Sveasoft occupied Wall Street before hipsters made it cool

A little birdie told me that, sometime in the late 2000s, James actually took up day trading. This is in the middle of a huge global economic crisis, so his timing was a bit off. Nevertheless, James thought he was confident enough to build his own artificial intelligence software to trade stocks. This would have been ground-breaking stuff forty years ago, but -- and I am sad to say this -- such algorithms are far too plentiful today. I don't want to get into specifics, but when the media mentions a "flash crash", it's because a bunch of computers miscomputed something and started liquidating securities.

James isn't enjoying his stay in Sweden, it seems:

I grew up in the US and now live in one of your European Socialist states. There is no comparison. The US system, broken as it is, is vastly superior in every way. And I include health care.

Really, James? You moved from Stockton, the car theft capital of California, to Stockholm, a city that's in a country with nearly the highest life expectancy in the world. Even with all the stress you're under, as a person living in Sweden you've got half a decade on the average American.

James has some strong words about Sweden's tax system, too:

US - ran own business (software), grossed 300K per year. Took two unpaid months off in Summer. Worked as much as I needed and wanted to. 

Europe - ran a startup software company. Of monthly gross, 2/3 went to state taxes. Employees got the other 1/3. Couldn't keep them in the building more than 30 hours a week on a good week. Result: shut down the European operation and sold the product to American investors who made a mint.

Okay, let's break this down...

"US - ran own business... Took two unpaid months off..."

Uh, James: if you are running your own business, you can't take a paid month off. What would you do, file a paid-time-off request with yourself?

"Europe - ran a startup software company."

More like ran it into the ground, am I right?!

"Of monthly gross, 2/3 went to state taxes. Employees got the other 1/3."

James, James, James... one of the rules of business is that labor is always your largest expense. Even child labor in Vietnam costs a fortune nowadays.

(By the way, James is NOT referring to Sveasoft in these paragraphs. He is referring to a software company he ran in 2000 called "mi4e". Its main business model was serving Web pages to phones using an ancient system called WAP. The system barely made any money, so I doubt he got anything over four figures when he supposedly "sold the product". And who would buy an obsolete product anyway?)

And where would James rather live? Canada.

I'm currently in a Nordic country. Often wish I'd chosen Canada instead. All those goopy oilsands bode well for moving the wheat belt North of Ontario. I bet your grandkids will love surfin' Hudson Bay :-)

Canada, James? You'd be dealing with the same stuff that you'd get in Sweden. Hell, between Canada and Sweden I'd choose Sweden -- have you ever been to the parts of Vancouver where gray market herb isn't sold?

Further reading about James can be found here:

• Falling through widening cracks
• Lessons from Sweden
• A little map I made