July 2019 • SwedeInternational

Wed. 31/7 – Spotify’s report card

Is Spotify Swedish? I don’t know. Swedes started it, certainly. But then the owners went and listed it on the New York and not the Stockholm Stock Exchange. They have a thousand or so employees here, but they have more in the US. The employees here pay taxes here of course, but Spotify is registered in Luxembourg so there go any tax wins for the state – plus founder and largest owner Daniel Ek manages his taxes through a bunch of companies in countries that have lots of palm trees, fancy accountants and empty offices ().

But OK, it’s pretty Swedish anyway, sort of, and we can point to our high innovation index ranking (2nd in the world – see earlier post) for a way of getting some Spotify cred. Yay Swedish teachers!

So here’s the Spotify news: It’s still not not that profitable. 13 years now, and really barely a cent in the plus column (). The report released today shows it’s still growing faster than your teenage nephew (who’s probably a paying Spotify member come to think of it), but there’s more competition than ever. (In the US, Apple Music has more subscribers than Spotify, even if Spotify has more overall users – .) The number of paying Spotify members increased by 31%, which, frankly, seems darn good – but, alas, the market expected a few more. When that didn’t materialize, Spotify stock took a hit ().

Spotify and its backers are hoping that its foray into podcasting will take off, and that Spotify will be the giant everyone thinks it is. Too bad that that won’t help Sweden that much.

Tues. 30/7 – it’s the economy

Statistics Sweden (the SCB, Statistiska centralbyrån) released the numbers on the economy this morning. Sweden’s second quarter GDP (BNP, bruttonationalprodukt in Swedish), compared to this time last year was lower than expected, and came in at 1.4%. The Swedish central bank (Riksbanken), whose measures the governnment uses for its work, thought it’d be 1.8%. So that’s not so great but perhaps not a signal to freak completely out.

Sweden’s 2nd quarter GDP wasn’t better than 1st quarter numbers either, unfortunately – it was lower by 0.1%. Again, the Swedish Fed thought (hoped?) differently, namely that it would increase by 0.1% compared to 1st quarter. It seems their algorithms might need to be recalibrated.

No great cause for economic alarm here, just more evidence that the economy isn’t going gangbusters anymore, or likely anytime soon. It seems instead like we’ll be muddling through for a bit – barring a no-deal Brexit, in which case things will become much more unsettled.

Mon. 29/7 – loaning books by the suitcase

Earlier this year, Region Stockholm’s culture department decided to take down and move the International Library. The main reason cited was that there wasn’t enough interest (read: book loaning) to keep it going. The International Library, currently housed in the the Stockholm Public Library near Odenplan, specialises in books and magazines in languages other than Swedish.

The people who frequent the library – and those who don’t, really, but want it to stay open anyway – have protested the closing by organizing massive book loaning actions. Over a thousand activist book loaners have streamed to the library during its few Saturday open hours to browse and borrow – loans increased by 400% already the first day. Books have been borrowed by the suitcase, SvD reports ().

Most people had no idea the library was even in danger of closing – and anyone who has stayed in Stockholm over the summer knows just how dead town is, or seems to be. Nothing happens over the summer, or is supposed to. The suspicion is that this decision was deliberately taken at this time so no one would get around to doing anything about it. Also because this particular library focuses on books in other languages (where else can you loan books in Thai or Ukrainian?), the protest (and perhaps the closing) has a political bent. As Viola Bao writes in DN (), Stockholms Commission for Sustainability (hålbarhetskommissionen) (and yes, there is one) found that new Swedish or foreign born girls use the library frequently. Plus, this is a time when the Sweden Democrats are exercising their electoral muscles – so what kind of signal is the local Stockholm blue-green government sending? (Blue being the Moderate, Liberal, Center and Christian Democratic Party and the green being the Swedish Green Party, currently in a coalition since the election in 2018.)

Whether this closing lands on the devious scale or not, it does reflect a distressing trend for both reading and city priorities.

PS If you feel like taking action yourself, check out the Facebook page for Rädda Internationella bibliotek.

Mon. 29/7 – 2 out of 129 ain’t bad

Sweden edged up a notch and landed at #2 on the Global Innovation Index, SvD reported today (). Sweden lands behind leader Switzerland (have they confused the two of us again??) and ahead of third place winner the United States. Rounded to their nearest whole number, the rankings are 67, 64 and 62 respectively. The Netherlands and the UK fill out the top 5 rankings.

