A princess's wedding is romantic and beautiful if you believe in fairy tales - but I don't understand why there aren't better figures and evidence about what the monarchy costs taxpayers. Swedish authorities and newspapers have trumpeted that the wedding costs 20 million kroner and that the king is responsible for half the bill - but is that really the whole truth?
That would mean that we taxpayers would pay SEK 10 million for the wedding. Unfortunately, the numbers we are served with are strange, not to say false, and hardly stand up to a more detailed examination.
The real tax cost is at least SEK 110 million - but maybe 5-8 times higher depending on how we count
I appreciate with one extremely cautious assessment is the real cost is at least SEK 110 million if you count what the royal wedding costs us as taxpayers. Perhaps the cost is up to 5-8 times higher - if one were to take into account the total bureaucracy that invested tax money on the event.
The government agencies that mainly greatly underestimate their costs are the police and the military. Similarly, the income from the wedding is overestimated by various lobby organizations there Swedish trade and Visit Sweden probably taking the lead in fanciful and strange economic analyzes commissioned by the media company.
It is rational for politicians, journalists and bureaucrats to support the monarchy because it makes them feel important to be part of a historical moment which gives them some legitimacy. Through dining and planning, they can expand their social network and also get direct contact with the royals and powerful people who move around the inner sphere which can lead to financial benefits. Politicians and bureaucrats pay nothing to receive these benefits - while spending public money. Economists usually call the theory of similar behaviors public choice theoryn.
Official figures the court
There are a number of costs that are not on the court but are nevertheless costs that are linked to our state of affairs and that are reported elsewhere, ie by municipalities, the state and administrations.
It becomes very clear about the wedding, how the bureaucrats have pulled their strings, if you examine the activities that can be connected to the wedding. When an investigation was done a few months ago by Herman Matthijs at the Free University in Brussels, his conclusion was that Sweden's royal house was one of the cheapest in the world and cost "only" 12 million Euros a year.
Herman's investigation was trumpeted on the radio and TV just in time for the wedding preparations. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to note that the investigation sounded uncannily like a press release and received space on radio, TV and in all major Swedish newspapers.
What did the expenses look like for 2009 before Victoria and Daniel's wedding?
The appanage to the court state (Kungahuset's cost) is a grant from the state which was SEK 57.43 million in 2009. The castle state receives a grant from the state of SEK 54.7 million in 2009
Djurgårsförvaltning receives SEK 50 million
In other words, Hovet officially received SEK 162.16 million in 2009 in addition to these figures, so they have their own sales in stores.
Benzor manages the rouljangsen at Solliden Castle on Öland, but also deals with asset management and has assets of 48 million. Benzor is the parent company itself, which in turn has subsidiaries such as Sollidenpaviljongen AB with a turnover of 4.6 million (2008) and Stenhammars Godsförvaltning which has a turnover of just over 6 million (2008).
The kunabarnen's company Gluonen has assets of 17 million and a turnover of kroner 0 between the years 2006 to 2008. According to DI, the kanabarnen also have 13-14 million kroner each invested in directly owned shares.
Today's industry writes about Prince Daniel's company with the headline "Prince's gym chain is swelling" which is a grossly misleading headline. It is the result and not the turnover that is the most important thing in most economic activities, which Dagens Industri is of course aware of. The companies where the prince is a passive shareholder have shown negative results for several years. The result for Balance on Stureplan 2006 to 2008 was minus SEK 14,455,000. Between 2006 and 2008, Balance MT Aktiebolag made a loss of SEK 13,677,000 (where a new share issue was decided on June 8, 2010 to add SEK 2 million). Balance Solna made a loss of SEK 2,214,000 in 2008. Master training AB is an exception, making a profit of SEK 433,000.
To see the companies' results:
http://www.allabolag.se/5566795695
http://www.allabolag.se/5567533277
http://www.allabolag.se/5566570809
http://www.allabolag.se/5566795661
The increase in grants during the wedding year 2010
In 2010, the court state received an extra 10 million in grants to pay for the wedding in addition to the 162 million. A bit strange then to advertise that the king is responsible for 10 million and the state is responsible for the rest – when the reality is that we taxpayers are responsible for all costs and even more unreported costs!
