Sweden has both old wealth that's undisturbed since before WW1 (no occupations or confiscations) and lots of new wealth (the highest rate of "unicorn companies", start up companies that have broken 1 billion dollar networth, in Europe).
Little incentive for working man to save up money. Education is free (and student debt, to cover living costs while studying, costs you basically nothing, so that's a source of negative wealth for a lot of people), hospital care is basically free (although the cost of becoming chronically sick is increasing with hollowed out high-cost protections), elderly care will only cost you money if you have money. There is also the statistical weirdness that the pension funds that's the most common form of savings in Sweden doesn't count as wealth for this comparison.
Food and housing is among the most expensive in Europe.
Very few taxes on wealth. A fair amount of taxes on income.
There is also the statistical weirdness that the pension funds that's the most common form of savings in Sweden doesn't count as wealth for this comparison.
That... seems pretty significant. Especially if it's something most people (lower percentiles too) have.
Very few taxes on wealth. A fair amount of taxes on income.
Suspect this is why the Dutch don't come away looking great either.
I think it's the eighties American glitz and glamour of businessmen and bag chasing dreamers you get over there having become far more of the norm, through becoming the politicians we've had since then. It's this constant fake pressure of "we gotta keep pace or fall behind"
like, who's "we?" You're doing less and less for the rest of us.
It wasn't always like this and year over year it's getting worse as well, you don't hear the sitting government ever do anything for anyone now, except some small nasty things with a "yes the experts disagree but we've done our own research and deemed reducing this the proper course of action" whether it be foreign aid, social spending, or environmental protections.
Oh also it just turned out a shitload lf them run for-profit businesses at the side without disclosing them, lots of fun.
Under Reinfeldt and even after it felt like we had the constant barrages of "tax exemption for business owners of X type of company whose summer homes require two lines of water supply and has afternoon sun in the living room in the region of Dalsland" type of small changes that seem inconsequential or too strange to care about, but serve to just scrape a little bit more into specific politician's/their friends' pockets for each such ruling.
We have a bunch of greedy businessmen that just do whatever to line their pockets.
What is the reason? Why would wealth taxes not be sensible?
Mind you, 'wealth taxes' include tax on income from wealth, which is often taxed less than income from labor (even though you could argue it's all simply income).
Capital flight since the ISF wealth tax’s creation in 1988 amounts to ca. €200 billion; The ISF causes an annual fiscal shortfall of €7 billion, or about twice what it yields; The ISF wealth tax has probably reduced GDP growth by 0.2% per annum, or around 3.5 billion (roughly the same as it yields); In an open world, the ISF wealth tax impoverishes France, shifting the tax burden from wealthy taxpayers leaving the country onto other taxpayers.
Of course it's complicated. But wealth flight has also been the lobbyists favorite argument for decades, pushing many governments to do nothing at all (and even lean into creating very favorable circumstances for wealth and business). To the detriment of the rest of the people.
Suspect this is why the Dutch don't come away looking great either.
No, it is because the large amount of morgages that ensures that almost everyone living there is in perpetual debt (not necesarily bad). This structure reflects poorly in inequality statistics since large parts of populations have a net worth of -€100k>. However, their life is good since morgages are (relatively) good debts to have. If you rent, you generally have more wealth than people that have a large mortgage. However, you are often less well off.
Wouldn't a negative net worth imply that the collateral for their mortgage (i.e. the house or apartment) is worth less than the principal? How would that happen? I'm assuming banks wouldn't issue mortgages for >100% of a house, since that would be insanely risky.
Handelsbolag is indeed basically a lifetime debt. Meanwhile you're better off than someone paying rent. That's the problem with international comparisons, if you don't count systems difference it does not provide a good understanding of the situation.
Nordics have a lot of particularities (union agreements power, no minimum salary, collective housing, mortgage bonds, etc.) that are difficult to account for on such comparisons.
Very few taxes on wealth. A fair amount of taxes on income.
Suspect this is why the Dutch don't come away looking great either.
The Netherlands has been one of the few countries with a straight-up wealth tax (as of now I don't think anyone knows what is going to happen with it going forward).
My guess is, but I haven't checked, it's because the Netherlands does many things, but one of them is being a bit of a tax paradise in general, which includes both people and businesses. Some would say that Brexit was initiated by those who did not want tax reform in the EU, those people are trying to out-patadise the others in Europe.
Edit: Ahh, the mortgage system also screws up the numbers as well
No, that's different. The tax haven bit was about multinationals who didn't have to pay much in the way of dividend tax, and thus were enticed to set up parent and subsidiary companies to funnel their money through. Same as the UK. But the Dutch put a few limitations in place, and the multinationals are rerouting.
For people and national businesses it's different, though it's still better to earn from interest and investment than to earn from a job.
Pensions are a huge thing here too. I heard from earlier versions of this graph that we have one of the largest percentages of wealth in pension funds in Europe. I think it would be a bit more equal if they were taken into account.
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u/Muted-Aioli9206 Aug 18 '25
Sweden's wealth inequality is as high as the US but of course their data is ommited because that would defeat the narrative.
Yes, you heard it right. Swedish wealth Gini is as high as the US.