The Index, published by Cornell University, the business school INSEAD, and by the World Intellectual Property Organization (an agency with the UN), ranks countries’ innovation capabilities and results, looking at a lot more than just the usual R&D blah blah of each country. The report goes way more in depth, and looks at innovation input – elements of each nation’s economy that further and nurture innovative activities: Institutions; Human capital and research; Infrastructure; Market sophistication; and Business sophistication. Then they go ahead and look at the output, in knowledge and technology as well as creative output. That’s a lot of measures. And Sweden still came out on top (or next to, at any rate). Not so shabby!

If you want to go whole hog and just roll around in their methodology and results check out the report in full at globalinno vationindex.org.

Sat. 27/7 – Sweden agrees to disagree

Minister for Energy and Digital Development, Anders Ygeman
pic: svd.se

SvD.se reports today that the Swedish government is ready to go against the EU when it comes to regulating electricity companies. As reported earlier in this blog, and indeed it comes up repeatedly in Swedish news, the cost of electricity has rocketed upwards in large parts of this generally cold and snowy/rainy country.

In a perfect world, electricity prices should only rise when the income is needed for improvements in the electricity infrastructure. However, this has not happened, says the government: Prices have gone up but the infrastructure has not been improved upon. Furthermore, Minister for Energy and Digital Development Anders Ygeman says, while electricity companies can have a reasonable profit, they shouldn’t be able to profit at the expense of the consumer (). Therefore, the government wants their Swedish Energy Markets Inspectorate ( it’s less of a mouthful in Swedish – “energimarknadsinspektion”) to regulate it more, and presumably better.

Here’s where it gets tricky: The EU says no. According to the EU Commission, the government’s proposals go too far and too much against the EU’s energy market directive.

Sweden doesn’t agree (and neither does Germany, who wants to regulate its electricity companies more too). For its part, Sweden is going ahead with its new regulations, which are to take effect starting 2020. Lucky electricity consumers who have been hit hard by price increases can hope for up to a 20% cut in their elecricity bill.

Stay tuned for the EU’s response to these crazy rebels.

Sat. 27/7 – omg what is that stuff?

Just when you want to throw yourself out of your office window from the heat, and preferably right into the nearest swimming hole, the swimming hole in question is closed because of algae blooms. Stockholm city has closed one major beach, Lövstabadet, and even warned people from coming into direct contact with the ground around it (!).

EU, in cooperation with Stockholm County Administrative Board (länsstyrelsen), is tracking algae blooms, hoping to find them before they hit the beaches and hit all the people that are hitting the beaches ().

An algae bloom (algblomning) is that green, soupy mess that looks like huge vats of stringy pea soup were just poured into the water right where you want to go swimming. Don’t swim in it. The stuff is seriously bad for you, and for the environment. Algae blooms are entirely natural and can happen even without human interference. But they are worse, and more frequent, when fertilizers full of nitrogen and phosphorus wash away from farmland and into water.

Nitrogen and phosphorus are not just the greatest thing for growing crops, the also grow algae. All these sunny days, plus water, plus carbon dioxide plus the extra fertilizer? It’s one big bonanza for algae, and also for all the itsy bitsy bacteria in there. The bacteria start to hog all the oxygen that is naturally dissolved in the water, leaving less and less oxygen, and eventually none, for the fish and other air-needing organisms. So yes, fish death. Lake death. Baltic Sea death. It’s all bad. The soupy green stuff is often also toxic as all get out to us humans as well. These particular algae blooms in English are generally called HABs, or harmful algae blooms (so original!) and are the home of a particularly unpleasant strain of bacteria called cyanobacteria. Don’t even think about swimming in it, even if you’re really really cool, or really really hot. This goes for your pets too.

Shout out to Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algal_bloom ), for the concise explanation of algae blooms.

Fri. 26/7 – Rocky IX: behind bars

A new movie?

So much to say. Is there a diplomatic crisis? This is Trump, people. He’ll milk it for as long as he wins home opinion with it and then forget it. Why is he being taken so seriously? Perhaps it is as Elsa Kugelberg writes in DN – that Sweden is unfortunately so dependent on the US for its security, mostly via NATO (to everyone’s irritation), that it is forced to take the president seriously.

