Statist Shangri-La Sweden Waves Bye-Bye to Socialism

First Fidel Castro... now this

It's not just hard-core Marxist toilets like Cuba belatedly realizing a bloated state sector does not deliver results now: the voters of Sweden -the European liberal ideal touted by the international left as how Socialism can work- are rejecting the libs that have run their country for the better part of 80 years.  

The Left are surely used to being in charge in Sweden, and thought a world economic crisis might buoy their fortunes after getting curb-chucked last time. However -in the event- the Socialists lost their second election in a row. And it gets worse: their center-right opponents -who just successfully defended spending cuts of the last four years-  will now have to deal with the far-right SD:

The Swedish Social Democrats (Left) polled their worst result this week than at any time since 1914. Perhaps next time they’ll think twice before proposing to reverse some of the educational reforms introduced by their conservative rivals. 

The manifesto pledge by the Social Democrats to make it illegal for commercial companies to set up and operate free schools was symptomatic of the party’s antedeluvian, head-in-the-sand approach to the Europe-wide fiscal crisis. 

The centre-left party that’s dominated Swedish politics since the 1930s, being in power for 65 of the last 78 years, proposed to raise taxes and increase public expenditure on health, education and care for the elderly. This tax-and-spend manifesto didn’t go down well with the Swedish electorate.

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As in Britain, the global financial meltdown of 2008 has not restored the electorate’s faith in the state, as left wing critics of free market capitalism hoped it would. On the contrary, the electorate has endorsed the centre-right’s view that this has made the need for a permanent reduction in public expenditure all the more necessary. Frederik Reinfeldt is the first centre-right Swedish Prime Minister to win re-election in modern times, having promised further tax cuts and a leaner welfare state. 

There is now virtually a Europe-wide consensus that public expenditure needs to be slashed and the size of the state reduced. The latest government to reach this conclusion is Portugal’s which decided on Friday that it could no longer depend on economic growth to trim the deficit and would have to embark on a programme of swingeing cuts.

Much as in far-too-liberal-for-common-sense Holland, Sweden's 'far-right' Sverigedemokraterna quickly evolved into a viable party through opposition to immigration while also taking a stand against the Left's profligate ways: the party garnered 5.7% of the vote last weekend, gaining seats (20) for the first time ever. 

And the SD will wield power out-of-proportion to that delegation... this new conservative voice in Sweden now holds the balance of power between the center-right and the socialists in a hung parliament...

So why are we -capitalist bastion America-  still one of the last ones screwing around with this  stuff?  It's like a drug counselor being talked into trying heroin by his junkies... getting hooked... then continuing to smack-away while all the former patients -now shooting buddies- either OD or go into rehab...

What an out-there Twighlight Zone episode this presidency is... just a senseless waste of our nation's strength, wealth, and honor.

Moonbattery  The Telegraph (UK)   Wikipedia   

Swedish election, Sweden far right, swedish far right, Sweden, socialism, elections, communism, castro, Swedish anti-immigration, Swedish right, DP, xxx, Swedish anti-immigration, Swedish election, Sweden far right, swedish far right

Buying Music in Stockholm

No direct music post today, but I'm in what I consider to be the pop music capital of the world right now, so I thought that that deserved its own post. If you have even a passing interest in Swedish music (or Sweden in general), you've gotta find a way to get over here. Each time I arrive in Stockholm the city takes my breath away. I'm convinced that there's no more beautiful city on Earth. This is my fifth time (!) and there's a reason I keep coming back, even though the weather looks nothing like the above picture right now. It's freezing and very gray. But I've been in the Summer and there's nothing better.

Being that this is a music blog, I'll give you a how-to to buying music in Stockholm. I could spend days in all the little used record stores around town and spend WAY too much kronor. Like London, and pretty much every city in the world, a lot of the chain record stores seem to have closed down. There's still the famous Bengans on the way to Sergels Torg, and you can also find a small selection of new cds in the chain department store Åhléns, though prices for new albums are almost always expensive (between 149 and 199 kronor - that's about 21-28$). It's fun too look, but there are much better deals to be had.

The best spot to find affordable used music is S:t Eriksplan, one street (just over a bridge) with at least four used record shops within minutes of each other. Record Hunter has new music on the ground floor and used in the basement. It's probably the best known, but I prefer a couple of other shops on the street... one a dusty basement no bigger than a large closet where nothing is sorted and all the cds are in random boxes. It makes it a real awkward hunt, but sometimes you can find real treasures (I found the latest Cinema Bizarre album today for under ten bucks). There's also another shop (can't remember the name of it now--Skivba something, I think) just down from Record Hunter where I always seem to find the motherload.

There are also some used shops in the southern district of Södermalm, one in particular (Pet Sounds) that I've heard great things about. Gonna check that one out tomorrow, as I've never been.

I'm well aware that this information may not be useful to most people, but it's the kind of reference I'd like to have when traveling to Stockholm for the first time. So I hope it's useful to someone!