The Big Bad Swedish Politics & News Thread

[ingemann]

Long bearded men with a black flag with white letters, I get why the passer by decided to contact the police.

[politicus]

Ebba Busch Thor from KD wants a common Alliance budget in 2016, which Batra has refused. But it seems Thor is determined to keep rocking the boat, so to speak.

SD has said they will vote for the Moderates budget proposal.

[politicus]

Cross-posting this from the refugee crisis thread:

Moderate leader Anna Kinberg Batra has demanded immediate reinstatement of border controls in Schengen (temporarily during the crisis).

- "It is time that the government takes responsibility for the situation. It is an extreme situation that we see being worsened by the day. We must get a handle on who is coming here"

The Moderates have their party convention now and polls show they are losing voters to both Centre and SD over this - a liberal segment with youngish well-educated women over represented is going to Centre and a right wing with 60+ men as a core group is going to SD, so a bit of a dilemma for them.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

SD voted for the Moderates budget proposal.

Will vote. The budget proposals are still in committee and the final debate and vote will not take place until November.

In other news, SD has today announced that they will finance an ad campaign to discourage asylum seekers to go to Sweden, similar to the Danish campaign earlier this year.

[politicus]

In other news, SD has today announced that they will finance an ad campaign to discourage asylum seekers to go to Sweden, similar to the Danish campaign earlier this year.

Yeah, I suppose I might as well cross-post the last part of my post in the refugee thread.

The Sweden Democrats will now post "scare adds" in Turkish, Jordanian and Lebanese media to dissuade refugees from coming to Sweden. So they keep copy-catting the Danish right wing.

Wonder if Swedish left wingers will also finance a counter campaign?

I suppose broadcasting the possibility of having to live in tent camps or be housed in remote Norrland small towns would have an effect.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Wonder if Swedish left wingers will also finance a counter campaign?

Good God, that idea hadn't even crossed my mind! :S Why do loony right-wingers and left-wingers get to spend my tax money?!

[DavidB.]

Good God, that idea hadn't even crossed my mind! :S Why do loony right-wingers and left-wingers get to spend my tax money?!

Well, as for the loony left: because the center right is keeping them in the government

What are the chances that the 2016 budget vote (which will take place in November or December?) will be similar to last year's outcome: a majority consisting of former Alliance parties + SD that votes for the Moderate budget? It seems like the Moderates and KD are done with propping up the government, although the Liberals and the Center Party might spoil this chance to topple it.

[Gunnar Larsson]

Wonder if Swedish left wingers will also finance a counter campaign?

Good God, that idea hadn't even crossed my mind! :S Why do loony right-wingers and left-wingers get to spend my tax money?!

Since when is it your tax money??

Anyway, the situation is different. In Denmark it was the Danish state that basically said "Denmark sucks" and it made sense for people to say "No it doesn't". In this case it is a party that says "Sweden sucks", so its not the point of view of official Sweden, and if there is any need it is possible for embassy personnel in the relevant countries to issue statements etc.

[politicus]

Wonder if Swedish left wingers will also finance a counter campaign?

Good God, that idea hadn't even crossed my mind! :S Why do loony right-wingers and left-wingers get to spend my tax money?!

Since when is it your tax money??

Public party aid.

[Gunnar Larsson]

Wonder if Swedish left wingers will also finance a counter campaign?

Good God, that idea hadn't even crossed my mind! :S Why do loony right-wingers and left-wingers get to spend my tax money?!

Since when is it your tax money??

Public party aid.

By that logic pretty much everything can be considered Swedish Austerity Cheese's tax money.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Wonder if Swedish left wingers will also finance a counter campaign?

Good God, that idea hadn't even crossed my mind! :S Why do loony right-wingers and left-wingers get to spend my tax money?!

Since when is it your tax money??

Public party aid.

By that logic pretty much everything can be considered Swedish Austerity Cheese's tax money.