Plus, it’s summer, and there is no-other-news.

There is, though, more Rocky news. For one, he’s still releasing music even though he’s behind bars. “Live fast” was recorded well before Rocky’s Sweden visit. The single has been described as “dark” (bit.ly/DNRockySingle).

Then, some woman went crazy screaming at the staff of the Swedish Embassy in Washington. She kicked a tent, and turned over a table, and has apparently admitted to throwing a can of soda at the door of the embassy and yelling that she wanted to blow the f’n place up (). These are bad times on the mental health front.

Former Prime Minister Carl Bildt has responded to Trump’s tweets, but so far (and to his credit because what could he possibly say?), Löfven has declined. Nothing that Carl Bildt, Stefan Löfven or Sweden’s ambassador to the US can say will have any effect on Trump because, well, he isn’t actually speaking to them.

Wed. 24/7 – Sweden in straits

scenes we don’t want to see
pic: newyorker.com

The Swedish shipping company Stena Bulk finally got in touch with the crew of its ship, Stena Impero, which was taken over by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz last week. The 23-man crew, who are of Indian, Russian, Latvian and Filipino origin, report that they are in good physical health, though under a lot of psychological stress.

The Swedish government may also be under a certain amount of stress as pressure grows for them to take a stand as to whether or not they will partake in a collaborative security effort in the Strait of Hormuz, helping to guarantee the safe transit of ships through one of the busiest and most economically important seaways in the world.

Jeremy Hunt, the UK’s Foreign Minister, has floated the idea of a common European (not NATO) defense of the seaway, to which Denmark, France, Italy and the Netherlands have responded positively. Here, the Minister for Foreign Affairs Margot Wallström’s spokesperson says Sweden hasn’t been formally asked to participate. By this, they are able to avoid committing to a yes, or a no. It doesn’t help the UK’s case that they are essentially asking for help in defending the unharrassed passage of oil tankers. Oil tankers don’t exactly have a lot of likes in Sweden. As the Swedish government is a coalition that includes the Swedish Green Party, it likely doesn’t jibe well.

The larger issue is of course to what degree Sweden is willing to stand up in some sort of military cooperation with its neighbours. Just recently, Sweden signed an agreement to look into the posiblility of developing fighter jets together with Great Britain (). But, in case you didn’t get it the first time, it was an agreement just to look into the possibility of working together. Aligning itself militarily with one part or another isn’t something Sweden does easily.

Everyone knows Peter Hultqvist, Minister for Defense, and Margot Wallström don’t row the same boat, and this recent non-request by the UK falls under the purview of the Foreign Ministry when it comes to a dialog.

Tues. 23/7 – do your tax evasion here

Sweden got a thumbs down from the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) regarding its measures to counter tax evasion, SvD reports today (). Sweden has done nothing, they say, (zip zero nada) to make illegal the kind of money-moving that resulted in the “cum-ex files” international financial scandal last year.

Basically, the scheme involved asking tax authorities for tax refunds on taxes that were actually never paid. In Sweden, (and this is grossly simplifying), it mostly involved what was called a cum-cum deal (pronounced kume, presumably) in which investors “loaned out” their holdings to a frontman to avoid paying withholding tax.

It’s complicated. Plus, and this is obviously embarassing for Skatteverket and its fans, it wasn’t actually illegal in most cases – it was just sort of morally corrupt.

ESMA is urging Sweden to get a move on fixing this issue. Germany’s already done their part.

Tues. 23/7 – IKEA goes electric

Ikea plans to go all electricity in their home deliveries in Sweden within the next 5 years, Dn.se reports today (). Their deliveries in the Stockholm region are already delivered in electric vehicles, and 90% of Ikeas’s transport in Sweden is also fossil-fuel free, but Ikea is going for more on the domestic side. Already in Shanghai, Ikea’s last-mile deliveries (from store or warehouse home) are zero-emission, and NY, Paris and Amsterdam are next in line.

According to Ikea itself, Ikea’s total transport distances, not even including these last-mile home deliveries, equal 71 trips to Mars. Ikea plans to reduce their entire emissions worldwide at least 15% by 2030. NASA is planning on reaching Mars sometime in the 2030’s (www.mars.nasa.gov). Let’s see who gets to their goal first.