The top priority--Jobs

”Jobb är viktigare än lön för nio av tio ungdomar” - DN.se: "Om de unga ska få in en fot på arbetsmarknaden krävs, förutom jobbskatteavdrag, sänkta arbetsgivaravgifter, lärlingsutbildningar med mera, flexiblare arbetsrätt och så kallade avstampsjobb med lägre ingångslöner."

Anders Borg once said that economically Sweden was similar to the Netherlands. This is good news because the unemployment in the Netherlands is lower than 3%. The lowest rate in EU-27. However, Sweden now has one of the highest unemployments for young people in the EU.

The report A European Paradise from 'Svenskt Näringsliv' delineates the reforms taken in the Netherlands that might have helped them along. A point might be that they did the reforms ten years ago and we are just thinking about doing things. Making changes soon might still take ten years to give results? Some of the changes in Maud Olofsson's list are not in the list of the Netherlands?

On page 34 in the report one finds the following from an article of 2005:

"From the mid-nineties, a series of labor market reforms have been carried out in the Netherlands. Below are some examples.

Lower overall taxes on labor since the end of the nineties.

A labor tax deduction was introduced in 2001 and later expanded in 2003 and 2004.

Payroll taxes were significantly reduced in 1998.

In 1998, the rules governing employee termination were terminated.

The possibilities of renewing temporary employment contracts were expanded in 1999.

The maximum time for which employees could receive benefits was shortened in 2004.

In 2002, competition between job agencies was introduced, where the agencies received funding in accordance with the extent to which their clients received employment."

In Sweden the outsideship makes the move to the job market to large for many individuals. What we might need is a gradient of job opportunities to replace the large step. It seems to me that the reforms of the Netherlands would provide such a gradient making each job closer to reach for each individual?

The problem with unemployment is of course worse now due to circumstances beyond our control but it was larger than that of the Netherlands also before the financial crisis. It would be interesting to know why Sweden now take other measures than the Netherlands to reach their goal? There seems to be a social democratic phantom influencing decisions. 'Moderaternas' congress, for example, did not dare to do changes in employment law for the risk of losing the election. Is it not the job of 'Alliansen' to explain that changes are perhaps necessary but the results can not be expected before the election.

Optimism for the Future?

Var är protesterna och fackeltågen? Helle Klein Ledarkrönika Ledare Aftonbladet: "Pessimismen eller snarare uppgivenheten är inte bara Cusacks. Vår tid präglas mer av undergångsstämningar än av hoppet om att världen faktiskt går att förändra."

I don't know where Klein has gotten the idea that we live out a pessimism for the world? Is it the doomsday prophet like predictions that the climate change mafia paint for us? Remember, the world has never been in such a good shape before as it is in today. Never been so peaceful. I do not understand either why protesting would do any good. Media is actually responsible for some of the gloom.

One problem though that I believe is serious is that science, the potential savior of mankind, is currently taking a beating from the use of doomsday prediction. There are voices of caution, however, Ingemar Nordin, Professor of History of Science in Linköping, is critical of the approach of the IPCC. He brings up the fact that temperature has been down globally for a while, something the IPCC brush away as a temporary fluke. If you try to use science for answering questions currently beyond its reach, you dirty down its name. This would have implications for world hope.

Another problem that currently is important is the impatience seen in the climate change debate. This might also lead to a backlash when it become apparent to people how much India and China actually will pollute to continue their development. Environmentalists are trying to give people the idea that we have to stop polluting altogether to save the planet. If this would be true, we would be in dire straits. People feel this incoherence and that causes pain.

"Change" appeared to be the key word for people all over the world. What is not clear, at least to me, is what kind of change people wish for. I think people in Sweden, for example, realise how extremely well off they in reality are and therefore take the increased unemployment with a grain of salt. On the other hand. Some people in fact are out with the torches. However, they torch cars and schools. The outsideship debate is important because it will be necessary to ask the question if it is possible at all to remove it or if we have to learn to live with it and activate people in another meaningful fashion than with jobs. Global competition will leave many people outside. 100% employment is no longer possible.

How does a modern European society work?

Dick Erixon — I hjärtat rebell: "En gång i tiden stod partier och politiker på medborgarnas sida. Idag är står de på Maktens sida. Statsmaktens sida. Myndighetsmaktens sida. Varför? Politiker har blivit överhetens handgångna män och kvinnor. Riksdagsledamöter är myndigheternas torpeder, som genomför allehanda åtgärder som stärker statens makt och försätter medborgarna i förmynderi"

Well, I think this is an interesting starting point for a discussion, or speculation rather, about what is currently going on in a country such as Sweden. I don't subscribe fully to the above idea because I think it is a little more complicated. People have lost trust in political parties but that doesn't mean they don't trust anything. I believe that something in the civil society has taken over their trust. After all, people are quite content. Just for the sake of explanation a directorship in a "system" of sorts. People have agglutinated in society. It might be dangerous to yell too much on the Afghans. We are becoming more tribal and thus more hard to govern as a unifying state has less trust. Just look at the Latvians that are giving up their sovereignty and directing themselves to EU?

This leaves the politicians in charge of the state as interlocutors to the people. However, they might just have hotlines to the system chiefs? They might seem like "överhetens handgångna män" but politicians are severely constrained managing the complicated state apparatus. This gives them an aloof status. The politician is probably going to need more and more training in order to function. It is becoming a profession in itself. This poses a problem when it comes to integrating politicians that are coming from outside as people that have become popular in some other way. This makes the FRA-law less important as it is related to the state and not to the civil organizations that have lost privacy in an other fashion.

There might be a certain tug-of-war between systems and the state but it has not become official, yet. However, so called systems can be very "förmyndande" as well. There are also people in the so called "outsideship" that I hereby give another definition: people not associated with a system. Integration of foreigners is very difficult because it involves getting people accepted into the systems. Foreigners also form systems by themselves. Probably sometimes even with sharia laws. Power is being transferred to the systems. So are international contacts.

Why do we work?

Med tron som vapen Ledare Aftonbladet: "Man behöver inte ha läst CS Lewis för att förstå att vi inte agerar på det här sättet. Vi är inte enbart vårt själviska egenintresse. Och i verkligheten ökar arbetslösheten i Sverige snabbare än i EU trots Borgs reformer. Och trots en något bättre exportutveckling."

KK (Katrine Kielos?) tries to argue that Anders Borg think that we work only because of egoistic concerns. Obviously Borg understands that people work for many reasons, many that are altruistic. However, if I have understood what Alliansen is trying to do, it is preventing people from getting stuck in the so called outsideship after a crisis, which have been a pattern for some time now. Borg did not say why that is in his talk on the meeting Nya Moderaterna held recently. Probably because it is unknown. Therefore it is going to be guesswork to get out of this situation. Belief but not faith.

The logic then is if you can make people richer, i.e., more free, in the insideship this might stimulate people to activate themselves to get a job and become more free. To liberate people. This is more honorable than just complacently accepting people on welfare in the outsideship even if it creates an increased gap between the have and the have nots which happens to be the object of the plan. There is apparently also data from research that speak in this direction.

The red-greens might have plans for people in the outsideship? To create a clandestine workmarket of semi-slaves that serve the establishment? I can witness to the existence of such strategies. Then I think that it is more moral to try engaging people in the outsideship so they can live free instead of in bondage.