In addition, they received extra funding to be able to move into Haga because the newly married couple naturally needs their own castle to live in. In order for the royal family to be able to afford the maintenance of the castle, the government proposed that the grant to the royal court and castle state be increased by SEK 4.5 million in 2010 and by SEK 3.5 million in 2011. We do not know how much the reconstruction at Haga costs. According to a source on a forum on the Republican Party's website, a construction company has offered 40 million for the reconstruction (uncertain source). The Court States are not part of the State, and do not fall under the Administration Act or the Public Procurement Act, so unfortunately much is hidden.
BUT THERE ARE A LOT OF ITEMS THAT ARE NOT ACCOUNTED IN THE COURT'S FINANCES BECAUSE THEY ARE ACCOUNTED FOR IN OTHER COST CENTERS, I.E. OTHER ADMINISTRATIONS
The Swedish Property Agency is involved in the property maintenance of a number of castles, including the 9 royal castles, which is disposed of by the king, which is outside the reported budget for the court. The cost of this property management is not supposed to be free, but unfortunately I do not have an exact figure. In addition to this, the state's real estate administration apparently has a small group of its own that even people at the real estate agency don't know who they are because they manage the absolute security of the kingdom - I assume it's about shelters in case there is a war. So we have a small group that manages the security around the city manager that we don't know who they are or how much it costs. In addition to this, of course, we have SÄPO and private bodyguards who also look after the security around the royals but who are reported to other administrations.
Military guarding of the royal palace and Drottningholm is shared between different regiments, and in addition to the training of these regiments, there is, among other things, the life guard and the home guard, which are financed with city funds, which is hardly included in the professor's calculations of costs for the court. Note that when I went on high watch for 3 days, our company had been practicing for several months before we were to march. Such a system with many companies that are each over for a very long time, which are also scattered across Sweden, means extremely heavy logistics and bureaucracy. The cost of the defense of the castle buildings is gigantic and completely out of date. In addition, I assume that the music corps is financed by the defense and they are a number of people on the payroll in addition to the senior guard. But it might be remade now that the general conscription is removed.
I have not investigated the revenue side in detail because I wanted to investigate the costs but of course there are large revenue sides. It costs money to enter the castle, Soliden, and of course it's a bit funny that the public has to buy a ticket to enter, for example, the Riddarholm church (!), which is counted as one of these royal castle properties. So the court receives income but does not take the costs to the corresponding degree, because I assume that the income does not go to the real estate agency.
Many of these revenues are, of course, lost alternative revenues to the state, i.e. it is a cost to us as taxpayers that we cannot rent out the castle, in case it should be pulled to its peak. I would be surprised if the court does not own large areas of land that receive EU grants. In addition, you receive leases and rents from the court stables at Östermalm, the castle hill, several residences at Drottningholm and Djurgården. The staff housing must be quite cheap, which is a smart way to keep employer fees down.
DIRECT COSTS OF THE WEDDING NOT REPORTED BY THE COURT
Stockholm Municipality's costs for the wedding
Stockholm municipality adds 8 million for cleaning and flowers, but the exact bill will come later. I wonder what is included in this 8 million as the number seems to be set very low. Strangely enough, it is advertised on TV as if the cost of the wedding was 8 million. Stockholm municipality is hardly counting on all the municipal employees and business offices involved in the project - rather this budget seems to be for decorating the city with flowers and cleaning.
If we hypothetically add about 30 municipal full-time politicians and employees from business offices for 6 months who earn SEK 50,000/each (including employer's contributions) it becomes 9 million. Then I count low because I believe that people at municipal management level are significantly higher in the salary league and that there are probably significantly more people involved. If you combine the garbage collection and the municipal management blokes, you end up with 17 million kroner. Add a few million for payments for the ticket to the concert and some drink events and you end up with 20 million.
