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Unlike Most Millennials, Norway's Are Rich (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Best known for its Viking history, snow sports and jaw-dropping fjords, Norway is making a new name for itself as the only major economy in Europe where young people are getting markedly richer. People in their early thirties in Norway have an average annual disposable household income of around 460,000 kroner (around $56,200). Young Norwegians have enjoyed a 13% rise in disposable household income in real terms compared to Generation X (those born between 1966 and 1980) when they were the same age. These startling figures come from the largest comparative wealth data set in the world, the Luxembourg Income Database, and were analyzed in a recent report on generational incomes for the UK Think Tank The Resolution Foundation.
Compare this with young people in other strong economies: U.S. millennials have experienced a 5% dip, in Germany it's a 9% drop. For those living in southern Europe (the southern Eurozone suffered the brunt of the global economic crisis in 2008), disposable incomes have plunged by as much as 30%. Norway's youth unemployment rate (among 15- to 29-year-olds) is also relatively low at 9.4% compared to an OECD average of 13.9%. According to the BBC, this can be attributed to the country's rapid economic growth, thanks largely to their huge oil and gas sectors. "After seeing the biggest increase in average earnings of any large high-income economy between 1980 and 2013, it now leads multiple global rankings for wealth and wellbeing."
Compare this with young people in other strong economies: U.S. millennials have experienced a 5% dip, in Germany it's a 9% drop. For those living in southern Europe (the southern Eurozone suffered the brunt of the global economic crisis in 2008), disposable incomes have plunged by as much as 30%. Norway's youth unemployment rate (among 15- to 29-year-olds) is also relatively low at 9.4% compared to an OECD average of 13.9%. According to the BBC, this can be attributed to the country's rapid economic growth, thanks largely to their huge oil and gas sectors. "After seeing the biggest increase in average earnings of any large high-income economy between 1980 and 2013, it now leads multiple global rankings for wealth and wellbeing."
As I've watched how Norway has been doing over the past 15+ years with their wise use and planning of oil revenues it has been clear that the Norwegian government has been planning for the future to ensure the prosperity of their citizens.
Now that technology is unlocking massive amounts of fossil fuels, it's unfortunate that other countries (I'm thinking of my country Canada) aren't following the example and planning for the future in the same way. I know that in Canada, there would be a major fight with Alberta to share tar sands revenue, but it would be nice if the Albertan government at least would follow Norway's approach and provide for their citizen's future.
Good on Norway, hopefully other countries will follow their lead.
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The oil & gas sector employed 1% of Norwegians last year (including suppliers). It represented 14% of GDP. However the sector is Norway's largest measured in terms of value added, government revenues, investments and export value (40%). All of the revenue is invested abroad using a SWF.
Please, explain Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Germany, etc. Do they have oil? No.
Might want to leave Denmark off that list.
"I know that some people in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism," he said. "Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy."
https://www.vox.com/2015/10/31...
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No, we don't have any free stipend or socialized income here in Norway.
Actually, Norway has been quite good about avoiding the temptation of spending like drunken sailors from that fund. Also, social democracies aren't Marxist. They're capitalist systems with a high tax rate and a strong social safety net. If you look at economic freedom ratings Norway (and other Scandinavian countries) are comparable to the U.S. as opposed to the countries that follow some form of Marxist philosophy (Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea). Those Scandinavian countries even have lower corporate tax rates than the U.S. as well.
Haha better Demographics in Australia? You must be new here. Australia has an aging population problem, high immigration, and crazy house prices. 80% of the ~280,000 new immigrants to Australia each year are settling in Melbourne and Sydney which now have median house prices of over $1 million. Combine this with worse than pre-GFC debt to income ratios and Australia is set up for a massive financial crisis in the next few years which many predict is already beginning to occur (watch the September/Spring clearance rates in the Australian property market for some entertaining viewing).
That help explains why Norway is the happiest country in the world.
America may not be awash in newfound oil, but the USA is a wealthy country that keeps creating wealth. Take an American company like Apple, awash in cash. The CEO gets $3 million base salary + $9 million for meeting his numbers for a total of $12 million. An Apple Genius (often a millenial) makes $15/hr and may get $10 off an Apple device for their perk.
In your judgement, is Tim Cook is worth the same as 400 Apple Genius in terms of contribution to the company and wealth creation?
In the USA wealth is not evenly distributed and any gains flow to the top 10% as seen in Tim Cooks performance bonus.
How to fix it?
Last I checked, the economy is booming and in the USA there are more jobs than workers available. It is time to use your social media skills to get organized and get a fair wage for your contribution, unless of course you think you are worth 400x (times) less than the CEO of your company.
Who should organize?
