You have a point but you argue it badly. Price of beer in a bar is a tourist measure. Wage of an engineer is a expat measure.

The article talks about living, working, procreating and eventually dying in Sweden, so lets talk about that.

Many things are expensive in Sweden. When we think about living, we must consider things that are not expensive. Swedish type system arguably very strongly directs and limits the choices from the economic perspective.

- Beer is always expensive but dental care is always cheap. You can't choose between chugging more beer and having hole in your choppers. You can choose to having the hole if you insist, but the beer is still expensive.

- You can't choose between more beer and good education and healthcare for your children. The Government has made that choice for you.

- Similarly you are forced to live with affordable broadband due to government regulation enforced on companies to protect the consumer.

The question of living is Sweden should be decided by thinking how much your own goals align with the government enforced baseline. Temporarily embarrassed millionaires don't want to live in Sweden.

This is quite a different mindset from the American mindset of individualism and meritocracy which works for some but not for many.

If I never had to worry about being bankrupted by medical bills or whether we could afford childcare, vacation time, etc it might make me more than willing to part with more money for taxes.

One of the primary reasons we want to make a high corporate salary is the security it provides and the comfortable life it facilitates. However, if you lose that job or never get one to begin with you miss out on all these essential benefits that should be available to everyone. Healthcare, childcare, leave, education should be available to all.

The opinion expressed in the parent is not specifically exclusive to SD voters, you would probably be even more likely to find it among the red-green block even.

On the other hand you have quite different mindset for work and parenthood. Everyone expects you to take at least half a year off work as a father. You still get payed during this time.

Tax is calculated for you, all you need to do is sign (with your mobile ID).

If you get sick you get payed after the first day. Hospital visit is about $8 per night. Doctor $20 per visit.

It all depends on what is worth for you.

For the future "paid" is the word you should use, rather than "payed".

I do enjoy reading about Sweden though, especially the child-facilities and social-care. Things are similar here in Finland, but there are differences. Both are worlds apart from what I grew up with in the UK though.

As a Brit, I imagine the worlds apart are the child facilities and social care? The big thing in the UK that really makes me think about not having children is the prohibitive cost of child care, although our current social care is appalling and an embarrassment.

Sweden has made the choice unlike the UK that gender equality is only achieved when both parents have equal opportunities in the job market. That way, both parents get equal child leave (with a floating pot to be shared as needed), and childcare is effectively free to encourage both parents back to work when able.

The only other big change is a political system built on coalitions. Apart from that, it’s mostly the same.

Yes this for me makes complete sense. The UK has made some small steps in the right direction and I hope this continues. Childcare like I said is completely ridiculous and needs to be looked at.

> both parents get equal child leave (with a floating pot to be shared as needed)

That is so obvious. How else would one do it?

I find this strange. You are essentially saying caring for your own children isn't something you should do, something only poorer people should do. This sounds like hiring a mercenary army instead of having a domestic volunteer army.

If you wanted to put a 1year old child into day-care you'd pay approximately €250 per-month for the play-school (7:30-4:30PM) Monday-Friday. So that's very affordable.

For evening-care you're less likely to find such cheap care, even if you do the traditional thing and pay teenagers, but even so you wouldn't expect to pay more than 40/50 euros for a night out with your wife/husband.

Social stuff is more than the day-care though, just walking around the local area there are numerous small parks, and play-areas for children, often stocked with toys. Free transport on buses, metros, and trams for a parent with a child, etc, etc. None of it is revolutionary, but it all adds up to making parenthood feel pretty good here.

(Some things are, sadly, not perfect. For example when I take our child to the doctors for scheduled checkups the first question is usually "Where is his mother?", but minor niggles aside I think having a child here is much much nicer than it would have been in Scotland.)

Americans have the best care in the world (for those with decent insurance) but they also spend nearly 3x as much on health care than Britain. I wish I could cite these numbers, but I cant find the link anymore.

"Americans have the best care in the world (for those with decent insurance)"

I don't think I have ever heard that claim before. I am American, had very good insurance through my employers when I was living in the US, and routinely experienced mediocre care. But I didn't have anything to compare it to at the time. After I moved overseas and experienced excellent healthcare I know better.

It focused on treatment and seeing a specialist.

"Oh, you need a specialist. You will get a letter for an appointment in about 4 months." 4 months later when you go see the specialist, he decides he needs an MRI to diagnose. Wait another 3 months for the scan.

Unless you are literally dying right now, this is the reality of many health care systems. This scenario is about 3x more common in national health plan systems than in insurance based ones.

The important thing about the NHS is that funding is allocated to regional trusts, which are up to a point responsible for raising their own funds from public and sometimes private money. The result is that funding is subject to what is colloquially known as the "Postcode lottery".

