Norge bidrog tidigare med den största försvarsbudgeten per capita i Norden. 2024 den näst minsta efter Finlands och Sveriges, men fortfarande över Danmarks. Norge bidrar med bara ~2% (det exakta talet har jag inte kunnat fastställa, men minst 2%) av BNP för att de är ett litet land, hårt trängt av Ryssland i Barents hav. De har det tuffare än vad Sverige har det. Den ekonomiska biten av en försvarsekonomi är viktig men befolkningsmängden är minst lika viktig. Är man färre som kan försvara sitt land så kommer man kanske inte att kunna uppnå tillräckliga förstärkningar när man har en övermäktig fiende. Men de baltiska länderna har ovanligt höga försvarsbudgetar i procent av BNP ska jag medge. Men dessa länder är nästan i ett konstant gråzon krigstillstånd med Ryssland, mer så än Norge och Sverige. Men visst, det går att göra. Säg det till danskarna vars försvarsminister beklagade sig över Norges lilla bidrag i förhållande till sina oljepengar!
Finlands försvarsbudget är 2.3% av BNP (2024)
Sveriges försvarsbudget är 2.2% av BNP (2024)
Norges försvarsbudget är ~2% av BNP (2024)
Danmarks försvarsbudget når 2% av BNP först år 2030
Norge har en BNP per capita på 118,470 USD (2022)
Danmark har en BNP per capita på 77,370 USD (2022)
Sverige har en BNP per capita på 67,630 USD (2022)
Finland har en BNP per capita på 59,570 USD (2022)
Sverige har en BNP på 591.2 miljarder USD (2022)
Norge har en BNP på 579.4 miljarder USD (2022)
Danmark har en BNP på 400.2 miljarder USD (2022)
Finland har en BNP på 282.9 miljarder USD (2022)
Estlands försvarsbudget ligger på 2.73% av BNP (2024)
Lettlands och Litauens försvarsbudgetar ligger på en bra bit över 2% av BNP (2024)
Muqtada al-Sadr, the biggest Shiite leader in Iraq, is the guy behind the burning down of the Swedish embassy in Iraq.
Well, by all means, let’s see who will suffer the most from Sweden turning off all business, and diplomatic ties with Iraq! If Muqtada al-Sadr wants to play chicken race, then don’t let me hold you back, dude! I’ll fucking challenge you to a duel with pistols at dawn if I think it necessary! I kid you not!
The US don’t want this anger to manifest in violence against Swedish embassies and companies right now. They need a stable situation in the Middle East, for now.
Iran, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have summoned Sweden’s ambassadors in their respective countries in a protest against the quran burnings in Sweden. The US, the EU and the UK have condemned the physical attack on and burning of the Swedish embassy in Baghdad.
The Swedish news site SR;Ekot, reports in July 21, 2023, quote:
”There is no ban on Swedish companies in Iraq, those reports are not true, says Farhad Alaaldin, the Iraqi prime minister’s foreign affairs advisor, to Ekot, and refutes reports that previously circulated in the Swedish media.
It was the Iraqi Ministry of Communications that on Thursday announced on its Facebook page a ban on doing business with Swedish companies. That post has now been removed.” End quote
Farhad is a good advisor.
Roger Klang
The sources for this was all Sveriges Radio, Ekot:
Never assume that a world leader is good. I want to emphasize the importance that we should not be naive! Biden is thinking of the United States and Americans, when he conducts his politics. But if it does not affect the abilities for America or Americans to economically strengthen or at least maintain their leading position in the world, then of course he can throw a bone to a party outside of AUKUS and the border states of Canada and New Zealand, especially if Biden’s country benefits from it. Israel also has a key position, but I can’t really read out why the Israelis’ treatment of the Palestinians and the West Bank, plays such an important role in Biden’s and Blinken’s plans. However, you can read what Blinken said in black and white with the headline; ”US warns Israel: Peace with Saudis getting ‘tougher, if not impossible’”; on the online medium World Israel News on July 5, 2023. Quote;
”We’ve told our friends and allies in Israel that if there’s a fire burning in their backyard, it’s going to be a lot tougher, if not impossible, to actually both deepen the existing agreements as well as to expand them to include potentially Saudi Arabia,” said Blinken.