Actually, yes. It can. I pay taxes, thus it's my tax money. Despite what some Social Democrats in this country think, tax revenue doesn't grow on trees. The money doesn't belong to the state, the money belongs to the tax payers, which includes me and presumably you. The state is just allowed to distribute it on our behalf to benefit our society and advance our common interests.

Now I believe in the idea of my money being used to create a better society, but when lefty and populist politicians use it as their own personal play jar I do feel like going full on Libertarian.

[politicus]

Some math from Swedo-Kurdish economist Tino Sanandaji in a recent interview with Weekendavisen (not online, so no link) called Nordens Mexico ("The Nordic Mexico")

He says that if the authorities let the number of refugees and immigrants continue at the current level Swedes with two Swedish-born parents will become a minority in 10 to 15 years.

His calculation:

At the moment 1,000 to 1,500 refugees and immigrants arrive each day. Multiply this by 365 days and then 15 years. Since about 77% gets asylum at their first applications (he adds that the number is higher, because you can apply again), you land at between 4.2 million and 6.3 million asylum seekers in 15 years time. Each asylum recipient will receive one additional asylum receiver through family reunification (rounded down from 1.2). Multiply this by two and you get between 8.4 million and 12.6 million immigrants by the year 2030.

The total number of people in Sweden is 9.7 million. Of these, 21.5% have a foreign background, which means that Swedes with two Swedish-born parents makes up 7.7 million. Ergo, the number of immigrants will within 10-15 years become higher than the ethnically Swedish population is today and since this group doesn't increase (it will fall a bit) the minorities will surpass ethnic Swedes within 10-15 years.

He says he expects the Swedish authorities to slow down migration long before that  happens, but its still a thought provoking calculation.

In an editorial in the LO owned Aftonbladet editor Anders Lindberg says the numbers are "creative statistics", where figures are bend to suit a particular purpose and that such ideas are "based on racial ideology" (given that they operate with an "eternal Swedishness"). But there seems to be little basis for claiming the first - and the second doesn't disqualify them as relevant.

While the calculus is unlikely to become a reality (which Sanandaji underlines) it just seems basically to be on solid ground.

His portrait of the future Sweden as a Latin America style society with a functioning economy, but high inequality, violence and gated communities is obviously a dystopia seen from a Social Democratic view, so no wonder he is unpopular in SAP circles.

[ingemann]

Some math from Swedo-Kurdish economist Tino Sanandaji in a recent interview with Weekendavisen (not online, so no link) called Nordens Mexico ("The Nordic Mexico")

He says that if the authorities let the number of refugees and immigrants continue at the current level Swedes with two Swedish-born parents will become a minority in 10 to 15 years.

His calculation:

At the moment 1,000 to 1,500 refugees and immigrants arrive each day. Multiply this by 365 days and then 15 years. Since about 77% gets asylum at their first applications (he adds that the number is higher, because you can apply again), you land at between 4.2 million and 6.3 million asylum seekers in 15 years time. Each asylum recipient will receive one additional asylum receiver through family reunification (rounded down from 1.2). Multiply this by two and you get between 8.4 million and 12.6 million immigrants by the year 2030.

The total number of people in Sweden is 9.7 million. Of these, 21.5% have a foreign background, which means that Swedes with two Swedish-born parents makes up 7.7 million. Ergo, the number of immigrants will within 10-15 years become higher than the ethnically Swedish population is today and since this group doesn't increase (it will fall a bit) the minorities will surpass ethnic Swedes within 10-15 years.

He says he expects the Swedish authorities to slow down migration long before that  happens, but its still a thought provoking calculation.

In an editorial in the LO owned Aftonbladet editor Anders Lindberg says the numbers are "creative statistics", where figures are bend to suit a particular purpose and that such ideas are "based on racial ideology" (given that they operate with an "eternal Swedishness"). But there seems to be little basis for claiming the first - and the second doesn't disqualify them as relevant.

While the calculus is unlikely to become a reality (which Sanandaji underlines) it just seems basically to be on solid ground.

