More Swedes want to switch currency from the krona to the Euro, with support the highest it’s been since 2009, according to a survey by Gothenburg University’s SOM Institute.
Paywall? https://archive.is/ZXdUu
This is somewhat related:
Sweden says Russia is greatest threat to its security
Russia poses the greatest threat to Sweden due to its aggressive attitude towards the West, the Scandinavian nation’s security service Sapo has said.
Another important factor to take into account is the fact that the krona was performing worse when the survey was carried out than it is now ‒ on Sunday, Bloomberg reported that the Swedish krona was the best performing of all 11 G10 currencies, the most traded currencies in the world.
Burying the lead a little bit there. Also worth noting that even then the opinion turned out to be a minority at 32%.
It wouldn’t be a big change for swedes, just shave of a zero from the prices. They don’t even use banknotes or coins often 😋
Kidding a bit, but it would be good if sweden joined the monetary union IMO.
Can’t blame them. The Euro is managed quite reasonably. I can’t speak for the Swedes but the EU only has to gain from Sweden joining the Eurozone. I’ve seen people comment here that giving up currency sovereignty is a terrible idea. But what does that mean? To me it simply means that in times of crisis, governments cannot simply order their central banks to print more fiat currency. This doesn’t seem like a great long-term policy either… but then again I’m not a full-time economist.
Feds don’t normally print money. That would be the treasury and they don’t get to choose how much. The feds usually adjust interest rates by buying and selling treasury bonds that they don’t pay for, or I should say pay for with accounts they can adjust their balances as needed, including destroying “money”, to achieve the desired interest rate and slow or speed the economy. A point of interest is that the fed is not a part of the government and isn’t supposed to be influenced by it. I know it’s a lot easier to just say they or the government just print money but there is a lot of nuance. Anyway, that’s not really what the discussion is so have a great day!
I really hope that would happen, and then there would be more pressure on Denmark to join too.
Worth noting that despite this, support is currently only 32%.
deleted by creator
Sweden has already been in the EU for 30 years…
Giving up currency sovereignity is a terrible idea! That means the government has to “balance” its budget and can’t print money to make up for shortfalls, forcing austerity.
I agree with you on this, but I guess it should be noted that Sweden has routinely been running at a budget surplus since the 90s, and only recently removed the rule that enforced this, allowing the budget to be exactly balanced.
At a great expense, as this has contributed to underfunding infrastructure and other forms of underinvestment in government-funded services.
The government has to balance the budget anyway, and devaluing your currency is a bit like peeing your pants. It’s nice and warm for a bit and then increasingly uncomfortable.
Inflation goes up, you see capital fights because you’re not a reliable currency, you increase your national debt, and you instantly make the entire population poorer than their neighbor countries.
So while there are some benefits, most economists argue against it.
I can’t say if Sweden going for the Euro is good or bad for Sweden, and there’s a paradox in asking people about it, because if the SEK is weak then support goes up, but it’s a bad time to join because of the low value, but if the SEK is strong then support goes down, although we’d be in a much position to join.
The government has to balance the budget anyway.
This is neoliberal dogma with bad consequences for the majority. While there are plenty of economists who subscribe to it, there are plenty others who don’t. Economics isn’t a well proven science and as a result there are giant gaps filled with unproven hypotheses. While the primacy of budget balancing has been promoted by neoliberal economists since the 70s, evidence has been piling up against it for a while.
Given that new money is created every time a private bank gives out a loan, the only real difference between the government having the ability to create new money or not is the difference between whether the government has to seek private capital (and pay interest on it) or not. Therefore removing the ability to print your own currency is simply shifting public policy power to private capital. Most people don’t have enough private capital to participate, therefore it’s an increase in the political power of a minority upper class including international actors. One result of this is private capital gaining the power to force austerity by not lending money in need, then profiting from that policy by buying up government services and operating them for profit, typically as monopolies. E.g. healthcare, power, water utilities. The demand for profit means price increases which means inflation.
Therefore a responsible government should retain the ability to create its own currency, create it and destroy it by targeting metrics such as inflation and employment, not budget balances.
