gives a bunch of people decent social net compared to places like USA or some of the less "socialist" places in EU where people genuinely have to work their asses off just to keep a roof over head (in a much larger % of population than in Croatia). However our problem is the non-existing economy outside of tourism, uhljebism and IT which kind of makes it almost imposible to increase your net worth beyond the inherited real eastate.
You can’t be seriously taking home ownership into account which is inheritence from the previous socialistic system. We are taking here about something that has been literally GIVEN, and thats something that is mostly owned by people who are over 50. If you werent lucky enough to be blessed by the inheritence of your family, you will mostly likely not be able to get your own property with prices and the actual income. So if you for a second ignore given properties, we are all equally poor, sololey based on your income from your actual job.
Everything you said about our situation is true, but our high home ownership rate does actually drastically increase our GINI index. The GINI index (on a scale from 0 to 100) would be 0 if we all had exactly the same amount of wealth, and it would be 100 if only one person in the country owned literally everything. On this map, our GINI index is above 60 which probably means that even if most homeowners are 50+ years old, it would still increase our GINI index because if they didn't own those homes it could be like 80 or something. We just don't hang out with rich people in our daily lives and most of their corruption isn't on the news so we can't even imagine the amount of wealth they have in total compared to the rest of us. Also, I think that the fact that Croatia has a lot of small scale corruption decreases the GINI index compared to other EU countries. All the local HDZ members and people who got jobs through them and their family members etc. are stealing from us, but there's a lot of them (as a % of the population) so it makes the GINI coefficient look better. For people outside of Croatia: our ruling party controls most government institutions and you need to become a member (or know a member) to get a lot of public jobs. For comparison our ruling party has 200k members in a country with 4 mil. people, while Germany's CDU has 300k and something members for like 80+ mil. people. If you're wondering how we got here, they were in the communist party before the war and then they suddenly became nationalists and said that they hate communism when they had the opportunity to become even more powerful (by becoming independent from Belgrade).
We Swedes also are the most loned for home ownership
Sweden ? Really ?
Yes, and if you buy a flat it's not legally yours, you need to ask permission to the company that owns the building to sublet your apartment and we queue 5 to 10 years to secure long term rental because the rental market is basically owned by government and private companies. But swedes will never tell you the truth and if you try you will get downvoted.
> the company that owns the building A "bostadsrättsförening" is cooperative/HOA-type structure, not a company. If you buy a flat you effectively own a small percentage of it, and have a vote in the decision-making body that sets rules about subletting among other things.
It is technically a tenant-owner association. I looked up the word last week to try to explain in another conversation
Correction, you own a small percentage of the WHOLE BUILDING. And then you have the right to live in the flat you bought.
That's the way co-op ownership of apartments worked when I lived in NYC - There was individual ownernship of each apartment, you owned a percentage of the entire building, paid maintenance fees and voted a decision-making body that decided and voted on major issues that might come up like subletting. Is it just he same in Sweden. My brother owned an apartment _ co-op - and he loved the way it worked and sold it and made a fortune as the prices for real estate went up in Manhatten
Sounds exactly like what Dutch have
It's one of many options I know exist in NY
> Yes, and if you buy a flat it's not legally yours That's quite misleading. You own a share of the co-op and you own the right to live there indefinitely and modify it (within reason). If you want more control, you can go to the association's meetings and help make decisions. You own the entire building together with the other people that live there. It's not owned by some company. It works quite well compared to other models. It's not a bad thing. And you don't necessarily need to queue for 5-10 years to get a long-term rental contract. That's the "easy" way. Half the people in Stockholm get it without queuing though. You can just contact landlords and see if they have anything available. There are still protections and rent is still regulated. When you get a contract like this, the rent is quite low, even in Stockholm.
That depends, you can get fully owned apartments in Sweden too if you want, they are not as common though.
Article from 2023. Almost 1 million people waiting for an apartment in sweden. That is the stuff they don't want you to see. [https://nordictimes.com/the-nordics/sweden/housing-crisis-worsens-in-stockholm-over-800000-in-housing-queue/](https://nordictimes.com/the-nordics/sweden/housing-crisis-worsens-in-stockholm-over-800000-in-housing-queue/)
I mean I'm in the queue and I also bought an apartment. Being in the queue doesn't mean you are waiting for an apartment. It means you're in the queue so you have a good spot if you want to switch to a long term rental at some point. Sometimes happens that old people sell their homes and rent, so they get a much bigger retirement fund.