His portrait of the future Sweden as a Latin America style society with a functioning economy, but high inequality, violence and gated communities is obviously a dystopia seen from a Social Democratic view, so no wonder he is unpopular in SAP circles.

I haven't read the article yet, but from what your describe, it's mostly correct if we see the last few month immigration continue. Of course won't we will illegal immigration will fall in the winter months (the Mediterranean become stormy and Anatolia a frozen wasteland), and even if Sweden do nothing, the rest of EU will do theirs to cut some of it off, which Sweden will also benefit from.

Also if it continued with 1500 illegal immigrants per day, iot's impossible to imagine that the Swedish establishment would have to react or that SD became so big that it became impossible to sideline them.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Of these, 21.5% have a foreign background, which means that Swedes with two Swedish-born parents makes up 7.7 million.

I think it's important to point out that the current 21,5% with foreign background also includes me, since my mother is Danish, and the rather large group of everyone else in Sweden with one Swedish-born parent, and a Nordic or otherwise western parent, and I hardly think we count as foreign even by the the most rigid Swedish Democratic viewpoint.

All these sorts of estimations always rely on ceteris paribus, which rarely come true. The current level of immigration will not continue for 10 or 15 years. The idea that the Swedish population could double in a mere decade is of course absurd.

[DavidB.]

Ah, I was already wondering where that large amount of common sense in your thinking stemmed from. Turns out it's Denmark.

Only joking

On a more serious note, I don't think that making this difference between Swedes with a Western background and a non-Western background changes much of the calculation.

Moreover, while the "ceteris paribus" assumption is obviously the problematic one in this calculation (but that is hardly avoidable and not necessarily relevant), I am not convinced that this is a temporary crisis. Even if the current level of immigration will not continue for 10 or 15 years, it is clear that these number will be high, and that Sweden, given the attitude of both the population and the political elites (which is more positive than in most other Western European countries), will take in a greater share than proportional. I think numbers somewhat lower than the current ones will be the "new normal", since conflicts close to Europe will continue to exist and drive people to a continent that is both safe and prosperous. The effects of climate change will also lead to more people leaving the Middle East and West Africa, and it seems unrealistic to assume that these people will opt for e.g. Morocco and Turkey instead of Europe.

[Famous Mortimer]

His portrait of the future Sweden as a Latin America style society with a functioning economy, but high inequality, violence and gated communities is obviously a dystopia seen from a Social Democratic view, so no wonder he is unpopular in SAP circles.

This is basically what New York City looks like.

[politicus]

Of these, 21.5% have a foreign background, which means that Swedes with two Swedish-born parents makes up 7.7 million.

I think it's important to point out that the current 21,5% with foreign background also includes me, since my mother is Danish, and the rather large group of everyone else in Sweden with one Swedish-born parent, and a Nordic or otherwise western parent, and I hardly think we count as foreign even by the the most rigid Swedish Democratic viewpoint.

All these sorts of estimations always rely on ceteris paribus, which rarely come true. The current level of immigration will not continue for 10 or 15 years. The idea that the Swedish population could double in a mere decade is of course absurd.

His point wasn't that it would come through, but to demonstrate the extent of the current inflow and part of his point was, of course, that it is unrealistic for Sweden to keep taking so many.

Reinfeldt made that speech where he talked about the endlessness of the Swedish landscape and that there was room for everybody (I can't find the actual text, but he made the Swedish countryside sound as if it was the North American prairies). In reality most immigrants wants to live in cities and are not interested in a pioneer existence as subsistence farmers in rural Norrland. Sweden's potential as an immigrant country is related to how much your cities and larger towns can hold (without creating actual ghettos/slums or massive housing shortage for "the natives") and how many your labour market can absorb. And seen in that context Sweden is a fairly small country.

Refugees currently become immigrants (we seem unable to disconnect this mechanism - and Swedish pols are less willing to give temporary residence permits than neighboring countries, so they aren't even trying) and immigration is a numbers game. We Europeans should decide on a maximum. How large a population can we accomodate? How large a population are we willing to accept? And how much can we accept to change the ethnic balance? Those issues seems stil to be taboo in the Swedish debate - especially the last one, which is labeled as "racist".

