3/11/20: COVID19 Update: Nordics

Things are getting more complicated in the Nordics in the wake of the unfolding second wave of the pandemic:

The second wave of the pandemic has started first in the Nordics excluding Sweden, but the same wave is now also beginning to manifest itself in Sweden. Adding to the complexity of analysis, Swedish data is now being reported with significant volatility (multiple consecutive '0' observations per week), making higher frequency comparatives basically impossible.

Nonetheless, Sweden is now catching up, once again, with the rest of the Nordics in terms of new cases.  In the last 7 days, Sweden averaged 1,204 cases per day (up on 627 average daily rate of new cases in the two weeks prior). Nordics ex-Sweden averaged (adjusting to Swedish population) 3,228 daily new cases over thee last 7 days, with prior 14 days average of 2,775.

In terms of daily deaths, Sweden currently performs significantly better than the rest of the Nordics. Sweden's average daily deaths run at 0 over the last 7 days and 0.43 deaths per day average over the prior 14 days period. Nordics ex-Sweden (again adjusting to Swedish population) averaged 17 deaths per day in the last 7 days, and 10.6 deaths in thee prior two weeks period. However, this better performance by Sweden is at least in part due to the later start of the second wave of the pandemic in thee country compared to other Nordics.

Overall, for now, excess deaths count in Sweden compared to other Nordics is shrinking, currently at 2,580.

Only time will tell whether thee current second wave dynamics are going to push Sweden once again into the position of being worse-hit by the pandemic than its Nordic counterparts. 

23/10/20: COVID19 Update: Nordics

My last update on Nordics vs Sweden comparatives was a month ago, although I did post some more recent data trends on Twitter since then. Here are the latest numbers:

New deaths counts are relatively benign, both in Sweden and (at a higher rate) in the rest of the Nordics. However, new daily counts in thee Nordics ex-Sweden are literally out of control as a new, and much larger wave of the pandemic sweeps EU27. 

Sweden entered the second wave of the pandemic with a delay, compared to other European states, so its numbers are still lagging those in other Nordic states. 

I commented on the often-heard argument in favour of Sweden's 'herd immunity' strategy earlier today and you can read it here, if you missed it (bottom of the post): https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2020/10/231020-covid19-update-countries-with.html. 

It appears, based on Sweden's (amongst others') experiences, that we really have very limited options in terms of public policy response to the pandemic. My five cents, based on multiple observations of experts' advice: we need 

• Fully enforceable and strongly policed public distancing measures, 
• Mandatory masks in all public places,
• Restricted (though, probably, not banned) access to public commons and public places,
• Effective and wide-spread free testing on demand, 
• Aggressive tracing and strictly enforced quarantines,
• Improved separation of COVID19 patients from all general health facilities (in order to ensure that normal health services provision is not impacted by the pandemic), and
• Significant increase in spending on public health and education so both key sectors of the society can be opened safely and sustainably.

There has to be public and state-level zero-tolerance view toward anyone failing to comply with these measures.  

Anything short of these will result in stop-and-go swings of the pandemic and knee-jerk policy reactions with rolling shutdowns of the entire economies. 

25/9/20: COVID19 Update: Nordics

 

Sweden is not acquiring the fabled 'herd immunity', folks. And other Nordics are now in a full-blown second wave of the pandemic:

As the figures above show, 

• Sweden has been experiencing a reduction in new cases through the first week of September. This resulted in Swedish daily case counts finally dropping below the numbers reported in other Nordic countries. 
• Since the start of September, Nordics ex-Sweden have entered the second wave of Covid19 pandemic, further exacerbating their relative position compared to Sweden.
• However, Sweden itself is now experiencing the second wave of the pandemic, and Sweden's historical troughs of new cases have remained always higher than the troughs reached by the other Nordic states.
• Both Sweden and the rest of the Nordics continue to enjoy low levels of deaths, however, in line with the numbers of new cases, Nordics ex-Sweden are showing signs of the new wave of the pandemic lifting deaths counts relative to the past troughs.

