(Justin)

Tech nerd from Sweden

  • 1 Post
  • 167 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • Aren’t coops basically democratic condos? In Sweden we have “bostadsrätt” which are condos governed by a democratic resident association. They’re good for democratic control over housing, but they still require a mortgage and they’re still subject to market speculation. Some of the apartments can be rentals, but that still means you have a landlord, just that your landlord is your neighbors.

    Having the city or the state as your landlord seems like it would be more ideal, or at least a balance of coops and public housing.


  • You’re mixing two different kinds of inequality here, The top graph is wealth (aka savings), while the bottom one is income. Wealth is the much harder one to crack, and Sweden actually has much higher wealth inequality than all of the other countries being compared.

    It’s worth noting that one of the main reasons that Sweden has relatively equal income before tax is because of the way the tax system works. Because social security contributions cap out at ~$70k/year, similar to the US, but there is no similar cut off for social security payroll taxes, employers generally pay their employees in dividends and private pensions instead of income, above that $70k level. Taxes are generally flat in Sweden, though.

    - a swede






  • The issue is that Israel is an apartheid state, as understood by the UN. It’s one thing if civilians on annexed territory had equal rights as Israeli citizens, but instead civilians are treated inhumanely in violation of international law. Civilians are tried in military court, evicted from their homes by occupying settlers, and generally do not have equal rights under the law.

    It is a concerted effort not just to annex territory, but also to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from occupied land. Ethics regarding annexation aside, the war in Israel isn’t about simple annexation.