He also said, quote;
“It’s also, at least in our judgment as Israel’s closest friend and ally, profoundly not in Israel’s interest for this to happen—both because of the added degree of difficulty that this presents for pursuing normalization agreements, or deepening them, but also because of the practical consequences,” he added. End quote
Why is it not marginal? As for the importance of the Abraham accords, I can understand why the US does not want it to develop between Israel and Saudi-Arabia right now. But it doesn’t seem like the haussed to the sky Israeli intelligence service Mossad really understands how the land lays or why it is so. They persist in opposing Biden’s plans. They have done so for a long time. Of course, the Israelis have an interest in the Middle East, but they should have fathomed that it is not in their interest that the United States fall to pieces by internal division, like once the Roman Empire did before them. We here in Sweden observe how the Israelis act more and more like their antagonists in Iran, Lebanon and Palestine. It’s just that Israel is more powerful than their enemies and they also have more powerful allies.
Have we considered that Israel is a special country? It is the land where Judaism, Islam and Christianity converge – in Jerusalem. In addition, there are elements of reincarnation in Judaism. We can think what we want about it, but the land of Israel is important to our own security. They are important to the whole of Europe’s security. The Israelis know this, why doesn’t the EU realize this? It is mindboggling to the Israelis. We cannot let them perish.
It seems as if we are needed all of a sudden. Saudi-Arabia may be the new enemy. But don’t listen too much when Biden says that, quote; ”We have always strongly supported Sweden to get Sweden into NATO” End quote. Empirical evidence shows the opposite. Not once has Biden commented on Erdogan’s tango dance with the Swedish government, but he has, under greatest possible silence, left us alone to cope as best we can in the recent past. It is clear who led in that tango dance, it wasn’t Ulf Kristersson in any case. (Spoiler alert, it was Erdogan.) But it can be differently now, Biden can show a ”good” side if he wants to. It’s just that, as an Irish-American, he doesn’t like us Swedes at all. But probably even an Irishman can like Swedes. But not him. Then I don’t like him, and I will turn away my gaze when he is led screaming and kicking to the guillotine by his countrymen. The reactionaries always win in the long run. For being the world’s most powerful man, he poorly realizes that Sweden has been one of the biggest guarantors that the US will remain the master of the world, by our support purchase of US security bonds and us consistently refraining from selling them when the dollar has been under attack. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what we’ve done for the United States. But ingratitude is the wages of the weak.
Now a question. Are the Swedes prepared to contribute with troops in a future American war in the Middle East, for example against Saudi-Arabia and, in the extension, China? Are the Swedes prepared for a two-front war? Then we should join NATO. Otherwise, we will probably have to fight Russia alone. But we will win against Russia, mind you. Personally, I do not want to join NATO, because I think it will create greater strain on us in the long run. One must not forget that we have a domestic, quote; ”situation”; to deal with, simultaneously. Of our two supposed choices, it is only an all-out Swedish war against Russia on Swedish soil that can straighten up our backbone and make, quote; ”our”; criminals listless, which means that in that case we can turn the tide in Sweden. Also remember that a Swedish NATO membership in no way provides any guarantees that we will be able to stay out of a war against Russia in the event of a major war. An American war against one or more actors is in the long run inevitable unless the Gulf states change their mind, because China gets most of the oil from the Persian Gulf oil states and the US has domestic oil for perhaps only 12 more years of consumption if you are to believe the CIA WORLD FACTBOOK 2023-2024 . I don’t think it’s possible to achieve, but if the US were to run its motor park and its many fossil fueled powerplants on domestic oil alone, that time would almost be halved to only six years of consumption. It has become more difficult to calculate precisely, because the CIA has deliberately made it so in the CIA WORLD FACTBOOK 2023-2024 compared to previous editions of the book. Maybe you can thank Me for that.
It is established in the CIA WORLD FACTBOOK that Saudi-Arabia, just like Iran, and every other oil producing country in the Persian Gulf, does more business with China than with the United States. Saudi-Arabia has literally extended a hand to Iran recently. They are suicidal. It’s clear as hell that it has the potential to overturn the US original game plan. But in that case, it’s not the tiles that are moved alternate, the whole boardgame is likely to change.
Om man läser den här artikeln till exempel, så inser man som svensk strax att Biden hycklar. Biden föreslår att vi svenskar ska lagstifta mot koranbränning, alltså införa en hädelselag. Jag skulle vilja se Biden föreslå det för USA…!
”I en intervju med CNN säger USA:s president Joe Biden att det är invandrare i Sverige som bränner koranen, och inte svenskar. Han menar att detta kan användas som en ursäkt av Turkiets president Erdogan i den pågående Nato-processen. Biden uppger också att Sveriges regering arbetar för att förbjuda koranbränning som en del av uppgörelsen med Turkiet.
