The Swedish centre-left government have decided to delay plans to implement several tax reductions, citing increasing concerns about the state of the global economy. According to the government's calculations, the tax breaks would have “cost” a total of 17.3 billion kronor ($2.68 billion).
This isn´t a good thing although the political gain is immense - especially in the long run with the Greatest Depression closing in. The Finance Mentalist and the Prime Mentalist will emerge as stabile father figures as this crisis go on for years to come.
Kind of interesting though. Here we have a government and a country actually doing pretty well with decreasing deficits and with trade- and budget surpluses, and what do they do? They try to increase their safety margins – and the Finance Mentalist actually was out warning months ago that we had dark clouds up ahead, how many other politicians have been saying such things?
You can say whatever you want and complain you should, but in comparison with almost every other country out there this is unprecedented prudency.
Compeer this with brother Obysmal twisting a lot of arms to keep print-more-BurntWinkie at the helm of the Fed while murdering tens of thousands more Muslims and throwing even more trillions into a black hole. Compeer this with Greeks and Spaniards pushing the envelope with every trick in the book. I think Swedes should be very thankful over having a fiscally conservative government (although it, in all other regards, is a Democrat/Labour/fascists government).
But this isn´t a celebratory post about my birth nation. There are plenty of negative screw-ups and plenty of problems curtsey of a overzealous idiotic government. Am just saying that in comparison with others the my fellow Swedes are doing a half-ass job.
What they should do is of course completely different. The Swedish government should adopt the same sort of “austerity” measures the PIIGS are trying to impose. If you know, as I do, that the greatest depression is about to hit our shores it would be highly recommendable to act now, not later. Actually they should take it 99 step further and cut government down with 90% and confirm to libertarians beliefs. Of course this isn´t feasible- politically speaking - and I get that this would never happen.
There are however a few politically viable options:
Listen up all you Mentalists in the Swedish Government!
a) Sell more publically owned companies while there´s still buyers on the market.
SBAB would be fantastic to get rid of, but there are plenty of other idiotic government entities that would do nicely in the hands of any other fool than the Swedish people. And if you can get paid in Gold and Silver, at least partly, that would be magnificent. Also the money could, in part, be used for infrastructure investment and so “creating” jobs and other stupidities politicians lie about. Would make you look good! It would generate a bigger cushion comes depression! And it would be politically viable to do! So do it! Do it now!
b) You need to cut something already now.
And there are plenty of options that wouldn´t sound and look bad, could even look great once the world goes to shit. The most blatant example is to cut yourself down to size. I know this isn´t popular among your wannabes and within your sphere of politicos, but from the people´s perspective nothing would say you´re on their side as if you cut down your own salaries, eliminated a department or two, or if you closed down a few bureaucratic entities. This is not a big money maker, more a symbolic act, but it could still save tens of millions and over time that cash could make a huge difference.
c) Start eliminating unnecessary laws and regulations.
I am not going to tell you which ones since I would burn the entire book and start anew, but I am sure you can find plenty of them. Why not set two goals of firstly never add a new law until a old one is abolish and secondly cut 100 laws/regulations per year for the coming 2-6 years? Could also be spinned into and to said to be something positive and it would also give something to both lefties and libertarians to say; “Ah, not too shabby”. In the long run also a good investment since laws and regulations are only inhibitory and during the greatest depression those who let individuals to be free to exploit opportunities will emerge the most victorious.
There you go! Politically viable solutions you could/should do now! You can thank me later if the world is still around...
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