Money is just a way to make somebody pay. The problem you describe only happens, when a government is bad in using its money. That leads to high debt. If the country controls the currency it borrows in, then a solution is to print a lot of money to pay back the debt. However that comes with inflation, which usually means poor people have to pay for it. Alternativly the country might not pay at all, which would mainly hurt the rich.
One really important other part of that is that private capital is not able to force austerity. If they have it in your country, the government can just tax them.
Disagree on some of the points but I’ll only address the need for money printing and forced austerity since those are the only ones I can relatively concisely. I agree on the assessment on who gets hurt by inflation and default.
I’m not sure if you’re saying that governments only need to print more money if they’re bad with it but I’ll address some needs for money printing just in case.
There are plenty of reasons for governments to print money. For example, population growth. Having growing population and the economic expansion that comes with it, without monetary expansion leads to price instability where prices have to fall in order for the same amount of money to be able to buy more clothes and bread made and consumed by the new people. Price instability is a problem (e.g. deflationary spiral) which is why the government prints money and releases it into the economy to compensate for the increased number of people and goods to keep the prices stable. Critically, the government cannot borrow or tax this money from its citizens because that will remove it from the very economy the government is trying to add money in. End herein lies the clue the government cannot borrow or tax money it hasn’t printed and spent first. Printing and spending has to appear first or a government has nothing to tax or borrow. This is why a government does not need to borrow or tax in order to spend. A government might choose to borrow or tax for different reasons after printing and spending. E.g. it could tax in order to keep inflation in check. I’m not saying all governments understand that and I’m definitely implying that the ones that use the family budget analogy don’t understand how the system works.
One really important other part of that is that private capital is not able to force austerity. If they have it in your country, the government can just tax them.
This is only true under the additional assumption that the government in question is not ideologically or financially subservient to private capital. If it is, as many are, it will choose not to tax, in which case it would be forced to cut spending and/or sell off assets, which is austerity. This process has driven austerity and privatization in many places around the world. It’s driven it where I live as well. In Canada, we’ve sold railways, utilities and highways, among others.
By your theory monopolies should be much more common in countries that are already part of the Euro
There are many other variables that affect monopoly density which don’t sit frozen. It’s why this conclusion doesn’t follow from what I said, unless you have a magic wand that can fix them in multiple economies.
Inflation can be controlled. Public spending creates money and taxation destroys it, ensuring the total supply of money doesn’t outstrip demand and cause inflaton. Without that sovereignty they can’t create or destroy money, they are subject to the whims of the currency bloc.
It’s just another tool in the toolbox. Giving it up is foolish.
While that’s certainly true, we also had businesses speculate against the Swedish currency in the early 1990s, driving up interest rates to over 500% for a few days in order to stop the outflow of capital.
So there are arguments for adopting the Euro too. But like I said, I’m not informed enough to say which is better. It’s a very complex issue.
How is that an argument for adopting the Euro? They stopped the outflow of capital in a couple days, and it’s been 30 years. Seems like it worked.
They could do it because we were a small currency, and it it didn’t quite work, at least not the way it worked before. The currency is now “floating” against other currencies which it wasn’t back then, and we had a recession at the time. I agree that Sweden would be giving up a few tools in the economic toolbox, but on the other hand it gains a few others. I can’t say which ones are more valuable because I’m not an economist. I suspect you’re not either.
We should be able to have public debate about public policy. My opinion obviously doesn’t matter much, but the decision is ultimately in the hands of Sweden’s people - not economists.
And the whims of large domestic and international private capital as the other source of money they can rely on in need.
Domestic capital can be controlled.
International capital is a problem, but financial imperialism isn’t an argument for surrender. It only hightens the need for sovereignty!
Domestic capital can be controlled.
How do you control it once it’s gained power over the government and democracy? I understand how you can control it prior to that, but you’re still giving it power that previously belonged to the workers, you’re making it easier for it to entrench this power, and the right to be paid for it to top it off. I get you’re making the point that it’s the lesser problem than international capital, but it’s still a problem that a people probably doesn’t want to create for itself unless it really needs to. 😀
How do you control it once it’s gained power over the government and democracy?
You avoid giving it even more power over the government by surrendering currency sovereignty!
Serious question. Why 15 years? Why wait so long?
Not sure if you’re being serious or not, but it’s not about joining in 15 years, it’s that the support is the highest it’s been in 15 years.
