a very brief look of scandinavian economics


Having the opportunity to study abroad, doesn't literally mean study in the campus alone. Everywhere I go,I always seen something interesting to watch, to learn, from other people, everyone. last weekend, I went to sweden, I spent a day in Stockholm,but spent most of my time in Uppsala,45 minutes by train from Stockholm. A perfect city, i would say, not too noisy like paris, less risk to be lonely than staying in Norway's country side. a small city, with surprisingly large mosque, the traffic was normal,no more embouteillages, but unfortunately no metro, nor tramway running around the city as well, but the transport was good, kinda expensive though. the train was better than Paris RER, and the buses were also much better and so was the transport from Nykoping airport to stockholm. much much better than Paris Beauvais transport.

the apartments for students is good, and well furnished. The neighborhood was nice,the people were great,nice and friendly, typical for small neighborhood kind of society, the city is surrounded by mountains,lakes, and trees, and of course snowy picturesque view... I just loved it, I need it to refresh my mind, which I wasn't able to do in the blurred and crowded city so called Paris.

the food was great, for me, as long as I could find a nice, relatively cheap, tasty and cozy, Chinese and Indian restaurant nearby, that should be good enough.

in Uppsala, we will able to find not only the oldest university in scandinavian country, but also large taxes,it was the largest in OECD countries, up to 2007, but becoming the second after denmark this year I think. However they had a very low inflation rate, only around 1 percent rate annualy. corruption is low, property right is protected, people should be able to do new businesses in only 15 days, approximately two weeks, I think this rather impossible in French style of bureaucracy. similarly to france, however they had problem with unemployment as well, since the policies in hiring people seems to be burdensome.

they had some unemployment fringe benefit for the unemployed, but wait,they had additional shortcomings ; "you wasn't able to work, so we gave you money to survive for couple of weeks", so here it is, first, at the very least, the unemployed is obliged to apply for work, at least 16 application every month, second, no matter how clever you are, if we find you a job first,and you wasn't able to find yours, you should take the job, so it would be normal for an graduate anthropologist to work in a supermarket. Those are the shortcomings, the allocation of talents were not efficient, but the Scandinavian way, normally worked it out, why? information is the answer, people might some time work in poor condition, but as time goes by, they may find a suitable job.

what makes this work very well in scandinavian countries, is that they have less population problem than latin america nor west europe, they had such a great culture that corruption is bad, property right is respected, financial market have lots of varieties, business is good, people are smart, informations are free.

they won't be able to export corn and seeds, but they export human technology, like hand phones, IT's and Volvo's..just being here, I am able to find a little piece of puzzle why people really think scandinavian model is great, what my friend always make a great fuss about.

it'a a small piece of puzzle, but I'll find the rest of puzzle sooner or later..
just to prove that what might be look nice in other countries, won't always be as juicy as if we implement it in our country,at least it wasn't as easy as it look.

one thing I hate in scandinavia, is the prices of fresh food. what's wrong with all the people here, I went to the supermarket to get some fresh chilies, and it costs me 13 crowns for three pieces of chilies, in Paris the same amount of money gives me a whole pack of fresh red chilies, around 30 pieces. siiighhh..

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hm..
banyak yang mau gue komen-in sebenernya di. tapi lunch time nih. lagi lu aneh. sekalinya ngepost banyak banget. gue dari kemaren bolak balik kage ad ape2..

norway is a socialist country, at least the people like to think that way.
IMHO, in the beginning of development, like it or not, a country should impose capitalism rule. but once it reach certain level of prosperity, it should slowly but calm (kaga usah ganti ideologi-berisik di tataran politik doang nanti) shift to socialism. because the capitalism is a way of surviving. it's so human nature, basic instinc. but socialism is a more sustain system.

no?

Rajawali Muda said...

ya maklum mpok, ngeblog buat gua lebih ke mood bukan ke rutinitas, rutinitas gua blog walking bukan blog writing :-).

it's funny that we exactly share the same idea,for me, developing countries must adopt capitalism and gradually increase the role of government in distribution of income (not necessarily socialist) but democracy and institution must also evolve sufficiently with certain quality to keep up with the government.how do we get all? (higher income and hence higher quality of education and democracy)

by not restraining evolution with too much high taxes, too much subsidies etc, the govt for me must focus their resources in infrastructures and public services ,some say this is indeed a wild goose chase (rodrik, 2005)as when income is high, the infrastructure will also be high. the main thing to do is to focus to something, and do it one at a time.

might be interesting to look at this too mul :

http://diskusiekonomi.blogspot.com/2008/04/kendala-sisi-penawaran-infrastruktur_3698.html

Anonymous said...

buat sesama fan's rodrik.. tosss!!!

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