In other words, if you are in an affluent area with a well-funded NHS trust, you will receive prompt and plentiful care whenever you need it and for whatever reason you need it. Less affluent areas must prioritise to meet their budget constraints, so they will indeed make you wait for a long time, unless there is an emergency.

So, reports in the (non-UK) media that claim that it may take "4 months" to be seen by GP or a specialist doctor unless you're dying, etc, are a) exaggerated and b) don't take into account the regional differences in service, which can be very pronounced.

It is laughable and these people are delusional. I literally can get all appointments within a day in South Korea for affordable prices.

> Americans have the best care in the world

I've been reading that a lot, but I can't find any decisive evidence supporting it - what leads you to think that?

Arrogance.

About costs of treatment:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan...

This source says 2x as much: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/26746...

Yeah, I didn't find my old source, it was a news article I remembered that compared spending per capita and typical time to treat a condition.

I did find this though that says 2x:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2674671

> And don’t get me started on the price of a beer in a bar. Make sure they pay you a lot.

Also, check out taxes. I was offered a contract position in Sweden recently, and the total tax burden was around 55%. Thanks, but no thanks.

But the Swedes are fine with it, as is the author of the post, because they feel they get their money's worth. The author went into quite a bit of detail about he doesn't have to save much for his childrens' education and some other major expenses since most will be covered by tax-payers.

Assuming of course that the government is fiscally prudent for the many years until your kids start higher education and you are elderly and need a lot of medical care. Given how popular it is around the world to run huge deficits that end up requiring major cuts to services I wouldn't bet my future on it.

We are not fine with it.

It's a bit off topic, but all I can see online about Sweden always sounds so perfect. But in reality it's not. There's a lot of us Swedes that are long from fine paying these taxes and then see our friends/relatives waiting for half a year waiting for treatment for cancer.

And if you'd like private healthcare, Sweden taxes you extra for that.

New car? Triple tax first 3 years.

Yes, this is always the problem. The UK is far from perfect and I have a few friends always talking about Scandinavian countries and how they'd want to move there. What they don't seem to understand is that all countries have their own problems, the UK isn't unique in that regard. A Swedish guy I know gets annoyed when people are talking about Sweden like some heaven on earth and I do understand why.

I don't disagree with that Sweden has problems, but the problems are still on a completely different scale than most other countries.

I was wondering if there are dissenting opinions. What percentage of Swedes do you estimate feel the way you do?

First of all, being a reader of hn in Sweden probably means your monthly salary is in the top 10%, which of course colors your view of society.

It also means that you’re taxed higher. While most people pay 31% in commune tax, the top earners pay an extra 25% adding to the resentment.

I think most people agree that the quality of health care is an issue, but pretty divided on how to go about things. About 50-50 split.

Fun fact, since the election in September the Riksdag still hasn’t been able to elect a prime minister due to being to divided on such issues. The only thing they do agree is to not to collaborate with SD, giving both sides roughly 40% support for their favorite candidate.

Wikipedia had a nice map of the situation. We hn 10%ers tend to live in the more densely populated blue areas, again giving a pretty distorted view of things.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Swedish_general_electio...

"I think most people agree that the quality of health care is an issue..."

Really? I thought that good healthcare was one of the major positives of the high taxes paid in Sweden. That was alluded to in the article and I have seen positive comments in the past about it. I guess that is due to the 10%ers being the ones commenting(?). But then I don't understand how there is uneven distribution of quality healthcare.

Not uneven in that regard.

One of the issues being debated is the uneven quality between geographic regions. Not a new issue though, a more contemporary issue the lack of care givers and long waits that seems to be a problem in general.

If I were to guess a combination of the large age group just retiring and an attempt to allow more private health care options from a few years back started a vicious circle of relatively low wages and increasingly stressful working conditions driving competent people to seek out private employers instead.

Apparently it’s not uncommon for nurses to leave an employment, only to come back as contractors for the same job with twice the salary.

If that is the case I’m sure it’s mostly a temporary mess that needs to stabilize into some new configuration.

But the private options seems to be doing a good job, in general the people around me seems to be happy with their service at least. But to access those services you need the typical insurance through your employer, defeating the entire point of a public health care system to begin with.

So any resentment among the 10% probably stems from fear of not having a private option for things like cancer treatments if the current mess in the public system continues.

That said, the public system does an excellent job of all standard physical care I’ve needed so far. Have had some unlucky encounters with incompetent people, but can’t blame the system for that.

The psychiatric care looks like a complete failure though. If you have any anxiety or depression to deal with you’re on your own. The treatment plan is basically for a GP to administer prescription medicine and sick leave. If you do manage to be remitted to a specialist their main function is to evaluate to which degree you’re faking it. (In Sweden your either working or a lazy freeloader, “arbetslinjen” is very strong) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbetslinjen

No enough to vote for a drastic change of the welfare system in any election.