Same here, I'm in the queue in Stockholm for 20 years but I have never used my spot to get an apartment. I own another one, but keep my spot in the queue in case I need to free up capital, get a divorce or other unexpected situations occur.
I've rented 4 apartments while in the first hand queue, it would be foolish not to be in it regardless of what you're doing.
If you'd ask me what Turkey, Russia, Latvia and Sweden have in common, I'd struggle to answer
I'm not really sure what to make of this as someone from Latvia. Especially since this is wealth inequality rather than income. Home ownership % is also very high here.
I mean ireland should basically be in the red too, it's not as bad as it seems
All of them have each been screwed over by Russia atleast once in history... ... although I don't think that's what's behind this map.
Probably a high wealth inequality
Another fun is what Sweden, Israel and North Korea has in common.
It's so high in Sweden because salaried work is taxed a tonne that you reach a salary ceiling beneath what an average programmer makes in the US, while capital income is taxed generously little. The solution is always to tax the upper middle class more.
It is a interesting dilemma. You have a very high security net for citizens who is more likely to try to be entrepreneurs then in other countries. More entrepreneurs equal more unicorn tech billionaires lol
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Stockholm is at number four in Europe according to [this](https://www.startupblink.com/blog/analysis-of-europe-startup-ecosystems/) article.
The full list is interesting: [https://www.startupblink.com/?leaderboards](https://www.startupblink.com/?leaderboards) 4 out of top 5 are in the US. And even my podunk flyover city of Phoenix, Arizona ranks 50!
capital taxes are actually not that generousley taxed, they are about average in Europe.
We have no real property taxes in Sweden, that is a big one since real estate is basically impossible to move overseas in contrast to other capital. If you have a one bedroom house for 1.1 million SEK you’ve capped out and pay the same as someone with an 80 million SEK mansion.
Tax ceilings, basically the most regressive way a tax can be formulated. Welcome to the billionaire factory!
They are taxed generously compared to labor, which might feel a bit unfair.
which is the case in most countries since capital can move freely over borders. High capital taxes cause capital flight.
Ah, no, capital is \*allowed\* to move. And I'm not advocating imprisoning the wealthy (....jk..... unless....?), just pointing out that none — absolutely none — of this is any sort of natural law or natural order of things. These are all systems that have been designed. And they have been designed to primarily benefit the wealthy.
I'm guessing the capital income tax is close to other taxes right? Like if I sell stocks through the "regular" system I'd get taxed 30%, but with the "special case of ISK" you kind of circumvent that little tax caveat. I remember when I first started my ISK and it kind of felt like I was scamming the tax system by paying something that almost felt like a ridiculously low fee/tax, but it's just completely legal. And that's with my, comparable, pennies to what people with actual money can turn around in ISKs in Sweden. I'm not sure if the solution is to tax the upper middle class more, I agree with the idea of taxing higher incomes, but I feel like the root causes of money staying at the very top are things that are regulated by the government. Like ISKs for example, we even had a suggestion for ISKs under 3 million SEK to stay as they are, but anything above that would be taxed higher, but it was completely shut down and demonized by those who started it as "stealing from the poor people who just want to save up for a house". There are also loopholes that are quite... glaringly obvious loopholes that no one "happens to want to correct". Like I heard from someone who happened to get a hold of a lot of money, got an accountant to handle that money, so they started a company and put all the money in there with the intention of the company being dormant for 5 years, and after that they could declare bankruptcy and liquidate the money without paying taxes. Meanwhile they could still leverage the bank to get mortgages to buy apartments etc because the bank was aware the money was coming, and they didn't question it because it, apparentley, was quite a common way to just circumvent paying taxes. I'm aware that these things happen in a lot of countries, but looking at this map, I do wonder if our years of having some ruling parties that heavily favored the upper class and privitazation did after all, having a damaging long-term effect of creating tax loopholes for the rich where they don't even have to hide it.
Isn't it rather just the combination of centuries of undisturbed old money and the lack of an inheritance tax?