Det är inte svenskar, utan invandrare, som bränner koranen i Sverige. Det säger USA:s president Joe Biden i en färsk intervju med CNN.
– Det kan anföras som en ursäkt och sätter Erdogan i en svår sits på hemmaplan.
Biden uttrycker också optimism inför ett svenskt Natomedlemskap, och noterar Turkiet och Greklands vilja att köpa F-16-plan.
Presidenten säger att han försöker ”sätta ihop ett litet konsortium” för att stärka Nato genom att öka Turkiets och Greklands kapacitet och släppa in Sverige.”
Dessutom så läste jag i ett par purfärska källor, efter att jag publicerade mitt senaste Poddavsnitt om Joe Biden, om hur en känd marknadsguru pratade om en välbehövlig (föryngrings-)injektion i den amerikanska ekonomin som skulle komma mycket snart. Jag läste att andra mera sansade ekonomiska guruer inte såg lika rosenskimrande på det amerikanska finansiella läget i kommentarer om denna s.k. injektion i den amerikanska ekonomin. Den injektionen är tänkt att bestå av emigrerande till Amerika svenska kvinnor, som flyr därför att de inte känner sig säkra i Sverige, antingen på grund av skjutningar och sprängningar eller på grund av krig mot Ryssland eller på grund av eventuella självmordsattacker i spåren på koranbränningarna. Eller alltihop tillsammans. Samtidigt spekulerade de i att Biden var för gammal för att ställa upp i nästa presidentval och ville se en yngre förmåga som presidentkandidat. Jag tänker på det som rapporterades från USA, var det år 2018, om en amerikansk ej specificerad finansiell plan kallad T.I.N.A. eller There Is No Alternative. Där ser man hur amerikanska statsunderstödda planer går i arv mellan olika administrationer av både röd och blå färg. Det bådar inte gott för Europa. Jag slaktade Biden i mitt senaste poddavsnitt den 8 juli 2023.
Biden ska inte stifta lagar i Sverige, lagar som han aldrig skulle införa i Amerika. Svensk lag gäller i Sverige. Stå fast! Ger ni er till föga nu så kommer ni att hamna i en ändlös reträtt och Sverige kommer att bli förnedrade. Då kommer verkligen många av de svenska kvinnorna att välja att lämna Sverige. Jag riktar mig framför allt till politikerna och regeringen och statsministern när jag säger det här.
Dessutom, dra in alla högteknologiska produkter, trä, papper och liknande som Sverige och svenska företag säljer till Turkiet. Erdogan har slängt handsken rakt i fejan på oss. Dags att besvara med en svensk bredsida. Förbjud export av nödvändigheter till Turkiet.
There is certainly much more to say than I can deliver right now on this issue I am discussing here. But I’ll give it a go. Why do we soon need to introduce a lower retirement age, alternatively a 4-day work week, alternatively a shortened work day? That question is set up in Konflikt in Radio P1 in the podcast – Jobba tills vi dör – Work until we die.
In that program, P1’s reporters have looked not only at public health aspects and people’s wallets, but also at the national economic gains that could be achieved with the implementation of a lower retirement age, or a 4-day work week, or a shortened work day.
Let us not succumb to the temptation to reverse the causality and say that ”we need to ease the workload for us workers united” in order to bring about social reform. The labor movement has de facto largely disappeared in Sweden. No, we should look at the issue soberly and rationally and have the benefits for our society in mind. Even if we do so, we as individuals can still have the labor movement in mind if or when we introduce reforms. In this way, a determined individual can actually bring about a revived labor movement in Sweden. It’s just a matter of attitude and will.
The technical automation has reached a level where Sweden has been able to afford to have more people on disability leave, if that can be seen as a merit. But a lot more documented medical conditions have been added as disability qualifications in the last 20 years or so. In the United States, the Republicans have no soft pillows for penniless, or as they call it – ”white trash” – Americans. These constitute Trump’s voter base. The reluctance of the Republicans to even discuss ”universal healthcare” creates an increasingly larger voter base for such grotesque figures as Trump on both the right and on the left (on the left we have AOC Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez). Although many Trumpists – still in true opposition to those by the Republicans dubbed RINO (Republicans In Name Only) as John McCain (R.I.P.) and Mitt Romney were called – refuse to let non-white Americans take part in universal healthcare. They’d rather risk dying due to future lack of medical care for themselves and their loved ones, just as long as those damned migrants from those shit countries don’t get any healthcare. Until these MAGA Americans themselves stand alone with diagnosed malign cancer or if they’re just spitting blood. America voted for Trump in both the 2016 election and the 2020 election because Trump was the only presidential candidate politician who wanted to end America’s traditional immigration policy, by the means of his choice – building a wall against Mexico. It was a big, bombastic and spectacular action, but it turned out to be a dud. As a footnote it could be said that it came at just the right time, it came when Mexico’s oil was practically on its last barrel [study the CIA WORLD FACTBOOK folks].