13/9/20: COVID19 Update: Nordics

 I have not updated the controversial comparatives between the Nordics (ex-Sweden) and Sweden in terms of COVID19 pandemic figures for some time now. For those of you who are out of the loop in this controversy, 

• Sweden imposed weak restrictions (basically none) on mobility and work environments in the wake of the pandemic, pursuing the strategy of 'herd immunity';
• Other Nordics imposed severe crack downs on mobility and social and work environments in response to COVID19 pandemic.

There has been a lot of controversy as to the effectiveness of the lack thereof of the Swedish strategy.

So here are the key data trends and points:

Key takeaways from the above:

• As of September 12, Sweden has the total number of 89,377 cases. Nordics ex-Sweden, normalized to the Swedish population size had 35,277 cases, or 39.5% of the total number of Swedish cases. So to-date, Sweden has experienced significantly greater exposure to the virus than its Nordic countries counterparts.
• As of September 12, Sweden has the total number of 5,829 deaths. Nordics ex-Sweden, normalized to the Swedish population size had 2,188 cases, or 37.5% of the total number of Swedish deaths. Sweden also experienced much higher death counts from the pandemic than its Nordic countries counterparts.
• Notably, per first chart above, since 26-27th of August, Nordic ex-Sweden have experienced a rather substantial re-acceleration in new cases, in line with the rest of the EU27 (see more on this here: https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2020/09/12920-covid19-update-us-vs-eu27.html). Sweden is only appearing to show signs of such re-acceleration starting with the end of the first week of September.
• The above change in trends for new cases is yet to translate into change in trends in deaths: in the last 7 days, average daily new deaths for Nordics ex-Sweden, adjusting for population differences, was 0.83. The same number fo Sweden was 1.57. In the prior 14 days, the averages were reversed at 1.034 and 0.571, respectively.

Watch the new wave developing in days ahead... 

13/7/20: COVID19 Update: Sweden v Nordics

Updating charts comparing Sweden and ex-Sweden Nordic countries, normalizing population of the latter to that of Sweden:

Nope, no 'herd immunity' in Sweden. But there is a crushed curve for new cases and deaths in the Nordics. 

10/7/20: COVID19 Update: Sweden v Nordics

Sweden has been continuing its uncontested-by-anyone-else march toward thee non-existent 'herd immunity':

And the pipeline of upcoming intensive care patients seems to be un-abating:

In the mean time, the rest of the Nordics have crushed the curve. And this is without inclusion of Iceland. 

Personally, I cannot understand how Sweden's resident are tolerating this, but... who knows... 

20/06/20: COVID19 Update: Sweden v Other Nordics

Sweden is a now a verifiable basket case amongst the Nordic countries when it comes to the country management of the COVID19 pandemic:

The two charts above show that Sweden performance in both daily cases and deaths has been truly shockingly poor, compared to all other Nordic countries combined. The same is true in country-by-country comparatives.

In fact, based on ECDC data, were Sweden to perform as all other Nordics (including Estonia), its total number of cases of COVID19 registered would currently stand at 22,890, against its actual count of 54,443, and its death toll would have been 2,113 against its actual death toll of 4,877.

5/5/20: Sweden v Denmark: Covid19 experiences and outruns

For those interested, there's an ongoing debate about the benefits and costs of two different approaches to dealing with the Covid19 pandemic that are being contrasted in the case of Sweden (low level of restrictions) and Denmark (high level of restrictions). The two countries offer a decent 'natural experiment' data, due to their physical, cultural, historical and socio-economic proximities.

Peter Turchin dissects the evidence on the outcomes here: http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/a-tale-of-two-countries/ in a very readable and, yet, empirically rigorous analysis.

The chart above is the key, although not the only source of the insights. Lines represent a fitted model, while points represent actual data.

What is notable in the above (some of it is in Peter's post, some is not) are the following features of the data:

1. Death rates models in Denmark trail below those in Sweden, albeit the two converge into late April and reverse in early May. We do not know why, though Peter identifies one specific potential cause: slower and lower rate of testing in Sweden. Another potential cause can be the duration of treatment differences between the two countries. A third potential one, differences in vintage/strand of the virus. Etc...
2. Actual death rates uptick in Denmark around May 1 seem to be relative outliers to the Denmark data (we do not know why, nor do we know if these are going to become a 'new normal' or a 'new trend'). These outliers are certainly responsible for the trend lines reversals.
3. Actual death rates in Sweden are massively more volatile than those in Denmark. This volatility is most evident in April. This should imply serious differences in the accuracy/precision of both models, with Swedish model potentially down-weighing these upward outliers (this depends on the model used, of course).

