Buy Swedish, Save Jobs

In these hard times people tend to look inwards and our Prime Minister is no exception. He has appealed to the inhabitants of his land to BUY SWEDISH this Christmas and save jobs.

I took out my shopping list to find to my horror that 80% of the Christmas gifts I plan to buy are definitely not local and the rest contain parts that are just as foreign.

After chewing on my dilemma for half a day I finally gave up. Local textile industries are long gone so I have no choice but to buy foreign where clothing items are concerned. The French wines on my list have no local ditto, so they will remain on the list. The CDs and DVDs (by special request) are certainly not local, but they will remain too. The gift vouchers let me off the hook (the recipients will have to grapple with their own sense of patriotism).

Troubled by my disability to help the Swedish economy, I took some comfort in the replies from some interviewees on the street.

A guy said, “Not this year, we’re spending our Christmas holidays in Vietnam.”
A young lad said, “I’m a poor student so I can only buy what I can afford.”
A lady said, “I’m making all the presents myself so they will be Swedish by my defintion.”

I hope the Prime Minister will have better luck in heeding his own call.

Anyway, I'm not going to lose any sleep for I would like to believe that in my own way, I am helping the Swedish economy by enabling some of the inhabitants of India, China, Mexico, France and elsewhere to afford Volvo cars, Electrolux refrigerators, Husqvarna sewing machines … well, perhaps not as Christmas gifts.