Anti-immigration from South American countries and other crap countries, along with a strong military defense, and then tax breaks for the rich, have always been the Republicans’ hobby horse. It’s just that Trump put into action the ”white trash” (what a damn choice of words) patriots’ own thoughts and he gave them a vision that they could understand in their small low-achieving brains. ”Migrants – border – wall”, was as far as they could think. The US has become a plebeian empire. Biden is trying to rectify that, of course, not least because his plans to fuel an American/Five Eyes war in the Middle East against Iran but indirectly against China, woul’d be blocked. It is, of course, simplified described by me.
Neoliberalism and ”trickle down economics” policies in the US since Ronald Reagan was in office have proved disastrous, since blue collar jobs have been largely replaced by machines and computers. First Average Joe loses his job, soon after or right after that he loses his income. Then he loses his home. And throughout this procedure there is no longer any trace of a societal safety net to speak about. Alternatively, Average Joe may find himself taking a really crappy job in competition with many others who have become unemployed due to the automation and computerization of the last twenty or thirty years or so, and to a much lower wage.
Therefore, the middle class has diminished in the United States. Average Joe may even have to take two jobs, or three, to support himself and his family. This means that he/she can be grateful to be able to cling to the squirrel wheel, at the cost of his/her personal state of health (cheap food is bad junk food after all) and the personal relationship with his/her children. It might work, but as soon as he/she hits the wall or someone in his/her family becomes seriously ill, which will always happen to everyone sooner or later in their lifetime, he/she ends up in the not-so-enviable position of having the dubious pleasure of choosing between losing the family home or letting the family starve. And then it is surprising that the US has experienced social turmoil in the last decade, or what?
What must we Swedes do to avoid such a horrific situation?
It may not be a question of what we Swedes should do, because we probably all know what to do here in Sweden’s collective consensus landscape. Thank God for that! We are no more stupid than that we can learn from America’s unsustainable political and social situation. It is more a question of how we should go about achieving a socially sustainable society.
Even though I advocate a profitable national solution, we still must, in order to proceed in the reasoning, take Fia Mediocre’s perspective into account here. Fia Mediocre, a single mother of two, experiences food prices rising, fuel prices skyrocketing, and the cost of living skyrocketing in general. But her salary doesn’t. Fia Mediocre is now facing three choices.
She has to compete with many other job seekers for a second low-payed job. This means that she will also have less time for her own children, and maybe she will also hit the wall and face disability leave, and has to see her own children become pariahs because they cannot afford decent clothes, mobile phones or anything at all really. Let’s hope that Fia Mediocre’s strengthened finances cover the childcare costs if she gets an extra job.
She gets to ”cut her losses” and with an inflated economy go into default. (See 1 above)
She goes to school in the hope of a better paying job in the future, even if she then has to pay back student loans. (See 1 above)
All three alternatives means a financial deterioration for Fia Mediocre and for society in general. What is bad for Fia Mediocre is bad for our country. She can’t afford to buy anything beyond the bare necessities. Of course, the occasional pensioner can make an extra income when Fia Mediocre and others leave their children in their care. But will Fia Mediocre become an employer then, with all that it entails in extra working hours, bookkeeping, complicated employer and VAT declarations and authority contacts? Poor Fia Mediocre with children. It will not work out well for Fia Mediocre, unless she and many others have to contribute to the black economy. It’s not popular in Sweden.
So how do we untie the knot? After all, we have this thing with automation taking over certain jobs, even if new jobs are added. But there are hardly any new jobs in the low-wage occupations. After all, that is where the automation takes place. But that is not quite true, because if Fia Mediocre works in elderly care, automation probably means less physical strain to her body. Which is good. But social and business managers tend to turn to staff reductions, seeing them as necessary when the workload for employees decreases. Then we are back to square one, albeit with yet another unemployed bread provider – Fia Mediocre with daughter Pia and son Liam. It’s proper to name them, because they have names in real life too. Reliable managers do not shy away from evicting families with children. But on the plus side, society becomes richer when automation puts Fia Mediocre with her children Pia and Liam into bankruptcy. It is lucky then that Fia Mediocre happened to work at a privately owned nursing home! Then the money has somewhere to go – into the owners’ pockets. Now I would like to add that I am in no way advocating a return to the time when all nursing homes were municipal nursing homes. I’m just trying to point out the problems that comes when the money finds its way up into the pockets of the already wealthy, if you don’t tax the already wealthy more at the same time. What money is it that ”trickles down” in Fia Mediocre’s situation? Currently none, as taxes tend to be lowered rather than raised, both in America and in Sweden. But sometimes Fia Mediocre gets a breadcrumb thrown her way too. Mostly so that there will be no social unrest, I think. Some options:
Perhaps we can best solve our common future by lowering the retirement age by five years. But maybe only for some work demanding professions.