The rest of conclusions are down to you, folks.

18/11/17: Say thanks BEPS, as Sweden Cuts Corporate Tax Rates Again...

Sweden, the tough-fighting 'socialist' haven of capitalism is cutting its corporate tax rates. Again.

Yes, that is right. Sweden used to have a decisively 'socialist' rate of corporate income tax (irony implied) of 28% until 2008. In 2009 this rate dropped to a relatively convincing 'socialist' rate of 26.3%, before falling to a sort-of-'socialist' softy 22%. It now plans a cut to 20%.

 h/t for the chart to @mattyglesias 

The announcement is made here: http://www.ey.com/gl/en/services/tax/international-tax/alert--sweden-proposes-major-corporate-income-tax-changes h/t to @tylercowen for the link. 

Note, extensive compliance changes proposed for Swedish tax code to bring it in line with the OECD's BEPS scheme. The scheme was designed, as defined by its objectives, to make it harder for the corporations to avoid taxes in the future. Which means, of course, that to maintain effective tax rates closer to where they were before the BEPS, Sweden, as other states, will need to offset BEPS-induced accounting changes with lower headline rates. 

Tax optimization, folks, just went mainstream in Europe and the U.S. Which is a good thing for transparency (reducing the disparity between the effective rates and the headline rates). But a bad news for personal income taxes. To offset the declines in corporate tax revenues that BEPS changes will inevitably engender, Governments from Sweden to Italy, from Canada to the U.S. will have to either cut spending or increase personal income tax rates. No medals for guessing what they will opt for.

5/10/11: The Swedish Crises of 1910s & 1990s: The Lessons Never Learned

Here is an interesting piece of evidence on the nature of real estate bubbles and financial crises these create. One of the largest fallouts from property-driven financial crises in modern European history relates to the early 1991-1992 blowout in Sweden that saw massive collapse in property prices triggering a systemic contagion to financial institutions, The resolution process and the recovery that followed were long. Just about 10 years - the time it took the real property prices to regain their pre-crisis peak.

Source: Zerohedge

But the bigger story is a hundred-years-long bust to recovery cycle that took Stockholm's property prices from 1910 peak until 2007.

What is, however, most telling is the fact that Stockholm's markets show conclusively and without any doubt that all the lessons supposedly 'learned' in the past crises have been un-learned in the aftermath of the 2007-2008 Global Financial Bust. Despite the painful recovery from the 1991-1992, and despite huge efforts put by the successive Governments into highlighting regulatory and market structure reforms that followed it, Swedish property markets have gone into another, this time completely unprecedented in the country history, craze. 

Stockholm is a city that has been so reformed post the 1990s, it makes more sense to live in a hotel, at least in some cases (http://www.businessinsider.com/stockholm-rents-are-so-high-its-often-cheaper-to-live-in-a-hotel-2017-8). It is, of course, worth remembering that Stockholm is the equivalent of 'warm dream' for all rent control enthusiasts worldwide and for all 'moar regulation will save us from ourselves' crowds.

24/11/2013: WLASze: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences & zero economics

This is WLASze: Weekend Links on Arts, Sciences & zero economics. Enjoy!


Shopping malls rarely inspire - both in terms of exterior architecture and interior design… their utilitarian purpose combines with aesthetic of the masses to produce bland, dentally-inspired greyness… unless, of course, it is a shopping mall in Sweden, where extreme capitalism collides often spectacularly with extreme socialism to produce unexpected visuals. Behold this Van-Damme-Volvo-ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7FIvfx5J10) equivalent in the shopping mall architecture:
http://it.phaidon.com/agenda/architecture/articles/2013/november/14/malmos-melted-shopping-mall/
After all, energising those satiated consumers to spend their money on things other than social justice requires visual experiences that are truly spectacular...

Three sets of links relating to space next.

