The economist talk about inflation is completely sick

There is talk of a “judgment” reform, but I want an examination of the language and assumptions of the crisis debate

This is a cultural article which is part of Aftonbladet’s opinion journalism.

At Ica I hear the girl at the till say sorry to a sad aunt. The price is higher at checkout than what was on the sign. The staff hadn’t had time to notice because everything is increasing so quickly, there are new changes every day, the girl tells the aunt.

I don’t think we have understood anything of what is happening right now. This week inflation rose again and soon interest rates will go up and everything will get worse.

This week I attended a seminar on child poverty. Fatima Mohamedpublic health scientist and mother from Järvafältet said this:

– I need a bigger apartment for me and my family. But the rental company said I earned too little. So I went to college for three years and trained so I could get a higher salary. Then when I was done, the rental company raised the income limit.

She said: in it area where I live there is no SFI for women. They have to go to several metro stations, but they can’t afford SL cards, they can barely afford food. They would need a present society where they live.

We talk about crisis because it affects so many now. But the truth is that the crisis has been going on for a long time. And that there is a reason why everything is so fragile, that the margins are so small and hunger so present.

In a panel Then organizations such as Save the Children and Majblomman said that there is an urgent need for higher child allowances and housing allowances. They said they meet children who don’t want to eat breakfast at home because they are carrying their parents’ worries. That they meet primary school children who have stopped going to school to work extra, they may have several younger siblings.

Then there was a panel with the politicians.

The Sweden Democrat said she did not want increased child support, crisis or not. She said that foreign-born women do not work and that SD therefore wants to remove the multi-child allowance. That is to say, in an extreme situation that hits the poorest, her party still wants to punish precisely those who are worst off.

How to make lower child allowance that the mothers who today cannot afford to buy SL cards or buy food should be able to get a job? I thought. I wanted to go up on stage and take the microphone and in a calm but furious voice explain that her reasoning was racist, did not connect purely logically and was also not adapted to the crisis but I didn’t.

Money. Everything is about money. That’s how it always is. Suddenly it is visible more than usual.

I was struck by a sense of unreality when I listened to the politicians at that seminar because everyone agreed that “something needed to be done”. At the same time, they have all been involved in building a system that looks exactly like this.

I want now explain one thing about the Swedish state budget.

Every year when the economy grows and prices go up, those with a high income automatically get a tax cut. The technicalities aren’t the important thing, the point is that it just happens, it’s called state tax break point adjustment in budget parlance. The system is built to protect the incomes of those who earn well.

Anyone who has also been able to afford to buy an apartment receives a tax deduction for part of their interest costs. The forecast for this year is that the deduction will cost us taxpayers SEK 37 billion. This can be compared with the cost of housing allowance, which is expected to be SEK 4.5 billion.

Yes, you read that right.

For those who own nothing or earn little, the state budget works like this:

Whoever has a tenancy does not get help with the rent increases through automatic deductions.

Child support does not increase with inflation. Not the maintenance allowance either, which many single mothers are completely dependent on. Nor the housing allowance for the pensioners who are now turning over every damn penny when food prices have gone up by TWENTY PERCENT in a year.

When inflation is high, the poor get aggressively much poorer, purely automatically. While those who have a high salary and a home loan receive tailored help from the state, purely automatically.

It’s been that way since the 90s, that’s my point. It is the structure, the system.

Riksbank Governor Thedéen, Sweden’s own Marie Antoinette, now says that whoever can’t afford to eat should solve the problem by eating cookies, sorry, compare extra prices. On the radio, I hear economists say that the best thing we can do is to lower taxes, but certainly not increase resources for health care and schools, where they are now cutting back on school meals and teaching positions.

Namely, it would blow below inflation.

At the same time, in this increasingly bizarre country, we have an electricity price subsidy without a ceiling, which means we pay out perverse sums to rich people. We also have tax cuts for the wealthiest and huge deductions for pool renovations and porch construction. Did you know that the deductions for RUT and ROT deductions cost taxpayers many billions every year? And then people talk about how an increase in child support would be “inflationary”. I actually throw up on this debate.

There is talk of a “judgment” reform, I myself want an examination of the language and baseless assumptions of the crisis debate.

It is not a law of nature that the poorest alone should bear the burdens when Putin invades Ukraine and the ICA traders take the chance and cut in between. It is not a law of nature, but a consequence of a system and an economic era where there was always a good reason for the middle class to have more and the poor to be left behind.

The crisis now means that the skeleton of the social body becomes clear, even the supporting parts that were previously invisible. It turns out that this body is constipated and bloated, that it is rotten and malformed.