Conference turris::scandia

29.0. "How do Scandinavian countries compare?" by TLE::SAVAGE () Sat Jan 11 1986 10:54

    US industrial production has been lagging behind much of the 
  rest of the industrial world for nearly a decade.  This has been
  documented in the World Almanac, in a table called "Output per
  hour," which appears on page 105 of the 1986 edition. 

  What may be interesting to readers of this conference is how the
  industrialized Scandinavian countries are doing.  In the following
  condensation of the original, the countries are compared against
  the US Bureau of Labor Statistics output index, where 100 equals
  the hourly industrial output of US industry for the year 1977:  

               1960   1965   1970   1975   1980    1983

  U.S.          60     74     79     93    102     113
  11 nations    38     50     70     90    111     124
  Denmark       36     47     65     94    110     126
  Norway        55     64     82     97    109     116
  Sweden        43     59     82    100    114     124
 
  The eleven nations value is the "trade weighted geometric average"
  of: Belguim, Canada, Denmark, France, West Germany, Italy, Japan,
  Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and United Kingdom.

  As you can see, the three nordic nations in this comparison are
  keeping up rather well.

  Another interesting comparison from the same page of the World
  Almanac is cost of production.  Here we see the effect of the
  the U.S. dollar's position against other currencies.  In the
  following table, the Bureau of Labor statistic is unit labor
  cost (in U.S. dollars), with an index of 100 representing the
  total cost of U.S. industrial output in 1977:


               1960   1965   1970   1975   1980    1983

  U.S.          61     58     73     92    131     147
  11 nations    36     42     48     93    138     119
  Denmark       30     37     44     91    133      95
  Norway        26     27     34     81    126     107
  Sweden        30     35     40     83    123      81

  At the beginning of this decade, all the industial nations
  seemed to suffer from the effect of world inflation, but other
  countries, particularly the Scandinavian countries, appeared
  to be more successful in getting the costs of production
  (mainly wages presumably) under control.

  Again, in viewing these statistics, you must consider the
  "strength" of the U.S. dollar against the currencies of these
  other countries.  Not that this really changes the picture in
  any practical way - it would still be less expensive to make a
  product (such as computer hardware) in one of these countries  
  than in the U.S.

  Now that Digital has a plant in Ireland, do you suppose we 
  could entice KO to build one in Sweden?  :-)

  Neil

 From: [email protected] (Tor Slettnes)
 Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 06:48:08 GMT

  +------ [email protected] (Lars Peter Fischer) said:
  |       "Hans" == Hans Huttel ([email protected])
  | 
  | Hans  One thing that does puzzle me a little is how quite a few
  | Hans  foreigners (including my fellow Europeans) tend to lump Denmark
  | Hans  and the Netherlands together
  | 
  | Same here. I have often observed people who confused Denmark with the
  | Netherlands. I have on several occasion received email from people who
  | couldn't quite remember if I was from the Netherlands or Denmark. Not
  | that I find it strange that people can't keep track of all the
  | nationalities on the net, but why the Netherlands. It would seem more
  | obvious to me to get Denmark confused with Sweden or Norway, but no,
  | always the Netherlands.
  +------
 
         Norway       Sweden      Denmark    Holland
         ============================================
              Mountains           Flat       Flatter
                Rural             Urban      Crowded
            Long geography        Small      Tiny
             Cold weather         Nice       Nice
         Restrictive w/drugs      Open       Legal
            Clear language        Porridge   Porridge

  From my experience people of English mother-tongue are the only one who
    tend to mix up Denmark and Holland and for one good reason. When
    somebody ask you of what nationality you are the response is:
    
    Denmark = Danish
    Holland = Dutch
    
    It's the similarity in the two words that does it.
    
    I happen to speak French and have never experienced any
    misunderstanding here.
    
    Danemark = Danois/Danoise
    Hollande/Pays-Bas = Hollandais/Hollandaise
    
    Kind regards
    Pia (and Danish/Danoise)