Sweden: Paradise on Earth?

[Pekka]

And what hurts our economy even more is the fact, that most people in here with awesome ideas are ready to sell their businesses the first chance they get.. and you already guess who they sell them to... .. correct, americans . For a quick buck. But that buck locally is a lot you see.. but chump change in there. So many awesome businesses has been sold WAY too early.. I'm doing this project managment course which is pretty big, and we have this great man lecturing, he's been in the business world from the 60s (yeah he's old), and he knwo sa lot of people and has told many great stories. Every class he tells at least 4 or 5 examples from the real world where he has been a part of.. we usually cover mistakes and success stories.

What he always says is, if they had kept their hands ont he business JUST for 5 years or 10 years more, they would be multi-millionaires. But no, they had to sold it the first chance.. they didn't even see the potential in it. What the Americans are very good at, the best in the world, is to see the potential. To put price on it and see how much money it can make in the future. That's a great business, to buy off businesses that don't know what they have, or are to eager to get rid of it. And he's not anti-american.. on the contrary.... he's lkie the biggest fan of you guys. He just told how project managment was awesome in the Apollo programs, and because of that the US ultimately won the USSR in cold war and that's why we have euros adn businesses instead of rubles.. so he's also little crazy in the head

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Apt, thats what we'll be saying about the Swedish system - a fart in the wind. They bought the free lunch promise and now they're trying to avoid the free dinner...

That's funny, which country has a current deficit, a budget deficit, and a huge national debt?

Originally posted by Berzerker
Easy, the USA has benefitted the most from other country's brain drains. It ain't welfare attracting them, its to make loads of money by helping humanity more efficiently.

How does that have anything to do with my argument?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by JohnT
Cite on the "much more advanced" statement? When? 1938?

If not for determined Allied interferences, such as bombing dams, commando raids, and such assorted actions, the Nazis would have the Bomb before the US. Besides, the US got a whole bunch of scientists from Germany to work on the Manhattan Project.

Suppose the Soviets were out of the picture, the Nazis would have their hands free in dealing with the UK, very likely to shut down all such activities if nothing else.

[Berzerker]

UR

That's funny, which country has a current deficit, a budget deficit, and a huge national debt?

Empire costs money too... If you think my critique of the Swedish welfare state is an endorsement of the US Congress you must be confusing me with a Republicrat.

How does that have anything to do with my argument?

You said Sweden might have been worse off wrt a brain drain without its system and asked me to prove you wrong. I did, by pointing out the US success at benefitting from brain drains. Even the article identified the brain drain as a problem for Sweden...

[DanS]

The article also makes it sound as though the anglosphere is deficient in science in comparison to Sweden. While Sweden might spend a slightly higher percentage of its economy on research and development, the percentage spent is only marginally higher than the anglosphere in general and the US in particular.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by David Floyd
---
If, eventually, Germany made a bid for world domination and went after the US, we'd have the atomic bomb - which we began developing BEFORE we entered the war, by the way - and the Germans wouldn't, because German scientists had already decided it was impossible to build, and Hitler wasn't interested in it anyway.

Making this into another WW2 thread is really a threadjack, but I think you got some details wrong here. US could finish the bomb so quickly because they captured German scientists who were willing to co-operate in the spring of '45. They also captured a U-boat on it's way to Japan with bomb material.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Berzerker
No doubt Pekka, I have more faith in people than governments so I'd expect the Swedish Joe Blow to hate kissing Nazi a@@, but the war might have ended earlier without the Soviets grabbing half of Europe if the Swedes joined in after Barbarosa slowed to a halt.

And what side should we choose? Should we have declared war to Finland (axis) or England (allies, including the Norwegian and Danish resistance)? Get real...

[Kropotkin]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Apt, thats what we'll be saying about the Swedish system - a fart in the wind. They bought the free lunch promise and now they're trying to avoid the free dinner...

That's funny. Haven't we already concluded that you don't know anything about the so called swedish system? But still you to persist to have dead certain conclutions about it.

[Berzerker]

CO

And what side should we choose? Should we have declared war to Finland (axis) or England (allies, including the Norwegian and Danish resistance)? Get real...

Were the Finns threatening to invade half the world? You telling me Swedes didn't know Hitler and Stalin were the real enemies? Swedes saved their skins! Thats fine and all but dont tell me Sweden's welfare state didnt ride free on the courage of other peoples who fought the wars that needed to be fought.

Krop

That's funny. Haven't we already concluded that you don't know anything about the so called swedish system? But still you to persist to have dead certain conclutions about it.

A fart in the wind... And a silent one at that...just like Sweden's silence during WWII.

Euros want to trash the USA but get real thin skinned when the history of their country ain't exactly a beacon of morality either.

[David Floyd]

Admiral,

If Germany had not shifted the focus of the aerial assault on England to her cities in 1940, the power of the RAF would have been severely diminished.

Yes, the RAF would have lost more fighters. However, Britain was producing both more fighters and more pilots than the Luftwaffe, and seeing as how the BoB was fought OVER Britain, the British were able to recover their downed pilots, while the Germans were not.

In any case, we are talking about an invasion of Britain following a conquest of the Soviet Union, which presumably would happen either in the summer of 1942 or 1943. Either way, the RAF and USAAF would be so strong in Britain that the Luftwaffe would simply have no way to assert air superiority. Read up on production figures - the United States could SIGNIFICANTLY outproduce Nazi Germany, even a Nazi Germany that controlled all of Europe and had conquered the USSR.

If Hitler had not then been unreasonnably afraid of losing his surface fleet after minor losses off Norway,

What??? I'm sorry, but you just don't understand. The Kriegsmarine lost a large part of its forces during the Norway campaign, including most of its destroyers and the heavy cruiser Blucher. Yes, the KMS still had major units in play, but the RN was SIGNIFICANTLY superior.