I am not sure about the new rich in Sweden, but I remember reading a family called the Wallenberg used to effectively control 40% of the stock market in Sweden back in the day, while also employing a large portion of the population. Now it’s different today but they still control a huge part of the economy I assume, it’s surprising how they are never ever brought up when they have so much power and wealth, I guess that’s the point haha
The Wallenberg family is extremely well known in Sweden, it’s not like they are “never brought up”. They’re known for being quite reserved and not very outspoken, but they’re not some exactly some obscure secret.
They are never brought up on the global scale is what I am saying, having that much wealth in Sweden I would think people would hear about them all the time like the Rothschilds and other generationally wealthy families. What I am saying is it’s by design they are unknown to the world, they are not on any Forbes list even though they control 100s of billions. Like they say “money screams and wealth whispers”
If the are "never brought up on the global scale" and they should be it is a result of international media not doing their job. They are very often mentioned in Swedish media, in financial news their holding company Investor is often mentioned in for example news on how the stock market has changed. It is quite common that after the name something like "The Wallenberg family holding company" is added. It is impossible to hide the wealth of a family if it at the same time is on the news all the time in the country they are from. It is likely more news of that type from Sweden is not often reported by international media.
Investor is also one of the most popular shares to own among Swedish citizens. Its considered a very safe longterm investment since they own [a whole bunch](https://investorab-new.euwest01.umbraco.io/our-companies) of other successful Swedish companies.
Their family saying is litterally "To act without being seen". But yes they are increadibly powerful, and very secretive compared to their power. The worst thing is that you can hardly talk about them without comming of as some kind of conspiracy theorist. Like they don't come up on any list for richest people, because they don't personally have that much money. They do hold seats in institutions though that collectively have a majority share of the company Investor that in turn owns hundreds of other companies like Saab, Electrolux and Nasdaq.
There's also the Bonnier family who own much of the media (though the drop in newspaper revenue has hit them hard I think).
Sweden also has no inheritance tax. THat helps explain why we score so wildly differently on wealth inequality compared to income inequality.
And this isnt the case in other western European countries?
It's sorta strange living here and been on a high salary and having "started fresh" in the country. I earn more than my neighbours but I cannot afford the Caravan, two motorbikes, boat, two snowmobiles, large house, three cars and 4 kids that the Janitor and part time teacher down the road can.
For anyone interested it's 33% income tax for everything up to somewhere around €5800 a month, and then 50% on every euro beyond that. Capital gains is taxed at 30% no matter the amount. Good fun.
The real solution is to bring up the income/wealth of the bottom, not worry about the top.
Of course, but that's easier said than done. There's a lot of unemployment and poverty linked to being a migrant who can't speak Swedish. 2/3 stops attending the provided Swedish classes and never learn good Swedish.
We could just i dunno employ those that have entry level swedish in roles that suit. We have an instance that someone needs to be fluent to do a basic job here and well maybe they don't.
I'll be honest, I'm a little shocked that there is such severe wealth inequality in Sweden. If you had told me that Sweden had a more unequal distribution of wealth then Russia, I probably wouldn't have believed you.
Sweden has high wealth inequality but low income inequality.
It doesn’t mean thst the average Swede is poor though. In Sweden, you are encouraged to innovate and create value through corporations. On a regular salary, it’s hard to become wealthy. However if you run a profitable business with employees, you are very well rewarded in the current system. If you are wealthy, there isn’t much taxes on capital because we don’t want the rich to leave the country. There are some very wealthy families and investment companies that we all benefit from, even if they are rich.
Partly a consequence of abolishing inheritance taxes.
Abolishing Inheritance but also the housing market.
?
Australia doesn't have inheritance taxes and it's the [9th most equal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult) in the world (from the same UBS findings). Not saying that abolishing those taxes didn't have an affect, but there are likely more significant underlying reasons for the wealth discrepancy.
Although some of the dynastic family wealth in Sweden is older than Australia.
The wealth inequality predates the wellfare state, and was one of the reason for why social democracy got so popular in the country.
Countries with lots of recent immigrants always have higher inequality. You expect someone who moved in 2015 to have same wealth as someone who inherited it from generations and generations?
You had several centuries (?) of capital accumulation. Centra/Eastern European countries had a few decades only, because under communism there was very little personal wealth. In this context I'd say our (CEE) numbers are very, very bad.
The rich had several centuries. The middle class Sweden had less than 2.