According to an article in the Aftonbladet, the party from the city of Stockholm is estimated to be 20 million kroner, which is perhaps close to what the municipality pays, although the hope is apparently a little cryptic that sponsors will pay for the event, which is called Love Stockholm 2010 and which is organized by the city of Stockholm from National Day to the wedding and it is an event that is directly connected to the wedding. Among the sponsors are state-funded Volvo, state-owned Arlanda Airport, state-owned KTH, semi-state Apoteket, state-owned SL and of course our parking attendants, i.e. Stockholm's parking, tourism industry such as Visit Skärgården. That is, amounts of tax money that are pumped into the event but are reported as sponsors. Among the private companies is TV4, which has a huge pavilion just below the castle. Is it really a sponsorship income and not a rental income? In addition, the Spendrup brewery is a sponsor, which I assume means that they get exclusive rights to beer sales in connection with the event, as is usually the case at the food event in Kungsträdgården.
Please note that it is not only Stockholm municipality that is involved. Even Solna, where Haga Castle profiles itself as a royal city, and Solna City has blocked off Haga Castle. They have built a website for only SEK 50,000, an audio guide that allows you to be guided via web or mobile, new sign system, new bridge and wider walkways, sign with "Royal Haga city of Sona" and various marketing events are planned. I have excluded these costs in the costs. Other municipalities that probably have costs for the monarchy are Ekerö (i.e. Drottningholm) and Borgholm (Soliden on Öland) where they usually celebrate the crown princess's wedding.
The defense has 3,000 people called according to Sveriges Radio before the wedding, which made Sweden feel like North Korea. I don't really know if the civil defense and the number of volunteers are included in this figure.
Apparently, just to row the rowing boat, 19 rowers are needed (including the reserve) and these need to practice for more than 4 months. How difficult is it for an adult to learn para rowing and naval rowing. Because I know someone who previously held this honorable mission, I know that it is not some fools, but rather the absolute elite of the armed forces who are awarded this honorable mission.
In addition, 18 JAS planes will fly the event in a so-called "wedding formation” and several warships will be present at the wedding, so both the navy and the air force are said to be involved in their planning. I wonder how often the air force uses the "wedding formation" during their exercises and if potential enemies know about this strange way of forming in the air. Wondering how many flight hours are the basis for the display?
What does this cost with the planning that has been required? If we assume 3,000 people *SEK 40,000 including employer's fees*1 month, to count low, it will be SEK 120 million for the defense of this little party. Ok, all three thousand may not work for a month, but their managers have certainly worked for a significantly longer time to plan and their salaries will also increase the salary I calculated. And many may only be involved for a few days but as I said it is little the heist and the weld when you count on the court's finances. And imagine that we only count the labor cost! I have not counted on materials, accommodation, fuel, logistics etc
The police themselves state that the police bill for the wedding was 14 million. An example of a large cost is the rental of fences and concrete sows to block off, these are costs of seven to eight million and the heaviest additional item. I think it took 80 trucks with fences alone, says Christian Agdur, head of Stockholm Police's operational department. At the same time, the police officially say that they managed to schedule almost all personnel into regular working hours. Overtime and we haven't really finished calculating it yet, but somewhere in the 2-3 million range it will land on, says Christian Agdur.
Could it be that it was decided from a political point of view that the wedding would cost 14 million kroner in police costs and then the bureaucracy makes sure that the figure that is reported is this amount. But it seems disingenuous that the police do not count the staff costs of the police officers who were directly involved in the event, which should of course be included in the costs of the wedding. If it is the case that 2,000 people can only be counted out on the grounds that they still worked, there should be great opportunities for rationalization within the police force.
The police have ordered 2,000 people called for the wedding according to their website. According to Stockholm's county police chief, it was the largest police effort ever in the county (meaning more than, for example, the Norrmalmstorg drama, the helicopter robbery, the Palme murder, the murder of Gustaf III) and the planning had started about a year ago.