If my sarcasm-meter is broken, I apologise.
I was serious and I misread that, sorry.
Eurocrisis with the Greek debt crisis and the like happened a bit less then 15 years ago. Right now the situation with Trump and Russia is scary for Swedes, so they are rethinking their position in the world. Also it is not majority.
YES! YES! YES!
please keep it up. boycott anything coming from the U.S.
What?
oooops, wrong thread. apologies.
no thanks. we gain nothing from it.
the only party that campaigned on joining the eurozone, L, lost votes because of it.
Also we should change our official language to English. Those who want to keep old traditions alive can learn Swedish at home.
I’m not even kidding :P
Maybe it’s me not being able to count, so please tell me again how many (and which) countries gave up their language since joining the Euro?
“also”
Thankfully this is a minority opinion and also mostly redundant, since most swedish people of working age speak and write English well enough for business purposes. There would be no benefit and a huge cultural heritage would be lost. Young swedish people need no extra motivation to learn english - they pick it up naturally from globalized media anyway, a lot faster than we can teach them.
The way the world is heading, it would be better to make German, French and Spanish mandatory in school instead.
Most Swedish kids do actually study German, French or Spanish. You can choose not the and read extra English and Swedish instead but that’s mainly done for people already performing poorly in language, people who really don’t need another language but need to master the ones they know. Some schools (including public schools) also let students study two of those languages instead of just one if they wish to. I’m currently studying French and German
Yes, I’m aware. I’m saying we should step it up and probably start earlier.
Maybe, it does sure create a sense unity with the other European countries
What are you talking about? Why would you stop speaking swedish?
All Swedes are basically fluent in English already and there’s no point keeping tiny little language around in a global world.
My kids (9 and 12) speak English more than Swedish since all content they consume is in English anyway.
“All Swedes are basically fluent in English already and there’s no point keeping tiny little language around in a global world.”
I find this perspective interesting, because to me, this same justification would make me less inclined to support kids learning Swedish (if I were Swedish). This is a purely abstract question for me though, as I am English, and salty that I didn’t get a chance to learn a foreign language in school.
Edit: just seen your comment about Scanian, which gives additional context to your viewpoint
And what’s the benefit to giving up what’s a such big part of our culture? And the part about kids speaking more English than Swedish is mostly not true. I’m in year nine of grundskola and almost no one I know prefers to speak English over Swedish. And that’s an almost because I know people who have grown up with English as their first language
The benefit is that we can attract more people to come, live and work in Sweden. While I have myself hired people and told them they don’t need to learn Swedish to live in our society, they’ve come back and said that actually they felt they needed to when they had settled and had kids.
I don’t have the same “culture” as my parents did. They didn’t have the same as their parents. Move forwards, not backwards.
The benefit is that we can attract more people to come, live and work in Sweden.
This is a job that Swedish Girls Abroad™ is already excelling at. The amount of sob stories from british, australian and american expats lured here by some blond vixen one has had to sit through…
(Come to think of it, we should probably discourage people from coming here instead, it rarely ends well. Be advised: Sweden is cold, dark and no one past 25 wants to make new friends. Education and culture is regarded with suspicion. When swedes hear music, they clap on beats 1 and 3. The younger generations even pissed away their social safety net to a large extent, which basically was their only USP as a country. It’s a culture of bean counting engineers with emotional lives irrevocably damaged by protestantism; don’t come here, if you value your sanity.)
While I have myself hired people and told them they don’t need to learn Swedish to live in our society, they’ve come back and said that actually they felt they needed to when they had settled and had kids.
Great, so let’s make all Swedish speakers feel this way instead of your inconvenienced employees (because you gave them bad advice). Most swedes aren’t as fluent as they believe themselves to be and prefer to speak swedish in day to day situations. When you have kids, you can’t live in your own little bubble anymore.
Nah, better that we just switch to English. The “Aj spiik Sveidish” boomers are soon gone anyway.
Sweden already erased the language of my forefathers (Scanian). As the world is ever more interconnected we’ll all come together around one single lingua Franca.
Sweden already erased the language of my forefathers (Scanian).
I don’t know if the kids still speak Skånska, but, when I lived there, Swedes above 30 who grew up in Scania did.