Germany could have secured the English Channel.

You've got to be ****ting me. Even the High Seas Fleet during WW1 wasn't able to secure the English Channel, and that fleet was the second most powerful fleet in the world. What makes you think that a fleet smaller than that of the British, Americans, Japanese, French, and Italians - and HUGELY smaller than the High Seas Fleet - could secure the English Channel?

I mean come on - do you know anything about WW2?

At this point, provided Hitler pushed back Barbarossa, he could have secured a beachhead in England.

How?? The KMS had virtually no amphibous warfare craft. The Germans could have maybe pushed a couple of light divisions ashore into England, backed by some airborne troops, but these would quickly have been overwhelmed by the British army. Not that this is a reasonable scenario, because the Luftwaffe had no serious chance of defeating the RAF in 1940 to begin with, nor did the KMS have a reasonable chance of establishing superiority over the Channel - for the love of God, man, even the British Channel fleet could have stopped that from happening, to say nothing of the main battle fleet at Scapa Flow.

As a sidenote, during the entire war, only one amphibious assault failed, and that was a very lack-luster Japanese assault on Wake involving no aerial support and extremely limited naval support (two destroyers, I believe).

Actually, the assault was only temporarily delayed while the Japanese brought in reinforcements, and this was due to the Japanese underestimated the tenacity of the United States Marine Corps. The story of the USMC resistance on Wake Island is actually one of the more interesting stories of the Pacific War - if you have a chance to pick up a book about it, certainly do so.

In any case, this is in no way analogous to a proposed German invasion of Britain in 1940, which would have been absolutely suicidal.

UR,

You're assuming that the US would still get the atomic bomb before Germany. An untenable assumption.

Bull****. Hitler had little interest in the atomic bomb project, and in fact, German scientists had, by and large, determined that the A-bomb was technically impossible. Furthermore, after the British raids on the Norwegian heavy water supplies, a German atomic bomb was impossible in any case.

Furthermore, you ignore the fact that Germany never, EVER, developed a long range bomber capable of reaching the US (much less the Ural Mountains), while the US was constantly upgrading it's long range heavy bomber program - by 1948, the US would have had thousands of B-36s, with hundreds of atomic bombs.

Given that the Soviets were out of the picture, Nazi Germany could devote much more resources to research of advanced weapons.

I call bull****. The Germans would have been heavily tied up in the Soviet Union for years, if not decades. Furthermore, the US and Britain would still be pounding the hell out of Germany by this point with strategic bombers, and would have already kicked Germany out of North Africa, so I fail to see how Germany would have had tons of spare resources to pour into atomic weapon design (which they wouldn't have done anyway, for reasons I pointed out above).

As JohnT points out, the Germans were much more interested in rocketry than in either atomic weapons or long range bombers. So, maybe by 1948 conventional rockets would be landing on the US West Coast - but so what? At the same time, German cities would be going up in atomic fire. Game over.

If not for determined Allied interferences, such as bombing dams, commando raids, and such assorted actions, the Nazis would have the Bomb before the US.

Cite? And in any case, why would the US/Britain stop bombing dams and conducting commando raids if the USSR was defeated? If those two things are all that stopped Germany from getting the Bomb first (bull****, by the way), those two things still would have been going on.

Besides, the US got a whole bunch of scientists from Germany to work on the Manhattan Project.

Relevance? This was true regardless of whether or not the Soviets collapsed.

Chemical Ollie,

US could finish the bomb so quickly because they captured German scientists who were willing to co-operate in the spring of '45.

What??? The US already had the bomb virtually finished in the spring of '45 - the Manhatten Project scientists certainly did not derive any great benefit from Werner Heisenberg, and the rest, in the spring of 1945, nor did they derive any benefit from the largely defunct Nazi atomic bomb program.

Good Lord, it's amazing how so many otherwise intelligent people are so ignorant about so many aspects of World War 2.

[Berzerker]

German cities would be going up in atomic fire. Game over.

"Game over, GAME OVER MAN!"

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Berzerker
CO

Were the Finns threatening to invade half the world? You telling me Swedes didn't know Hitler and Stalin were the real enemies? Swedes saved their skins! Thats fine and all but dont tell me Sweden's welfare state didnt ride free on the courage of other peoples who fought the wars that needed to be fought.

Krop

A fart in the wind... And a silent one at that...just like Sweden's silence during WWII.

Euros want to trash the USA but get real thin skinned when the history of their country ain't exactly a beacon of morality either.

Hitler and Stalin were the real enemies, no doubt. And to join the war, we would have to make one of them our friends, while at the same time making one of our brother nations (Finland or Norway) our enemies. Which side should we choose? Both sides were purely evil. Better to stay out.

Imagine what domestic welfare US could have done with the tax money you wasted in Vietnam? And don't give me that old BS that it was necessary to keep Sovjet at bay.

[David Floyd]

Seriously though, that's what would have happened.

[David Floyd]

Imagine what domestic welfare US could have done with the tax money you wasted in Vietnam?

**** welfare, imagine the tax cuts!

And by the way, I do, to some extent, buy the domino theory argument. Whether it was any of our business, though, is another thing entirely.

[Agathon]

You've got to be ****ting me. Even the High Seas Fleet during WW1 wasn't able to secure the English Channel, and that fleet was the second most powerful fleet in the world. What makes you think that a fleet smaller than that of the British, Americans, Japanese, French, and Italians - and HUGELY smaller than the High Seas Fleet - could secure the English Channel?

The rules had changed. Air supremacy over the channel would be all that was needed. The Home Fleet would not have dared to sortie if the Luftwaffe had gained air superiority over the channel and south eastern England.