“I had a case involving a 15-year-old girl recruited to shoot someone in the head,” Stockholm prosecutor Ida Arnell told AFP. “She was able to choose the type of mission she wanted, in other words, to aim at the guy’s door or his head. She chose the head.”
I think the Nordic countries get held up as these utopias when that’s actually far from the truth. I have a Swedish friend on a disability pension, and I’m also on the same sort of pension here in Australia. She gets a bit less than half of what I do a month. It’s not like she has other social programs that make up for it really either. We both have access to similar healthcare, I think I’m paying less for meds, I have much better disability insurance covering other things like support work and mobility aids.
I think some people just have this false impression of places like Sweden. I guess they look pretty great if you’re from the US but yeah…
Plus they have basically taxed alcohol out of use. Gotten rid of paper money, there is a lot to be desired.
Which probably has the same effect as prohibition in the US, with huge financial incentive for smuggling and black markets. Another stupid thing, every half-brained goon can make alcohol unless you forbid fruits and sugar.
I have been brewing my own for a few years now, drinking moderately every day this year all homebrewed for the most part. It is so much cheaper. And less running to the store. Plus there is no record of you being a frequent user of alcohol when you brew it yourself. Which in the US could very well be used against you on me law enforcement Information Network they use.
It doesn’t really. The only smuggling is for yourself in form of alcohol tourism where those living close to borders drive across and stock up on it.
Alcohol is still available in Sweden, just more expensive. Hardly anyone turns to the black market to get like 30% off.
This is not accurate whatsoever, Sweden has similar levels of alcohol consumption per capita to Spain, where alcohol is not expensive.
It is accurate that it is tax really heavy. Is it just in a bar or all together? But it is like 10 euros a beer or something I read.
Alcohol is taxed significantly in bars and outside.
A beer in the alcohol monopoly store - the only place that can legally sell alcohol surpassing 3.5% ABV - starts at about 10 SEK, approximately 1 EUR/USD.
A beer in a bar starts at perhaps 40 SEK, if you go to a really cheap place. Upscale places charge higher prices accordingly, with prices around 100 SEK not being uncommon.
To cope with the prices, a culture of pre-gaming has evolved in Sweden, so that you don’t have to break the bank once you’re out drinking.
Oh that is not so bad I was led to believe it was much higher even in the bars. You would be hard pressed to find beer for less than four or five dollars a bar now in the US. A little less than $2 a beer in the store for high quality IPA, 20 bucks for 12. I brew my own though.
Meh, Australia is the same on both these counts, though alcohol is still very heavily used. Those things are objectively less of a pawblem than welfare programs not being liveable.