Probably around half.

The half who are working and paying the taxes, amirite?

The state-provided services are similar in Poland - most notably: free healthcare, free education up to university, state pension, disability insurance, some help in case the of financial hardship. Meanwhile, the total income tax burden is around 35% or 20% if you’re self-employed. There’s also plenty of other options, like the UK.

Can the downvoter explain his/her decision? What is wrong with my post?

"It's cool to pay taxes"

- Mona Sahlin, former leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party.

It is not cool to be at the mercy of the government and their ability to run the state. They already failed with housing and healthcare. While the healthcare is free and accessible it is slow, bureacratic and costs you more at the end of the day than you would be willing to pay with your own money.

And what is better? Healthcare costs a fortune as seen in the US and the system is failing, when you are a humanitarian and think equality to all humans is important.

Same with housing. Rich fools conquering large towns and driving everyone else out. Does that benefit society?

Of course when you support a system that everyone is his own best friend, you'll be happier when all the money you earn goes to you.

At the moment Swedes have less government that most other countries.

A better tagline than "strong and steady" at least

Sweden’s too egalitarian society with a lot of people not being economically active. You are subsidizing unwilling and lazy with insane taxes and you get nothing in return because of equality. You are probably well off compared to them but still cant afford an apartment.

This path of discussion is always fun to watch when it comes up.

Does it work better in America with the lazy people, are they working better just because they make less money? Most people in Sweden can actually live on one job even if it is as a cleaner.

The people that you call lazy is a very small percentage of the population. And just about all of them has some physical or psycical problem preventing them from getting a job. It is not a choice they have to either go work or starve. Noone chooses to starve just because it's fun. This mentality is very upsetting for us that has seen reality and does not live in a glass house.

Nordic countries are maybe the best place on earth if you’re not gifted in any way (academically, dexterity for manual labor etc.) and thus you work as a cleaner or other unskilled labor. For software engineers, on the other hand, there are better options.

Nonsense as Sweden has more per capita billionaires than US and more unicorn startups per capita than most US cities

Talk about arbitrary numbers you used.

These directly refute the claim that Sweden is only a good place for people who lack talent

Most billionaires inherit their wealth?

As for startups, it would be better to see the success ratio (how many people tried to create a startup vs how many succeed) and not just the number of survivors.

We are discussing the claim that talented people can’t succeed in Sweden. Yet, higher per capita number of unicorns in Sweden than in many other places, including US, shows that this claim is false

> We are discussing the claim that talented people can’t succeed in Sweden.

Who made this claim? Certainly not me. I claimed that, for an ordinary software engineer (i.e. not a startup founder), life will be better/easier in many other European countries.

> higher per capita number of unicorns in Sweden than in many other places, including US You can only come to that conclusion by diluting what a "unicorn" means.

Statistics about billionairies or unicorn startup owners are not related to the way a middle class workers (say, software engineers) live.

> Sweden’s too egalitarian society

Any examples of societies that are unequal[1] enough for you?

[1] Not sure about a proper antonym here.

Compared to most other countries in western europe, engineers are severely underpaid in Sweden. I’d definitely go elsewhere.

Engineers in europe are underpaid everywhere. You cant have a social democracy without squeezing everyone around you out of every penny.

Underpaid in relation to what? The bay area?

Underpaid relative to other professions. Lawyers, accountants, doctors, MBAs, etc etc. Even civil servants once the final salary pensions are factored in. Low pay, low prestige (if that matters to you), low job security, relative to others at a similar level of education, responsibility, etc.

> "Lawyers, accountants, doctors, MBAs ... Low pay, low prestige"

But that's true almost everywhere. In the U.S. it's true everywhere outside of the Bay Area, and perhaps Seattle.

I love Boston, for example, but the city is chock full of bankers, lawyers, management consultants, and doctors whose incomes often dwarf those of engineers. And they're much higher on the social ladder. You're priced out of the most desirable neighborhoods in the city, and if you're single, dating is tougher.

Obviously, it's not the end of the world. 99% of people don't make as much as investment bankers or white-shoe lawyers, and life goes on. But I think it explains in part why engineers are drawn to the Bay Area. The sky-high cost-of-living may make it a break-even proposition, but the bit of prestige engineers get there is a selling point.

In relation to the rest of the world.

I believe it is better to say their purchasing power compared to an unskilled worker, is much, much weaker compared to a lot of other places.

I dont make that much less than an american engineer with my experience, but 40% is washed away in taxes. Also, I generally work 0 overtime 37,5H weeks.