But still wondering why ministers are fabulating
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full screen Why does Johan Pehrson give a false reality of unemployment? Unfortunately, I cannot give a reasonable explanation. Photo: Krister Hansson
Reality doesn’t look the way we want it to. Not as the government wishes either.
This is why Labor Market Minister Johan Pehrson is fabulating.
While the finance minister is hiding somewhere.
But first something completely different. I’m sick and tired of being called a whore.
Those who give me that, or similar epithets, are preferably called Thomas, Stefan, Göran, Anders or Kjell by first name. They are also characterized by the fact that they react violently after reading at most two sentences of my articles.
They think I’m slandering the government. That makes me a covert S-agent or sossehora.
I have covered politics for more than 35 years. Therefore, I know that emails with this type of content change when governments change. Before the 2022 election, according to Stefan, Jörgen and the others, I was a bourgeois torpedo with one goal in mind – to bring down the S-led government.
It is of course nonsense. I am a journalist. This means that one of my main tasks is to examine power, in the forms it appears. In politics, this means in many more cases the government and its allies than the opposition.
Besides, think about it, it’s not the case that just because something is flawed now, it was great the day before yesterday. It might have been risky then too. Surely it is wonderful to think a little further than the tip of the nose?
Keep that in mind Göran, Lennart and others. Before you throw out your obscene words in the e-mails next time.
The fact that I wanted to make this point now is because I’m pretty sure that the subject of this column will lead to reflexive sossehora type reactions.
It is about unemployment and growth. Labor market minister Johan Pehrson (L) just presented the government’s latest forecast for the labor market.
He said, among other things, that unemployment is at “a very high level”. And that “we are about to have a southern European situation”.
To express oneself so indicates advanced self-deception. I do not believe that Pehrson wants to deceive the voters. He wants to believe it looks that way.
Currently, Spain and Greece have the EU’s highest unemployment rates. Third from the end is Sweden. Next comes Finland. A southern European situation? Well, just as well Northern European.
Unemployment is also not surprisingly high. Regardless of what Johan Pehrson says. The government predicts that it will increase by 0.5 percentage point or 40,000 people to 8.5 percent in one year.
That’s a pretty normal level. From the 1990s crisis’s draconian blow to the Swedish economy, it has varied from a low of six in 2001 to a high of 11 percent in 1997.
In the last five years, unemployment, measured as a percentage of the workforce according to Statistics Sweden, has varied between 6.5 and 8.9 percent.
What many perceive as “normal” are the levels that were common before the 1990s crisis. At the time, unemployment was around two percent. Year in and year out. But that is more than three decades ago.
So why fantasize Johan Pehrson? Why does he give a false picture of reality? Unfortunately, I cannot give a reasonable explanation. If he doesn’t like to be scared.
Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson (M) is rarely seen. But if you do, she likes to talk about fighting back against inflation, a task that is primarily the Riksbank’s.
But of course it is a problem, don’t talk about it. However, another problem is likely to be much bigger in the long term. Namely the insufficient growth in the Swedish economy.
Economy needs to grow. Otherwise, we get less to distribute. Last year, the Swedish economy shrank.
Even then, we were in the bottom tier of the EU according to the European Commission. This year, the economy will also shrink according to the same institution’s forecast. They believe that we will be the worst of all 27 EU countries.
Why is Elisabeth talking? Svantesson not about it? The population is growing, defense spending is increasing, healthcare is in crisis, the school lacks staff, the railway is falling into disrepair, the potholes in the roads are increasing, the electricity grid must be expanded – the holes to plug are countless while the government wants to lower taxes. Growth is an answer.
Is that why Elisabeth Svantesson keeps such a low profile? Because she broods in her chamber over a troublesome problem? A problem complex she doesn’t have a solution for?
I do not know. But what I do know is that neither the high unemployment nor the low growth occurred after the change of government in 2022. So I’m not a whore. Fattaru?
THREE EXPOSURES
arrow Two of this week’s political news competes to be the most anticipated. The first is the announcement by mouthpiece Märta Stenevis (MP) that she is quitting. The other Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s (M) that the state pushes money to the regions in crisis so that they don’t have to fire staff.
arrow Martin Melin, The Liberals’ legal policy spokesperson, former police officer, is ripe for bigger tasks. He sees a difference between a criminal and a non-criminal even if both have a copy of a Gucci cap on their head. Melin is thus psychic. It wouldn’t surprise me if the offers are pouring in for him.
arrow The presidential election in El Salvador was judged to be of such importance that Swedish Radio sent two correspondents. Partly the regular Latin American correspondent, partly a so-called P3 correspondent. The listeners would surely have settled for one of them. A tip in savings times for those who have not saved before.
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