I somehow stumbled into an American discussion about living conditions in Sweden. Glenn of Instapundit brings forth several claims based on statistics; Sweden is poorer than African-Americans in the US; Sweden has more crime than Mississippi. The list goes on and on.

Eric Alterman of MSNBC refutes some of the claims, saying that Sweden has among the lowest poverty-rates in the world, a far lot less than that of the US, and definately Mississippi.

Glenn Reynolds is entitled to his own opinion, but he’s not entitled to his own facts. The facts are these: The absolute poverty rate* in Sweden is 3.1%, among the lowest in the world and less than half the U.S. poverty rate of 6.6%.
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(For the record, the relative poverty rate for Sweden is 3.8%, 11.7% for the U.S., and 16.1% for Mississippi.) Ranjit Dighe @ Eric Alterman's

I don't know how they managed to get statistics to make Sweden look like a high-crime country on a global scale but neither I nor any countryman I've ever spoken to feel any need for a firearm.

The study which triggered this is a Swedish one brought forth by Swedish right-wing conservatists opposing the reigning government, clearly arguing for lower taxation.

It's Really Not That Hard to point out that vast majority of the reason Swedes are "poor" is due to a) hours worked and b) earners per household, indicates the researcher in question is being rather dishonest. Hronkomatic

Member of Plastic.com, "mrwarmth", brings forth a couple of points:

Purchasing power is just one measure of a country's prosperity, but certainly not the only one. For example, if they factored in the costs of the benefits afforded to all Swedes under their welfare system and counted that as "purchasing power", or, conversely, charged those services as costs to Mississippians, the result would be much different. Mississippians may be able to buy more at WalMart, but they have one of the worst educational systems in the country and I doubt their health care can hold a candle to that enjoyed by Sweden's citizens. Plastic.com

Personally, I'm having a problem embracing this whole discussion based on per-capita income, per-capita crime, per-capita purchase power, etc. The debaters are basically throwing statistics ripped out of context at eachother. Can one really aptly judge a country's living conditions by a handfull of statistics without even so much as visiting there?

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