Special competences such as rider crews and bomb squads are borrowed from the rest of the country to reinforce. Divers, snipers and plainclothes agents are ready, says Ulf Göranzon, head of information at the Stockholm police. The police provide protection and have and outer patrol ring along the entire procession route, take care of permits for booths, guarding and transporting prominent guests, and some helicopter driving. Seaways, country roads and airways have been blocked.
SÄPOS' internal work has certainly consisted of mapping the threat landscape and security threats over a longer period. There are probably also private security companies. What does it cost? If we just do a little rough calculation on the event itself without Säpo and special efforts. (I have added social security contributions and holiday pay to the salaries.) 2 days 2000 people with an average police salary SEK 31,600/month=8,216,000
Preparation 10 days 200 people (blockings etc) SEK 31,600/month=3,160,000
Group leader 14 days 100 people salary 40,000=2,800,000
Project group 10 people six months salary 40,000=3,600,000
Steering group 5 people 10 months salary 50,000=3,750,000
Total=21,526,000 kroner in salary costs
If we also add the fence and the concrete sows, we easily end up at SEK 30 million with an extremely cautious assessment, i.e. more than twice as expensive as the police themselves state to the media. The real cost may be up to three times higher.
Costs for the emergency services
Unknown
Costs for SL
Unknown
Costs for the Ministry of Finance
Unknown, but the main planning has been handled by the Ministry of Finance
The costs of the church in connection with the wedding
The Church of Sweden is of course also involved. Investigating the problem of whether you can go to the altar yourself or whether you can bring your father to the altar, the so-called altar gate, is certainly something that quite a few priests, deacons, bishops and the archbishop have investigated and had meetings about. I guess at least 100 people are involved for four months in the project for the planning itself. 100 people*25,000*employer's fees+holiday allowance=3,750,000 kroner.
Then we count damn low and not all the investigation that is needed to investigate the constitution that whoever marries the crown princess must confess to the evangelicalLutheran throne. I hardly know a person who claims to be evangelical-Lutheran. Personally, I'm afraid of people who believe in the virgin birth, especially if they come from Knutby or Oklahoma. It would be interesting to know Prince Daniel's opinion on the Augsburg Confession (a prerequisite for the Lutheran faith) which basically means condemning "all heresies like the Mohammedans". Amending the constitution costs $ in investigative costs.
In addition to this, the main church has been cleaned for three months at a cost of SEK 14 million, according to DN. The church thus follows Stockholm municipality's pattern, they report the cleaning costs but hide the bureaucracy costs. A cleaning cost is easy and flexible to calculate and report. The question is what the bureaucracy costs are - can they be 10 times higher on a standard basis?
Cost of special concert in the concert hall
I'm not sure what the budget is for this, but the concert is said to have been commissioned by the Riksdag and is a gift from our elected officials to the newlyweds. A bunch of symphony orchestra playing Hugo Alvén and Grieg. Roxette and Orphei farmhands. Magnus Uggla chooses not to sing I'm sick. Cost unknown but at least 100 people involved in 2 months. Ugh, as an economist, I'm getting tired of counting costs... Then on the wedding day, there's a dinner for 500 people. Uncertain who will probably pay the court themselves.
The cost of various museums
Countless museums have been inspired by the royal wedding and the tax costs for this are difficult to calculate because there are quite a few museums in Sweden.
A selection of exhibitions:
The National Museum runs the photo exhibition "Bernadotte in black and white” for 10 months. The Stockholm City Museum's exhibition is called "Stockholm heart love” and which celebrates wedding photography.
Stockholm City Library's exhibition is called Royalties past and present with a focus on the Swedish royal family. The Wine and Spirit History Museum has an exhibition about love drinks and the Halwyllska Museum shows an exhibition of 15 years of wedding fashion.
The Nordic Museum has an exhibition called Bröllop inspired by the county museum in Varberg. Sigtuna museum also invests in Weddings and Landskrona Museum. The Nobel Museum has an extra pavilion and celebrates love during the wedding week. The Maritime History Museum displays royal boats. The coin cabinet shows an exhibition "Weddings not just love".