Apple Geniuses
Big Box Store Works (Home Depot, Lowes, Menards, Best Buy, Walmart, SamClub, Costco, Target)
Fast Food Workers (Taco Bell, McD;s, BK)
Dollar Store Workers
Convenience Store Works
Department Store Workers
Everyone has to do it together, or it won't work. No single company can have a competitive advantage with cheaper labor. However, most CEO's in a competitive sector like fast food can't raise wages without raising prices or cutting staff, because their competitors can still run cheaper. The entire segment needs to band together and demand higher wages/benefits.
Millennials! Pay Attention. There has never been an better time to organize and get your piece of the American pie, or you can just settle for the crumbs.
The question you have to ask yourself is what value do you contribute to the company in which you work?
This worked at the turn of the century for AutoWorkers and it could clearly work again.
https://youtu.be/vrw_WRhUfog
Denmark absolutely deserves to be on that list. It is a social democracy in the Nordic model. Denmark has a wide range of welfare benefits that they offer their citizens, from universal health care to free education and family leave.. As a result, they also have the highest taxes in the world. Equality is considered the most important value in Denmark. Small businesses thrive, with over 70 percent of companies having 50 employees or less.
When Denmark was named the happiest country in the world, there was an effort by right-wing jackoffs to try to paint Denmark as not really a social democracy. They are trying to bullshit you. It is listed as one of the most successful socialist countries in the world.
You are welcome on my lawn.
All of the Nordic countries are more capitalist than socialist. They may have socialized health care, but most of them have privatized postal services, and some have partially privatized their schools.
The success (if you want to call it that) of the Nordic model is due more to be Nordic than being "socialist". Greece used a similar model, but with a very different culture, and the result was a disaster. Detroit is another example.
As someone who lives in one of those communist utopias in Europe it always amuses me when American shitlibs call us socialist.
Yeah, we have high taxes and a safety net, but we are also very much capitalist.
The difference is that we use the government to ensure that we maintain healthy capitalism rather than just a single large company dominating the market.
It helps a lot that Norway has a small population. Those gas and oil reserves go a long way. And they get to export nearly all of their gas, since they use hydroelectric for most of their power. Canada probably is in a good position to do similar, but most of the rest of Europe is not quite in the same position.
And therein lies the problem.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Not at all. It's even more enlightening when you include the entire quote and not just the part that supports your assertion.
See, the mistake you are making is thinking that socialism and market economies are mutually exclusive. In fact, they work best in combination with each other.
You are welcome on my lawn.
No, you idiot I kinda want to add, here in Sweden and in Finland and in Denmark too we also have not free but publicly funded education, generous parental leave and a blend of companies and also a mixture of government control and private companies if you want to add that as well.
Also neither Sweden or Norway have any minimum wage.
Even though we in Sweden, Finland and Denmark have all those other things you mention it's unlikely we have the same outcome as the Norwegians, at-least not here in Sweden thanks to massive shit-immigration instead ruining things.
But thanks for playing. But that isn't the reason and Norway just as Sweden likely already had all those things before too. Except minimum wage which we haven't had and don't have.
The difference between Norway and the rest of the Nordic nations is their oil and gas wealth which is stored into a fund which secure pensions and I think also other welfare things onward. In the 80s they found their oil and they have become richer because of the oil and gas not because of the stuff you likely are politically interested and make up is the reason they have become richer.
The oil and gas wealth is the difference.
Lots of European nations including the southern ones do have the other stuff you mention but clearly not the same development as Norway.
The thing to learn if anything is that if you sit on massive natural wealth resources don't let a private company and a few rich people get it all and the profits basically for free but rather invest it wisely into stock and only take some of the profits so that it can benefit everyone and last ~forever.
The one thing Norway have done differently is to wisely invest their money from natural resources and use it to fund their welfare / redistribute the profits to the population (in this case also by being able to have lower taxes than what we do in Sweden, Denmark and Finland, because here people have to WORK to generate all that money going into parliament spending and welfare.)
Find a valuable resource, give the gains to your people = they get richer. Amazing how that one worked? ...
If you read that wiki entry, you will learn that there's nothing in there that is incompatible with a market economy.
In fact, to quote the Prime Minister of Denmark himself (from the same article): "The Nordic model is an expanded welfare state which provides a high level of security to its citizens, but it is also a successful market economy with much freedom to pursue your dreams and live your life as you wish."
Market economies and socialism are a perfectly compatible. In fact, you could say that one does not work without the other.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Yeah, this, rather than the socialist and welfare approach which kinda all of Europe share but it's clearly not making people richer in the rest of Europe.
The only "great" insight story here is that if you invest the profits from your very rich natural resources into stocks and redistribute a small enough part of it to your people (in this case by being able to keep your generous welfare while still having lower taxes than others which offer the same) they get richer!!
If you spend it straight away you get less from it than if you invest it and don't use up too much of it.
