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By I.J. Reilly

Well, making fun of France is fun, but nonetheless fruitless. No one really considers them to be the paragon of a system that works. On the other hand, a lot of people tout Sweden as some sort of progressive paradise. Let's take a look, shall we?

Population: 293,027,571 v. 8,986,400

Holy cow. Can you even be considered a nation with only nine million people? If they were in California they'd be a suburb.

Age structure:
0-14 years: 20.8%
15-64 years: 66.9%
65 years and over: 12.4%

v.

0-14 years: 17.5% (male 807,193; female 762,882)
15-64 years: 65.2% (male 2,974,107; female 2,886,840)
65 years and over: 17.3% (male 668,719; female 886,659)

They're even older than the French. What are they doing, slipping contraceptives into the water supply?

Population growth rate: 0.92% v. 0.18%

Apparently, yes.

Death rate: 8.34 deaths/1,000 population v. 10.38 deaths/1,000 population

They're dying even faster than the French too. Muahahahaha! McDonald's continues to work its magic!

Sex ratio (total population): 0.97 male(s)/female v. 0.98 male(s)/female

Hmmm. They apparently have more men. That must be because Swedish women come to America when they get tired of nancy boys.

Infant mortality rate: 6.63 deaths/1,000 live births v. 2.77 deaths/1,000 live births

Wowzers. I guess the abortions kill the weak ones.

Total fertility rate: 2.07 children born/woman v. 1.66 children born/woman

Uh, yeah. Say goodbye to Sweden.

Life expectancy at birth: 77.43 years v. 80.3 years

And if they're not all dead, they're all old.

GDP - real growth rate: 3.1% v. 1.6%

Hey, better than the French. Now if they could just catch up with, say, Indiana.

GDP - per capita: $37,800 v. $26,800

Oh, nevermind. They still need to catch up with France. Now that's bad when you can't even produce a per capita GDP higher than a country with a Socialist government, mandated 35-hour workweek, and 9.6% unemployment.

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 2.1% v. 2.3%

Oh, and higher inflation than either the U.S. or France.

Unemployment rate: 6.2% v. 4.6%

Ah, something they do well -- employ people. How big is Ericsson these days anyway?

Industrial production growth rate: -1% v. 1.5%

See comments re: France below.

Economic aid - donor: $6.9 billion v. $1.7 billion

Hey, not bad for a pipsqueak nation. It didn't all go to the Food for Oil program, did it?

Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 3.9% v. 2.1%

Hey, why bother when you've got the Yankees to protect you?