Estimated standard cost for all museums: at least SEK 5 million
The cost of PR
Lots of authorities are arranged to ensure that the PR coverage is the best around the wedding. The Board for the Promotion of Sweden Abroad (NSU) has a central position. The NSU includes the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Business, Visit Sweden, Invest Sweden, the Export Council and the Swedish Institute, which fortunately is located right on the castle hill... All these organizations have their own budgets.
The cost of SVT
Is it for the wedding programs and coverage that we pay our TV license for? How much does it cost to have royal guard every day for a month? The TV manager talks about 40 special hours, but then he hardly includes the morning sofas. The broadcast is said to be the largest in SVT's history and is monitored by 67 cameras.
Apparently, the TV channels were in negotiations with the court's special working group, according to Aftonbladet. According to Ragnar Tingström, founder of the media agency Scream, the broadcast rights amount to SEK 7–8 million. Money that, according to Aftonbladet, they will not get back. Apparently they in turn want to get paid by the big media agencies and charge for the video and image rights.
Interesting to see the TV director excusing himself that the state television conveys knowledge and mentions the water-combed Christoffer O'Reegan and the kind storyteller uncle Herman Lindkvist who spreads knowledge in a patriotic spirit about diadems, hero kings and the seraphim order.
Please, please TV manager - I'm pretty tired of seeing historians telling tales of old hero kings anyway, and I'm still interested in history. Tell us the truth and give us professional historians. I think it was a good choice that Prince Daniel received the Order of the Seraphim. In any case, it was a better choice than the times the seraphim order was awarded to the dictators Mussolini and Ceausescu. (Göring, on the other hand, never received the seraphim order, but was awarded the commander's sign of the Order of the Sword).
At the same time, I have to give some credit to Herman&co who are exceptionally good at telling stories - but there is a long distance between telling a good story and history. In short, I don't believe their narrative. I myself am once again reading Vilhelm Moberg's book"Articles of Unbelief” where he writes about the responsibility of historians and once again gains hope for the historian's objective role. Thanks Ville your book is still up to date!
The cost of the commercial works
Aktiebolaget Posten, which is owned to 100% by the state, has had a new stamp printed with the wedding couple. Personally, I boycott stamps depicting royal motifs because they represent an undemocratic symbol. I don't know the cost of embossing a stamp, but it's probably a fairly small process. Telia, the old state company, which is now owned by half-witted Swedes, has had a new base station set up at the castle and opened up a number of new channels in the mobile network because it has planned traffic corresponding to New Year's Eve. The cost of this is said to have employed at least 30 people for several months.
The costs we pay for the politicians… Finally, we have the politicians who are difficult to make any precise calculations on and it is probably a socio-economic gain that they occupy themselves with the wedding than their alternative activities of inventing even more taxes and strange state-funded projects.
In addition to the gala dinner hosted by the Riksdag, the government hosts the reception for municipalities and county councils (ie a different budget). There are a number of politicians and ministries who are said to be involved in the wedding. The Swedish double bureaucracy is, after all, a fantastic creation that gives birth to itself entirely according to the so-called public choice theory.
Sweden is a fantastic banana monarchy. Sweden, for example, has both a defense staff and a defense ministry. We have a social ministry and a social welfare board, etc. Perhaps no wonder we pay such high taxes for this gigantic nepotistic state-funded subsidy system? Maybe time to reform the bureaucracy from the ground up? A
for political reasons, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can hardly ask for the real cost that they are involved in the preparations. There seems to be a small staff who are directly involved in this project and who probably receive their regular compensation. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has received an extra grant of SEK 4 million to be able to "assist the court with some temporary support". 4 million can well be considered pocket money for a ministry the size of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is enough for a few umbrella drinks, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should have helped with invitations where they managed to invite representatives from dictatorships such as Eritrea (which still has not released Swedish David Isaak). It was interesting to hear the communications manager's justification that they had invited Eritrea, that they were only following the practice that applied to events like this, ie to invite those who have a mission in Sweden. Practice?
This is the first time in Sweden's thousand-year history that we have a crown princess getting married! How then can it be practice? Has the communications unit at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked itself how common it is with a wedding that will have a direct consequence of a country's succession to the throne - how do you establish a practice from a one-off occasion?