So this simple calculation is interesting in a context in which many tend to trivialize the extent of the ongoing demographic changes and their consequences. There are people who are too alarmist, but the trivializing of both demographic and economic consequences is more widespread. It is as if most of the open borders crowd refuse to do or accept basic math and disregard prognoses.

In the 90s professor in demographics P.C. Mathiesen proposed that Denmark should have an Immigration Commission, where demographers, economists etc. could create prognoses of how immigration would affect Denmark in various areas, but the idea was blocked by Radikale, who claimed such numbers would be "abused". I think Danish debate would have been a lot more rational if based on the detailed studies Mathiesen wanted to conduct, and if Sweden wants to keep taking anywhere near as many refugees as you do now, you should establish an Immigration Commission to do some serious number crunching - also on the delicate matters like ethnicity. Of course that would be even harder to get accepted in Sweden.

[Famous Mortimer]

Of these, 21.5% have a foreign background, which means that Swedes with two Swedish-born parents makes up 7.7 million.

I think it's important to point out that the current 21,5% with foreign background also includes me, since my mother is Danish, and the rather large group of everyone else in Sweden with one Swedish-born parent, and a Nordic or otherwise western parent, and I hardly think we count as foreign even by the the most rigid Swedish Democratic viewpoint.

All these sorts of estimations always rely on ceteris paribus, which rarely come true. The current level of immigration will not continue for 10 or 15 years. The idea that the Swedish population could double in a mere decade is of course absurd.

His point wasn't that it would come through, but to demonstrate the extent of the current inflow and part of his point was, of course, that it is unrealistic for Sweden to keep taking so many.

Reinfeldt made that speech where he talked about the endlessness of the Swedish landscape and that there was room for everybody (I can't find the actual text, but he made the Swedish countryside sound as if it was the North American prairies). In reality most immigrants wants to live in cities and are not interested in a pioneer existence as subsistence farmers in rural Norrland. Sweden's potential as an immigrant country is related to how much your cities and larger towns can hold (without creating actual ghettos/slums or massive housing shortage for "the natives") and how many your labour market can absorb. And seen in that context Sweden is a fairly small country.

Refugees currently become immigrants (we seem unable to disconnect this mechanism - and Swedish pols are less willing to give temporary residence permits than neighboring countries, so they aren't even trying) and immigration is a numbers game. We Europeans should decide on a maximum. How large a population can we accomodate? How large a population are we willing to accept? And how much can we accept to change the ethnic balance? Those issues seems stil to be taboo in the Swedish debate - especially the last one, which is labeled as "racist".

So this simple calculation is interesting in a context in which many tend to trivialize the extent of the ongoing demographic changes and their consequences. There are people who are too alarmist, but the trivializing of both demographic and economic consequences is more widespread. It is as if most of the open borders crowd refuse to do or accept basic math and disregard prognoses.

In the 90s professor in demographics P.C. Mathiesen proposed that Denmark should have an Immigration Commission, where demographers, economists etc. could create prognoses of how immigration would affect Denmark in various areas, but the idea was blocked by Radikale, who claimed such numbers would be "abused". I think Danish debate would have been a lot more rational if based on the detailed studies Mathiesen wanted to conduct, and if Sweden wants to keep taking anywhere near as many refugees as you do now, you should establish an Immigration Commission to do some serious number crunching - also on the delicate matters like ethnicity. Of course that would be even harder to get accepted in Sweden.

Immigrants want to live in cities because that's where other immigrants are. Hypothetically, just hypothetically, they might be willing to live in the countryside if there were a large number of their countrymen along with them.

The problem, of course, is that you end up with a ghetto, just a rural one rather than an urban one, basically transporting villages from Syria or Africa up into Sweden.

[DavidB.]