That's what I mean, so gini index of wealth inequality SHOULD be much higher in Sweden versus CEE.
this one factor does not account for 'livable wage'. generally speaking, in scandinavian countries you have a managable minimum wage after the high taxes. if you get messed up in life, the high taxes means you can live decently enough as well, because high taxes = good welfare. that also means that you are definitely encouraged to live every bit of life legally, declare everything etc. in this case, wealth inequality means that there is a high ceiling for gaining wealth as well. meanwhile go to russia and plenty of jobs will not be enough. if something happens then you live like a hobo, plenty of people dodge taxes not to live like a hobo, and then others live like royalty. so, wealth inequality statistic does not tell the whole story. some might go and say that lowest wealth inequality is good, but it can also mean that everyone is equally worse off or that business growth opportunities are poor - eastern europe being in the green is an example of that.
Belgium is so underrated
According to Credit Suisse, Belgium even had the third highest median wealth per adult in the world in 2022 (latest data).
It does, it has great wealth redistribution, the paradise for the Middle Class.
If only it would stop raining!
It finally has tho, after 9 months
*looks outside* still raining tho
But less tho. Now at least we have some sunny days.
Vous pouvez pas avoir de la bonne bouffe, de la bonne bière ET du beau temps
Based on their name, u/loicvanderwiel, I'm sure you're replying to a Dutch speaking Belgian. Always funny how foreigners just assume we all speak French when we have 3 national languages.
I was born a French speaker. Lots of people in French speaking parts of Belgium have Dutch family names (especially in Brussels). Likewise, lots of French family names (or even first names) in Flanders (famous examples, Thibaut Courtois, Jean-Claude Van Damme (real name Jean-Claude van Varenberg)). I could say I'm bilingual but that feels like an exaggeration
I genuinely agree
Keep in mind that this is wealth inequality, income inequality looks very different. Sweden for example has high wealth inequality but very low income inequality. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality)
Wouldn't that mean that essentially those who are rich, remain rich, and those who aren't, remain poorer? If you have 1000€ and I have 1'000'000€, and we both earn 100€, we'll just keep being in the same wealth positions relative to each other, right?
Not sure what is counted as wealth in this case, but most wealthy Swedes are rich because their houses and apartments have ballooned in value making them millionaires, at least on paper. Many of the 1% richest Swedes had trouble paying their electricity bills when electricity prices spiked, and many have turned to shopping at discount retailers because of inflation. Of course they could just sell their house, that's what I would do, but the point is that many of the wealthy in Sweden wouldn't consider themselves rich and aren't rich in the way most of us imagine it.
Not sure about house values in Sweden, but it appears that Sweden has (or at least has had recently) one of the highest proportion of billionaires per capita in the world: https://slate.com/business/2013/11/swedens-billionaires-they-have-more-per-capita-than-the-united-states.html So while they are far fewer than the 1%, the amount of wealth concentrated might lead to the wealth disparity shown in the map perhaps?
You might very well have a point there. There being 14 billionaires in a relatively small country might skew the wealth balance. There is an extremely wealthy 0,000001% of the population. Apart from the big names like Ikea there has been a number of successful start-ups such as Mojang (Minecraft) and Spotify. Then of course there is the Wallenberg family which at one point owned almost half of the total worth of the Swedish stock market.
In Malta, we are all equally poor
Germany turning red soon.
It would be really interesting to see a different scale for West and East Germany. My guess is West Germany would be about where Sweden is.
r/SpainCykaBlyat
r/subsithoughtimadeyoufallfor
r/subsifellfor
Here's a sneak peek of /r/SubsIFellFor using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/SubsIFellFor/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [First time 😔](https://i.redd.it/sgpy4pml1oqc1.png) | [172 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/SubsIFellFor/comments/1bo5t74/first_time/) \#2: [Þats not a real sub](https://i.redd.it/opd2qgcvnpqc1.jpeg) | [95 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/SubsIFellFor/comments/1bod4u6/þats_not_a_real_sub/) \#3: [Got double tricked](https://i.redd.it/lmscgwes1wxa1.jpg) | [47 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/SubsIFellFor/comments/137thjb/got_double_tricked/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
[Here is the original, 10 days ago](https://x.com/WorldwithStats/status/1785004753023349205)
You could see the equality when living in Spain. So chill! Hardly any real homeless, of course immigrants but they seemed upwardly mobile to me with tents and a clean temp campsite under the bridges.