The evaluation costs of bureaucracy
As I said, the administrative costs are huge and they don't seem to stop when the wedding ends. The Board for the Promotion of Sweden Abroad has commissioned the media analysis company Mediapilot to evaluate the wedding. The municipality of Stockholm will also evaluate how things have gone after the Love 2010 event. I assume that evaluations will also be done by the military and the police and all other bureaucratic authorities... Standard wage cost for all if I count low: 1 month*30 people*60 0000 = 1,800,000
The barriers and other socio-economic costs for the wedding The reason I'm writing this post was that the police closed one lane on the E4 southbound on the Thursday before the event so I was stuck in traffic chaos on a normal Thursday which pissed me off.
On the radio, they said that 14 crews (apparently it's not a car if you're prominent enough) would drive along their own lane along the entire E4 from Arlanda to Drottningholm during rush hour. In reality I saw 3 cars being escorted by 4 police cars. Couldn't they have landed at Bromma instead - so I could have avoided queuing for 50 minutes? I wonder which inbred von Ärthjiärna at the court state that had planned this state visit during rush hour? Suppose we are 10,000 tax-paying workers who are an hour late and our hourly cost is a moderate 600 kroner including employers' fees, TV license, funeral fee and holiday pay. Then the economic loss to society will be SEK 6 million.
The police costs for escorting these alleged 14 cars, including the helicopter that circled playfully over the traffic chaos, I have previously included in the police costs on a standard basis.
Income from the wedding
The myth of the PR value of the royal wedding
We economists usually call socio-economic analyzes cost-benefit analyses, and they are done, among other things, by the road authority to look at how roads should be built, to look at environmental consequences and if lives can be saved.
At a royal wedding, you could similarly calculate fictitious costs such as environmental costs of taking a private jet to the West Indies, or traveling with your pleasure yacht across the whole of Sweden, pensioners having heart attacks, or driving 18 JAS airplanes, etc. In this wedding, on the other hand, some innovative socio-economic cost-benefit calculations have been made which have been marketed as income.
Fictitious income from the wedding is reported by several different organizations, they almost seem to compete with each other to surpass each other in how much the wedding has brought in. Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to deduce how they have calculated these earnings and some of these must unfortunately be categorized as misleading and non-serious.
According to Svensk Handel's calculation before the wedding, they expected the PR value to be SEK 800 million. If we assume that the editorial content of a large newspaper is worth SEK 150,000, then 5333 newspaper reports would be made about the wedding, which I have a hard time imagining. The situation did not improve after the largest news agencies AFP, Reuters and AP chose to skip the wedding coverage entirely due to a dispute with SVT over the broadcasting rights.
All the international newspapers I looked at had more attention on the current soccer World Cup and in the cases where the wedding was mentioned it was like a side story. Denmark's biggest newspapers showed the soccer World Cup and red faces on the wedding day...Norska Aftonposten shows the wedding properly. On the BBC and CNN you will find the occasional article. You can find quite a bit about the wedding on the El País website. In the American and Brazilian media, it is stone silent.
On March 18, Reinfeldt claims in Dagens Industri., without any figures being presented, that the royal wedding brings "enormous income".
The press officer (!) at Visit Sweden (an organization that receives SEK 100 million/year from the state and owns 50% via the Ministry of Economic Affairs) formally orders a survey from the media analysis company Mediapilot and then it was suddenly discovered that the publicity surrounding the wedding was worth SEK 2.7 billion , compared to what it would have cost to buy the equivalent ad space.
After almost a month of waiting, I received an answer from the Board for the Development of Sweden (ie the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) how they had done the calculations and after reading this survey they arbitrarily counted 12,720 articles in web media.