First, NASA's latest Cassini images of the Titan - with high resolution section showing Northern Lakes (Salt Flats): http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/imagedetails/index.cfm?imageId=4900
H/T: @raluca3000 @NASAWebbTelescp (click on image to enlarge)

Second, a beautiful set of visuals to put the relative dimension of the Earth and our solar system compared to some stars out there:
http://www.mbandf.com/parallel-world/our-sun-is-extremely-large-our-sun-is-fairly-small

The page above comes courtesy of a fantastic Mechanical.Art.Devices (M.A.D.) Gallery http://www.mbandf.com/mad-gallery/explore/ A fascinating glimpse into the world of unique engineering and design… (not strictly space image, but so elegant, it might just be stellar)...

Three: one hell of a cool story, via arstechnica, from the Antarctica, where earlier this year, scientists discovered Ernie and Bert, "two neutrinos with energies over 100 times higher than the protons that circulate in the LHC. Now, the same team has combed through its data to find an additional 26 high-energy events, and they've done a careful analysis to show that these are almost certainly originating from somewhere outside our Solar System."
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/11/south-pole-detector-spots-28-out-of-this-world-neutrinos/

And in a related story, http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/04/coolest-jobs-in-tech-literally-running-a-south-pole-data-center/ arstechnica covers the jobs at the South Pole data centre where they have to "heat the air used to cool… data centre".

Brilliantly written and fascinating!


Science Gallery at TCD is featuring this week in dezeen with a story about the latest show "Grow Your Own - Life After Nature" that runs through 19 January 2014 and is worth visiting…
http://www.dezeen.com/2013/11/20/olafur-eliasson-tears-used-to-make-human-cheese/ See @ScienceGallery

A brave show, pushing the bounds of what we consider aesthetically acceptable and blending these bounds with what we consider both art and science. And the science bit is not about the actual physical stuff, like growing cheese culture based on human body excretions-produced bacteria. Instead, it is a science of our self-awareness, the compartmentalising nature of our understanding of the acceptable. In many ways, this is about ethics reaching beyond their own domain into aesthetics. As we commonly have a problem with seeing the animal that provides us with a steak in their living condition, we have a problem seeing (let alone tasting) a slice of cheese that was grown from the bacteria harvested from our bodies.

"Selfmade is a series of ‘microbial sketches’, portraits reflecting an individual’s microbial landscape in a unique cheese. Each cheese is crafted from starter cultures sampled from the skin of a different person. Isolated microbial strains were identified and characterised using microbiological techniques and 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing. Like the human body, each cheese has a unique set of microbes that metabolically shape a unique odour."

We then frame the whole experiment into what is ethically or aesthetically acceptable to us: "Cheese odours were sampled and characterised using headspace gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis, a technique used to identify and/or quantify volatile organic compounds present in a sample."

I will leave you at this and suggest you explore the said boundaries on your own…



Interesting show in London's St Petersburg gallery: Vladimir Baranov-Rossine: From Cubism to Surrealism:
http://www.saintpetersburggallery.com/exhibitions.html

Apparently, the first exhibition in 30 years retrospecting his works in Europe.

While on Russian art, an amazing collection of rare Allies posters highlighting the role of the Soviet army during the World War 2: http://rbth.co.uk/multimedia/pictures/2013/11/14/wwii_lend-lease_posters_campaigning_for_soviet_troops_31715.html

And travelling further in time, an unseen until recently collection of early photographs of life in Russia from the beginning of the 20th century
http://www.businessinsider.com/prokudin-gorskii-photos-of-russian-empire-2013-9#a-water-carrier-poses-for-prokudin-gorski-in-the-street-25
Here's a sample - both in colour and original print:

Readers of WLASze would know that I am not a big fan of Zaha Hadid, having written before my opinion about her over-exposed, over-worked studio. However, where credit is due, it should be given. Fantastic aesthetic and total absence of respect for balance can be a cool combination. This building confirms:

http://www.designboom.com/architecture/innovation-tower-by-zaha-hadid-at-hong-kong-polyu-11-20-2013/


And for the last bit - an absolutely fantastic Gel talk by Vi Hart on mathematical applications to music composition:
http://vimeo.com/29893058?utm_content=bufferb7b81&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer

Enjoy!