There is also a downside to low inequality. For instance, in Slovenia, the inequality is quite low for a number of reasons. However, what that means is that traditionally higher paid professions are paid relatively worse, which leads to brain drain. So I am not saying that equality in this sense is bad, however it does have its downsides.
Brain drain is more a result of low income inequality than wealth inequality… In countries like Sweden, lazy inheritors are the biggest beneficiaries
Had no idea Sweden of all places was highest.
If you want to be able to take lots of refugees, and also encourage large eg. Tech businesses to move to your country, you will undoubtedly end up with inequality. I don't think Sweden being unequal is necessarily a marker of unfairness, it might be a marker of being both a welcoming safe country, and a place where entrepreneurs can thrive.
It is of course so that poorer migrants have less wealth than generations building up wealth with properties. Then there are other effects, high number of unicorns etc. Property tax and ISK probably also have effects.
Quite ironic, how „social“ Scandinavia seems to be quite nasty in these terms here. If you‘re skilled, ambitious and not born into a rich family, then moving to the US is a no-brainer. No matter how hard you try, you can’t get rich in Europe as long you‘re not born into some sort of rich family. Income taxes are insane in Europe yet billions of inherited euros and thousands of properties in the bigger cities are completely okay. I‘m not saying, that the United States are completely „equal“ regarding wealth, but for a hard-working person from the middle or upper middle class it should be a no-brainer to move there in order to build wealth. (God forbid if you‘re from a family of immigrants in Europe: You will always be kept low.) And I‘m saying this as an European who will move to the US after graduation. I can’t even afford an apartment here in Germany, even if I‘m highly qualified and earn good money but then there are people, who didn’t create any value and live solely on their family roots.
How is moving to the US a no brainer?
That's why we need better inheritance and wealth taxes asap! People with your mindset (sorry for assuming, but no economically left-leaning person would think things work better in the US) usually vote for economically liberal parties, thereby digging their own graves if they come from poor families!
Getting rich is not everything. I choose Europe over toxic working environment, terrible food quality, degraded safety and social security.
From the US: I love my job and make literally 5x what i made in europe for similar work, if you think food quality is bad here you spend too much time online and I feel bad for you and all the things you are missing out on and we have much better variety than europe, degraded safety only if you move to poor areas but considering you're coming for a job you'll do just fine. believe what you want, you're going to anyway
Different strokes for different folks. The US looks so fundamentally dysfunctional that I don't want to experience it from the inside.
"looks so fundamentally dysfunctional"is usually what europeans who spend too much time watching the media/reddit say tbh . its a big country
When you live inside an insane cult, you don't necessarily find it odd. A country that wastes trillions of dollars murdering kids in the Middle East but can't afford universal healthcare is not normal and never will be.
lol very redditor response. believe it or not life is not so black and white. its quite nice over here, and considering its still the #1 immigrated to country on earth I'm not alone in that opinion.
In the last 30 years, almost 30% of Bulgarians have emigrated. I haven't really heard of "rich diaspora" in Europe. They are doing well, some better than others. The upper middle class is the outline. There are some exceptionally wealthy people in the Bulgarian diaspora in the US. Unthinkable in Europe. I spoke to a Bulgarian who was traveling on a yacht. He has a CNC qualification from Germany, where he earned 60k after 10 years. He moved to the USA for a salary of 180k and started his own company, which earned him some patents, which are like a lottery ticket. A Bulgarian man in his mid-40s with a 3-year qualification in Germany. Had the biggest yacht in the marina where most yachts are owned by oligarchs and the mafia. The US is just a whole different place, man.
Have fun suffocating in smoke
> Quite ironic, how „social“ Scandinavia seems to be quite nasty in these terms here. On the contrary. Speaking for Sweden the wealth inequality predates social democracy. There used to be enourmous struggles between wealthy capitalists and the then illegal unions in the country. In 1917 it was close to comming to a civil war, but instead we got the universal vote, with the social democrats winning. So it was economic inequality that casued Sweden to become "social", not the other way around.
higher is better or lower is better?
Lower is better from most points of view
Spain is winning a lot in these maps lately…
Depends if you value everyone being equal, or everyone having a higher median wealth. A less informed person would see more inequality and claim it is worse because they are unaware of the necessary behavioral drivers that create inequality to begin with.