The survey is not based on science but entirely on arbitrary thinking. For example, the excel sheet values 45 websites in India where the media space that the princess wedding generated at the fantasy value of SEK 197,000 each! Not only that, 200 websites in India were valued at SEK 123,000 each, but there were also 75 popular websites whose publicity was valued at SEK 86,000. Then they have taken the PR value for the web and multiplied this value by a factor of 2.2 and voila for print and web media in India you get an imaginary value of SEK 87,818,000. Then they multiply by 0.75 probably because everything is not full pages but there are also half pages that cannot be counted as high as full pages... I wonder if we will get many Indian tourists to Stockholm next year?
Then a corresponding calculation is made for other countries and, of course, Germany is weighted up in the number of articles. Remarkably, all the fictitious web PR revenue is always multiplied by 2.2 regardless of country and media! That the survey rounds upwards with 7 million, which is a picturesque detail in all the strangeness. I get scared of the dark when I read excel sheet how Mediaplanet has calculated and that Dagens Industri uncritically included this news with the headline "King's wedding worth billions in PR".
It seems a little strange that authorities investigate themselves and then go to the press about this, why not let the National Audit Office handle the audit?
Personally, I think it is negative PR with the monarchy in its current form, i.e. you could just as well report the income as a cost which shows that Sweden has an outdated social condition!
Income from visitors of the wedding
According to reports, 500,000 people watched the wedding in Stockholm. I find it difficult to determine if there is a large increase in tourists in the middle of the tourist season, but consider that Greater Stockholm has 2 million inhabitants, i.e. there were 1.5 million who actually chose to not see the event.
Modern research shows that there are crowding-out effects around large events which means that there is a fairly large portion that avoids a place that has a large event and these alternative revenues should be excluded in the happiness calculations. TV4 made a call to the hotels in Stockholm and said the day after the wedding that they had received confirmation that the hotels were not as fully booked as they usually are.
Revenue from wedding related products For the wedding, an official series of products with selected producers has been produced. The series includes, among other things, textiles, porcelain, jewelry and food, probably the so-called court suppliers are hired.
Cloetta has managed to produce a chocolate box and received criticism for using child labor in West Africa. (If you search for the words child labor and Cloetta on Google, you now get 1,300 results, but this can easily be recalculated as PR value...) Tourists will buy wedding-related products for SEK 2.5 billion, according to the lobby organization Swedish trade, which of course wants to have a good relationship with the court. The number makes me question the objectivity of the lobby organization's numbers, especially when Svensk Handel goes so far as to create a wedding blog!
Even so, this inflated sales figure makes me happy because it means a lot of VAT money for the government and the money actually paid by those who want the royal house. Maybe there is something positive outside the romance... but if we are talking billion sums, the government support to the royal house should be strongly questioned because the royal monopoly seems to be a fairly profitable business idea - at least more profitable than building SAAB cars. In short – the royal family could live well on tickets and the sale of key chains, china, postcards, books, ticket costs, etc.
But interviews conducted with the companies that were involved say that sales are lower than expected, however, no exact figures, but "During two weeks, a revenue of 70 to 80 million kroner was reached, compared to the 100 million kroner that the trade had expected." What is meant by a revenue in this case - was it a revenue that was above what the trade usually has in the month of June?
Source: Dagens Industri 24 June (can't find the press release from Swedish Trade that the newspaper refers to)
The biggest expense of the royal wedding
I have not included the biggest cost of the wedding.
It is the price we pay that we do not have a democracy. The price for the piglet is huge and if one were to theorize, it could be argued that gifts and the like would largely fall under the category of bribery. At several companies and authorities, it is not legal to accept a gift that exceeds 1,000 kroner, and then some of the gifts become almost silly, for example Bertil Hult's private jet to the West Indies, which is said to have cost millions and probably also involves favors in the long term.
With these high grants, one might think it strange that the only one who has a so-called SGU (sickness benefit qualifying income) is Prince Daniel, so he can in any case receive parental benefit when that time hopefully comes. Why not adapt the royal house to the market, remove the grants and introduce the work line?
But at the same time, PR thinking opens up new visionary marketing opportunities for the state. Why not develop the idea of kings and princesses?