In the 90s professor in demographics P.C. Mathiesen proposed that Denmark should have an Immigration Commission, where demographers, economists etc. could create prognoses of how immigration would affect Denmark in various areas, but the idea was blocked by Radikale, who claimed such numbers would be "abused". I think Danish debate would have been a lot more rational if based on the detailed studies Mathiesen wanted to conduct, and if Sweden wants to keep taking anywhere near as many refugees as you do now, you should establish an Immigration Commission to do some serious number crunching - also on the delicate matters like ethnicity. Of course that would be even harder to get accepted in Sweden.

Loving your rational contributions on this issue in general, but this idea seems especially interesting. Obviously not going to happen in the Netherlands, let alone in Sweden, but this seems like a very original idea.

However, the outcome of such a debate in society would probably not lead to the outcome many politicians desire, and that's where we're back at the point that the internationalism/progressivism of social democratic parties clashes with the wishes/interests of its core voters, which is why parties try to avoid this debate.

(At this point we could probably rename this thread to: The Big Bad Western European Immigration & News - And Oh Yeah, SD Would Go Through The Roof In The Next Election - Thread)

[politicus]

Ebba Busch Thor (KD) keeps establishing her party as the "hardliners" on immigration/refugees among the mainstream centre-right. She wants temporary residency permits for refugees to lower the "asylum pressure" and faster rejection of baseless applications. Her view is that Sweden shouldn't have more favorable rules than Germany. Rather moderate in an international context, but still controversial in Sweden.

SD claims KD is getting closer to their views, which Thor obviously denies. Seems a bit shortsighted of Åkesson to undermine KD like that. A stronger KD would be a strategic advantage for SD - pressuring M towards the right.

[ingemann]

SD claims KD is getting closer to their views, which Thor obviously denies. Seems a bit shortsighted of Åkesson to undermine KD like that. A stronger KD would be a strategic advantage for SD - pressuring M towards the right.

Not necessary, SD is better off, if the right keep treat them as unclean, it allow their party to grow even more and improve their position the day, they can no longer be kept outside influence.

[DavidB.]

SD claims KD is getting closer to their views, which Thor obviously denies. Seems a bit shortsighted of Åkesson to undermine KD like that. A stronger KD would be a strategic advantage for SD - pressuring M towards the right.

Either an indication that they are indeed shortsighted and unstrategic, or an indication that SD is primarily vote-seeking rather than policy-seeking or office-seeking and wants to remain credible as "the only real opposition party" in order to win big in the next election.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

SD claims KD is getting closer to their views, which Thor obviously denies. Seems a bit shortsighted of Åkesson to undermine KD like that. A stronger KD would be a strategic advantage for SD - pressuring M towards the right.

Is it undermining them though? By saying KD is getting closer to their views they do paint KD as the most attractive second choice for SD-voters and an acceptable alternative. SD obviously want a centre-right minority government dependent on them, and painting KD as an attractive alternative to their supporters would actually probably benefit them. 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I mean, I really doubt the current KD supporters are bothered about their immigration policy being too strict so...

[politicus]

SD claims KD is getting closer to their views, which Thor obviously denies. Seems a bit shortsighted of Åkesson to undermine KD like that. A stronger KD would be a strategic advantage for SD - pressuring M towards the right.

Is it undermining them though? By saying KD is getting closer to their views they do paint KD as the most attractive second choice for SD-voters and an acceptable alternative. SD obviously want a centre-right minority government dependent on them, and painting KD as an attractive alternative to their supporters would actually probably benefit them. 

My thinking was that they would want KD to attract voters from M, thus pressuring M to go towards the right (KD would be a more respectable alternative for M right wingers than SD). If KD only "borrows" voters from SD this wouldn't pressure M in the same way.

M are currently losing voters to both SD and Centre, I would assume they would only turn right if the loss to SD and KD became bigger than the loss to Centre.

Do you think Batra has actual liberal principles regarding this issue? Or would she drift right if the loss of votes were big enough.

(its easy to assume no politicians have deeply felt principles on anything, but Reinfeldt clearly had on this issue and even if Batra isn't quite as committed she may have too)