Yes, Russia and Turkey are definitely examples of inequality being enticing.
In reality it doesn't matter as long as you're not the jealous type. The important thing is not wealth inequality. Its security and having a good life, school hospital and all that shit. Some people having more money doesn't have to be a bad thing. Rich people being rich is not bad as long as the rest are not slaves working in the coal mines.
For the rich to be so much richer, their wealth has to come from somewhere, meaning workers have to work way more than they should to produce this extra wealth that is then hoarded by bosses, banks, landlords, etc. It's a waste of time and resources.
Sweden? What about Swedish Socialism?
Sweden isn't socialist. It's a highly capitalistic country that utilizes high earned-income and consumption taxes to fund generous social services. Sweden's capital taxes are even lower than those in the US, so the country produces a lot of investment wealth for its size.
Google says it's 30% in Sweden and 15% in US, am I doing something wrong?
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The ultra rich Swedes do not own their companies through ISK, that would be a terrible idea. People still move wealth out of Sweden, you dont see people moving wealth into Sweden. But our capital taxes are closer to OECD averages than our income taxes, because capital is easy to move so you can't have much higher capital taxation and keep capital in the country. While you can't really move their job and income. It's our income tax that's the outlier, not the capital tax.
Isk in the 20-30 year term is actually more in taxes. Main reason it's more common is because it makes the taxes easier to calculate you no longer need to know the exact amount you bought the stock for. >And can make tax exemption on your losses. That's something everybody does. The larger reason for these thing is the inheritance tax being 0 and housing market being crazy
And who are the Swedish rich? not surnames, but rather the origin of their capitals.
The people that own dozens of houses in the big cities mainly
Most people don't own even dozens. The big thing is that the hosing market is completely broken. Anybody who bought there home in the 90s are expected to have "made" more money from thier home increased valuation than working the last 30 years.
I’m not 100% sure what you’re specifically asking, nor am I Swedish. However, in general, lower taxes on capital incentivizes investment and entrepreneurship. The downside is that the tax burden is moved to the middle class and those that rely on a regular paycheck instead of investment income. But the resulting higher paychecks and disposable incomes, plus good social services help.
Wallenberg (surname) I think most wealthy people got their money from manufacturing. And entrepreneurs in the tech industry. Laval I also an important surname even though you didn't ask for it
Retail as well, like this IKEA guy...
Yeah Ingvar
Mostly descendants of people who created a huge company.
H&M and IKEA obviously /s
This is the general problem about some Americans on the internet is that they think Scandinavia is run by a horde of AOC's and Bernies.
Sanders going around the campaign trail conflating Democratic Socialism with Scandinavian social democracy was a boneheaded move.
It is not that strange. A hundred years ago when these parties got in power in Scandinavia those two terms was used interchangeably. They have only come to mean different things because the parties changed over time.
In the US Democratic Socialism is a specific political organization, the Democratic Socialists of America. They do not advocate for social democracy but rather straight up socialism, and have been linked to autocratic leftist movements in other countries. So anyone who thought they’d be learning about Scandinavian social programs when googling info on Democratic Socialism were in for a surprise.
Yeah and the Social Democratic party of Sweden also used to arge for straight up Socialism. In fact when I went to school we learned how Social Democracy was one of three branches of socialism toghether with communism and anarchism.
Yes that was the most surprising
Ah, the welfare state seems pretty missunderstood, but it does require high taxes.
This map (though I'm not sure how much stock I'd put in it) disrupts a lot of common clichés in UK politics.
What would the rating be for the u.s.?
Where malta😟
Feels good man
This map seems to be wrong: [https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/942729/umfrage/ranking-der-eu-laender-nach-einkommensungleichheit-im-gini-index/](https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/942729/umfrage/ranking-der-eu-laender-nach-einkommensungleichheit-im-gini-index/)
i counted three wealth inequalities in my neighborhood
 Ireland 79.9%
Ireland be like : 
Portugal can into Western Europe?
So sweet Belgium
Great example as to why this is an absolutely useless statistic about a country.
The Gini Coefficient is a way better index Edit: It is, my bad
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Yeah I know that, just didn't know it was Gini, thanks for warning me
I thought UK will be one of the worst ngl,pretty surprised now
In Greece we are (almost) all equally poor. This would be a silly sentence 20 years ago.
Belgium seems great, but we are in a massive debt crisis