[gumby]

> very little is means tested in Sweden. ... As a consequence, the welfare system is as much of a transfer between rich and poor as it is between different parts of life.

This is an important insight. It is the reason the US social security system is presented as an "insurance scheme" that "everyone pays into" rather than what it actually is in practice: payroll taxes and payments to various people. Medicare pays out regardless of income.

I used to wonder why social security wasn't means tested (i.e why they should send Bill Gates, or even me, a check). Well, there's a lot of literature on how benefits are distributed and their popularity (hint: make it look like you're handing out to the middle classes). Without it, you get the US's punitive approach to much of welfare, the modern day equivalent of Victorian poorhouses.

Social Security takes this theatre to absurd lengths, by the way, even sending out letters purporting to show how much is "in your account", printing out the bonds that it purchases in putting them in physical file cabinets (I'm not kidding) and generally maintaining the fiction in full movie style. I can't tell you how many otherwise intelligent people I've spoken to who have been taken in by this ruse, and support social security despite opposing "welfare." I wish the government did more of it!