Relationships important but no miracles Good relationships are crucial for well-being. A long-term Harvard study with that message, the New York Times recently highlighted. The research supports it. People with warm, stable relationships live longer and happier on average. Isolation, on the contrary, can be as harmful as smoking. More time with family and friends actually increases…
Category: Billionaire
Pyrrhic victory for Western financial markets that breaks the US world power order
The Iran deal shows something bigger than a war The so-called peace deal between the US and Iran is a largely completed peace agreement, even if Netanyahu challenges it a bit by continuing to bomb Lebanon. But Israel will probably have to give in to Trump and the US can no longer afford the political and economic price of…
Book about reforming America fairer
The Peoples' Union Manifesto: 35 Steps to a USA That Works for Everyone by Ray Gross seeks to reform the United States from corruption through 35 concrete reforms. The book proposes to make compulsory insurance, energy companies and pharmaceutical companies non-profit. The book wants to introduce Medicare for all, universal basic income, and free or low-cost higher education. It also suggests that religious organizations…
The Sweden Democrats are not social democrats
The Sweden Democrats and Neoliberalism's Discontent The far-right Sweden Democrats (SD) have emerged as a decisive political force. The Dissatisfaction Party capitalizes on the dissatisfaction that many Swedes feel with neoliberalism. Neoliberalism brings cutbacks, layoffs, market solutions, deregulation and privatization. In recent decades, this has led to widening gaps between rich and poor. Many ordinary citizens have experienced long-term unemployment,…
Work for all provides a more stable, state-regulated mixed economy
Work for all is the goal society must have. Brilliant text on the benefits of full employment and its positive side effects. Niklas Blomqvist questions the idea that the market itself can create full employment. For example, Blomqvist points out that attempts to follow this path in the last thirty years have not produced the desired results. He emphasizes that work for…
The truth about immigration
Integration is an investment – not a cost. Although it sometimes takes up to 5-8 years for refugee immigrants to get a firm grip on the labor market, it is significantly shorter than for many native Swedes without higher education. Young Swedes often try their luck in their 20s and 30s between temporary jobs, unemployment, and studies before they…
Low popularity of benefactor Biden
President Biden has achieved a lot on the economy - especially falling inflation and a great many more jobs. Biden has also won several legislative victories. These will limit the rise in prescription drug prices, expand care options for veterans, slow climate change and rebuild the nation's infrastructure. Still, his popularity ratings are among the lowest in American history except for those of Trump…
No government deficits – society's unnecessary straitjacket
Vote for bigger government deficits! Deficits are part of how the state regulates the market and protects citizens and nature. Neoliberalism attacks this. How is money created? Can we afford to work? Sweden's Riksbank's prize in economic science in memory of Alfred Nobel in 2022 suggested that banks have an important role for the social economy even if this can…
Extortion - our society's highest morality
The title may sound a bit absurd. But how many of us don't work with blood, sweat and tears? Time studies take place at workplaces. The aim is to get the most out of the worker in the shortest possible time as often as possible. If the worker cannot live up to this, even if only by a few percent, she is ashamed to death...
Financial capitalism and feudalism in the West versus industrial capitalism in the East
Financial capitalism in the United States today is reminiscent of the former feudalism or l'ancien régime in Europe at the end of the 1700th century. In the last years of feudal rule, the money within the elite went mostly to passive, interest-bearing and cike-productive incomes. Industrial capitalism out competed the aristocracy during the 1800th century by delivering goods, albeit brutally. There was also over time in industrial capitalism a…