Or we reduce the work hours for the working day by one hour, but we maintain the salaries, mind you.
Or we shorten the work week by one day. This option is more expensive because a normal work day is eight hours.
Alternatives 1) and 2) cost society the same if every blue collar worker currently works eight hours from the age of 20 for a period of 45 years. Both options result in fewer/milder occupational strain injuries.
But in alternative 2) it will be difficult for Fia Mediocre to find a one-hour job if the working hours are reduced by one hour per day. It will be difficult for all Mediocre workers to find a one-hour job, as long as one-hour jobs do not pop up like mushrooms from the earth.
Option 3) or shortening the work week requires in larger workplaces that you really make use of the AI computerization to calculate when Fia Mediocre will get her time off, if you are not fully in favor of removing an entire work day in the week, but settle for a five-hour shorter work day on Friday or Monday. Fia Mediocre will still have to work Fridays at another workplace if her finances are to be strengthened, so her working hours have not actually been shortened. But she doesn’t strain her shoulders due to monotonous heavy lifting as much anymore, and she may therefore not burden the healthcare system in the future, at least not as much or for as long.
Will the Doctor become obsolete due to AI?
No I do not think so. As improbable as it is for a driver to be able to go lie down in the truck’s sleeping compartment during a drive, just as improbable is it for a doctor to be rendered obsolete by AI. In these work areas, it will certainly be required that someone monitors the information that controls the truck or the information that leads to medical advice and prescription writing. Those who become obsolete are the low-income earners who work in monotonous stationary jobs, as employers tend to not want more employees than absolutely necessary.
We can afford more disability leave, can’t we?
We should probably see disability leave as something of a market regulator to avoid becoming USA 2.0 I, who don’t even see myself as a left-wing guy, see this as a possible solution. I am absolutely pragmatic before I am ideological. Now that what I am saying is out in the open, we’ll see if the US can learn from our choices without bull-running towards the cliff itself. I do not imagine so. The antipathy, towards non-Americans from various crap countries, is too great. But in my country no one should have to lie and die in the gutter! Another thing is the emotional coldness of Americans towards their drug addicts, many of them rendered addicts by their own pharmaceutical industry, which in the long run leads to the addicts camping on sidewalks and shitting and pissing in alleys. Because what American business owner wants drug addicts to use their local restrooms. God forbid, then they would become like the socialist Swedish grocery chains COOP or ICA that let beggars use their toilets and sit and beg in front of their stores. The addicts cause many social problems, as addicts. In Sweden we rehabilitate, our addicts, as long as they themselves wish to be rehabilitated. Then we won’t have to step in shit, in the cities. Well, maybe we can’t avoid stepping in dog shit even though we have dog latrines and dog enclosure areas. I even think there is a law on picking up crap in plastic bags after the dogs here in Sweden. But I don’t know, I don’t have a dog myself. There is no one who follows up any such law and controls dog poo handling in any case. And it actually shows.
What about their gun policy in some parts of America?
It is deplorable. They have huge gun-related problems on their side, both among their minorities and among themselves. In California, Chicago and New York, it is quote ”minorities” end quote, who commit most of the shootings. The gun laws are more restrictive there, as far as I know. In the gun-liberal states, it is the whites who commit most of the mass shootings anyway. But here it must be said that Sweden is probably more bomb-throwing than the United States. We all know who throws them bombs. We also have our own problems with wild shootings. We’ve even had some school shootings or other acts of death related violence in some schools. But I am firmly convinced that we will come to terms with our problems or at least contain them. As for the US, I’m not so sure.
Am I too hard on America, amigo?
No, I don’t think I am. What you are not aware of, you cannot fix. I’m just making them aware. If they don’t want to deal with the problems the only way that has a chance to lead to success, that’s their problem. Pile it on the top, I say!
Det Tyska Kriget 