> I'm baffled, and I hope somebody can straighten me out.
. . .> So what the hell was the story?
Hype. Every perturbation to the right is hailed as world-historic. Every lurch to the left is anomalous, hence ignored or discounted.
A couple of years ago a fellow named Assar Lindbeck did a seminar in D.C. at Brookings. A gaggle of us went to hear one of the originators of the Swedish apostasy rap. This was before the current recovery. (Some time back -- over 5 yrs ago -- I even heard Lance Taylor, one of the best left economists, say Sweden was in big trouble.)
Lindbeck tried to attribute Sweden's woes to its welfare state. The old Brookings dinosaurs took him apart, all very politely. Their point was that S's momentary troubles could be entirely explained by macroeconomic bungling.
mbs