161–170 of 218 posts
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As a Swede currently living in California who also has visited IKEA in several different countries I can report that the general experience of visiting IKEA is pretty much as stressful and disorienting here as in Sweden. There are some local variations in the product portfolio both due to different standards like in bed sizes and kitchen and cultural differences. You cannot find a cheese slicer in my nearest IKEA and…
The Swedes are using cheese slicers too? I always thought the Dutch were the only people in the world to use cheese slicers.
It mostly gets used at dinner parties, when we buy nicer cheeses; inexpensive cheese is almost all pre-sliced in the US. Same holds true for my parents.
It is probably due to their extreme xenophillic foreign policy, which believes that all people are Swedes in different shapes and forms.
Pathological altruism really is a fascinating mass delusion.
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Knife i guess or buy factory sliced. Most cheeses in america is a bit to soft to slice with a cheese slicer anyway.
American cheese? Does that relate to real cheese as Pizza Hawaii compares to an actual Italian pizza?
Anyone try this yet? I've always wondered what Swedes think about IKEA in America...
IKEA is owned by former Nazi and famous tax evader Ingvar Kamprad. IKEA is actually a Dutch non-profit(!) foundation. It's part of a very intricate scheme to minimize the tax burden of the owners. IMHO, Kamprad has been exploiting Sweden's good will abroad (and maybe reputation for quality?) but he doesn't give a whole lot back. They do sell good and cheap furniture though. :)
Regarding the trusts... I think that at the time (1970) and heavily socialist influenced era, it was more or less the only option to secure a privately owned and growing company from the tax man. The taxes were absurd at the time and small privately owned companies were very vulnerably to death-by-tax, especially if the owner died unexpectedly.
When the trusts are set up and the ownership is moved, there is not that much you can do about that actually, and the trusts can control to some degree how much tax the corporations pay as the trusts can charge royalties and set rates to minimize the earnings in the corporations that are "IKEA". Kamprad is probably a board member of all the important trusts, but the trusts are limited by their charter though, so there are limits to the control. It's true that they can't just give money away, at least without a courts ruling.
But still. IKEA have done a lot for the Swedish economy, there is still plenty of production in Sweden (as in Poland, or any cheap place in the world), and a lot of designers and engineers are employed in Sweden.
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Swedes, as citiens of a kinda small and inherently insignificant county kinda fetishise any foreign recognition. I think that's why we like IKEA and H&M. There's an old but good show that discusses the subject of our self-image pretty accurately (dunno if there are any english subtitles available) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4-V8_r0y-o
And yet you're the home of Roxette, Abba, Ace of Base, and more than a few others in my collection...
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People sign up. There is also a http://twitter.com/sweden that is also run by citizens who sign up (it rotates every week).
Not just citizens! I was fortunate to be asked to tweet as @sweden last year and I've only been living here for a few years.
Sweden is the rape capital of Europe, which is likely what the parent is referring to. It is probably due to their extreme xenophillic foreign policy, which believes that all people are Swedes in different shapes and forms. Pathological altruism really is a fascinating mass delusion.
a) Every form of sex without consent is classified as rape, including "too drunk/asleep to say no" and sex within a marriage b) Every incident is recorded separately
So if a person is raped 5 times by his/her spouse, this would lead to 5 rapes in the Swedish statistics, as opposed to zero times (b/c within marriage) or 1 time (b/c same offender and victim) in many other places.