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The big issue in northern Europe is private debt, not government debt. Totally reasonable to not know

One of the benefits of a high tax regime is that it’s not hard to not need to borrow money if you’re smart about it.

I follow some stuff about public transit, and Sweden has lower construction costs than the UK by an order of magnitude.

> which doesn’t really make sense to me when I consider the weakness of the currency

When there is war, financial crisis, etc, money seeks the safest harbor. The safest harbor in the world today is the US. Rising interest rates, war in ukraine, competition with china, etc means that the world is buying treasuries. Demand for dollars goes up, demand for most other currencies goes down.

If there is a significant crisis in the world and the dollar doesn't gain in strength, then we'll know a paradigm shift has occurred.