If we as a country do a lot of crazy things, we will get a lot of publicity abroad. We could invest a billion a year in appointing a national witch. Next year we could have an official Santa Claus who will be responsible for the migration agency and become Duke of Norrland. We could have a gingerbread man building a giant gingerbread castle. There are tons of ideas for business developers to sink their teeth into.
Why not invest a few billions in big and weird mega-appointments and see how much media space we will get for the fairytale land in other countries. Santa can represent us abroad and travel around with the military. What does it matter if other countries think we're weird? The Germans will make a pilgrimage to the little fairytale land, never mind that they come here in their mobile homes and wild camp near guest ports. We will get lots of PR revenue and then we can order expensive investigations from some media agency that prove that these are wise investments. The marketers at Disneyland would start to sweat.
Personally, I wish that the royal house was modernized and that the head of state was democratically elected as it was historically once at Mora Stenar a few miles south of Uppsala when Magnus Ladulås was elected. In the Västgötalagen it was said: "Sveaer egho king at taka ok sva vraekae".
One democratically elected monarch I would receive with open arms and then I would also be able to celebrate the wedding. If the king or queen had been popularly elected - I might vote for Viktoria, who seems to be a representative and humble filur. In addition, she appears to be happy and newly in love with her Daniel.
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Embarrassing piece of crap and an example of how life was better before the Internet came along, when unintelligent slurs and word poopers didn't make themselves heard. I will summarize my main criticism very briefly against this orgy of conjecture: you only report the cost side. Not a single relevant word about the revenue side. If you don't, how can your reasoning be interesting at all? It doesn't matter if the wedding in question costs 10000000000000000000 in any currency if it embarrasses double that? Idiot. Communism should be equated with Nazism and criminalized.
Of course, the revenue side plays a role, which is reported under the main heading "Revenue from the Wedding". To use economics at all as a scientific method to discuss statesmanship is, I think, irrelevant and unworthy of a democracy. This should be seen as a counter contribution to how the authorities have calculated on the revenue side. I am ironic about the costs and basically using the same unscientific method that some tax-funded agencies have done on the revenue side - ie fiction and wild guesses. If you don't get that irony, you've missed the whole point. Regarding the personal attacks, I can deny that I am neither a communist, an idiot, nor a Nazi. On the other hand, I'm possibly a happy word-pooer and chewer.
Extremely good post. Commenting a little late, four years later, but someone paid attention to the site, so read the entire investigation. Thanks for the detailed estimate; believe it is closer to the truth than anyone has previously dared to present! Apparently no one dares to approach the real costs, e.g. within the relevant authorities. The wasted effort for everyone involved is something that I personally feel very uncomfortable with; couldn't all the energy that goes into such nonsense be channeled into something better that actually promotes society? It especially surprises me that the royal house seems to get most things through without anyone problematizing and effectively putting a stop to it. The second princess wedding was a splendid example where the bride in question apparently laid out the wish list and everyone kindly agreed, whether it was to get the right number of the right national costumes or to make some poor sugar baker waste days of time laying out thousands of expensive French meringue biscuits in pyramid. Not to mention the sumptuous serving. Why can't the parties themselves, i.e. the royal family, be called to a public hearing in the Riksdag where they explain what justifies the privileges and where they are held to account? If you interpret His Majesty's grumpy right, perhaps he never had the vision that it would go this far; The Torekov Agreement -71 I thought was the prelude to the abolition of the monarchy. But one can hope that he sees himself as the last "regent", a term that makes one cringe. We live in an era when political influence is measured in what networks you have, what contacts and what PR position and what influence you have in the media and what attention you get. The king, if anyone, is at the top of the existing informal channels of influence; business contacts, contacts in church, state, in short all administration, but above all through their role in civil society through influential foundations and above all the Freemasons. Nevertheless, it is said that the monarch is a head of state, who lacks formal power and is apolitical, i.e. no power analysis e.g. in the social sciences adequately problematizes his role or appreciates it at the value it truly possesses. If ever in the foreseeable future a political situation arises where the monarchy would be abolished, one must reasonably also decide what political rights the members of the deposed royal house would be entitled to (so that they do not go from a privileged position to a new political role with claims to power ).