And if you let private global companies take the gains from it and only charge a small tax on them they the people get less of the benefits and just a few people get huge benefits from it.
Yay. Surprising!
Mean-while here in Sweden the taxes for ore or minerals or whatever for a mining company is 0.1%.
Most of Norway's non-transportation energy use comes from renewable sources. And by “most”, I mean 99% (97% hydroelectric, 2% wind and other renewable sources).
Norway carefully used their assets whilst the UK pissed their oil wealth away. Africa is currently flogging all their mineral assets to China on the cheap to benefit a few bent politicians and supercar salesmen. Like the modern day Ant and Grasshopper!
I'd really need to hear what your definition of socialism actually is to square it with the notion being compatible with (or as you later suggest required for) a market (I'm assuming you mean a free one, or one that is reasonably so) economy. Otherwise I suspect you're guilty of choosing your definition of socialism post priori so that you can find one that doesn't look like a miserable failure.
Private exchange doesn't make sense if you have communal ownership. Maybe you're envisioning something like all private companies being employee owned (i.e., you can't hold stock if you don't work there and if you work there you must hold stock) but I don't think that's ever been tried. It's almost like a guild system, only with multiple competing guilds. This system also says nothing about personal income tax or social safety nets either as you could just as easily use this system regardless of how that's handled.
The only other thing you could possibly mean is that everyone acts as a capitalist agent, but the government takes most or all of their earnings. Essentially you seem to have private exchange in name only up since as soon as you make an exchange whatever benefit you gained from it becomes communally controlled. I suppose that works if you have a group of people that like playing free market just for the sake of playing free market. It would be a bit like playing Monopoly endlessly, only with real money that you never get to keep since just goes back in the tray. I don't know if there's a group of people on the planet weird enough to play by those rules. Maybe if the group were entirely self-selecting, but to suspect it on a population level for any ethnic group is suspect at best.
In the 1970's the UK was promised a golden age resulting from North Sea oil and gas. It seems never to have arrived, at least for most of the citizens, though we would certainly be deeper in the doo-doo without them.
The UK sold off the oilfields (and many, many other public assets) to the private sector and takes a slice in tax whereas the Norwegians kept theirs state-owned for the benefit of all their citizens.
Long-term perspective in the management of the government's petroleum revenues ensures that they benefit Norwegian society as a whole, and that future generations will benefit from Norwayâ(TM)s petroleum wealth. This has been a key principle in developing the financial and legal framework for the sector.
https://www.norskpetroleum.no/...
You haven't heard of any Norwegian brands because Norwegian industry exports very few consumer products, apart from seafood. It exports—among other things—oil, gas, lumber, aluminum, nitrogen, artificial fertilizer, ships, ship handling systems, petroleum prospecting and drilling equipment, subsea equipment (including ROVs), telecom equipment, automotive components, rocket engines and components, satellite components, and believe it or not, ammunition and high-tech weapon systems (including many used by US forces: sea-to-sea and air-to-surface missile systems, integrated sensor systems, remote weapon stations and more).
McDonald pays $16-$19+/HR in Norway
I'm guessing it's not something like North Korea or Venezuela, i.e. different to yours.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
No, it's the median: https://www.ssb.no/en/ifhus
Socialism is by definition incompatible with Nordic Social Democracy model. We categorically reject all main cornerstones of socialism, and instead go for market economy with high taxation that funds the baseline income level and services.
We do have socialist in every Nordic state by the way. They're the marginal far left parties, rejected by overwhelming majority of the populace. Here in Finland for example, far left openly socialist Vasemmistoliitto holds between 5 and 8% of the vote, and is a minor party. They also have some communists in their party, but their leadership generally denounces communism and sticks to socialism. I can provide citations for that as well.
It would be very helpful if wannabe far leftists from across the pond would stop insulting our countries, our politicians and our ways of life by maliciously branding them as "socialist" for their own political purposes. Have your class war if you want, but leave us well out of it.
I may post more in-depth later. For now I can't stop giggling at all the right wingers here who after years of screeching "that's socialism' every time anyone breathed a hint of a word in favor of a social safety net who ar now trying to walk that back and claim "That's not socialism at all!"
*GIGGLE*
In your judgement, is Tim Cook is worth the same as 400 Apple Genius in terms of contribution to the company and wealth creation?
Yes. That "Genius" can be replaced by literally tens of thousands of IT people here at /. alone, let alone across the US. Tim Cook has shown an extraordinary talent for supply chain management and operations and his decisions directly affect 100,000 people. Paying him 400 times what the "hipster Geek Squad" member makes is quite understandable.
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We're talking about the American definition of socialism though which boils down to "not shitting on the poor". As the poor are only there because they didn't work hard enough, any state support is equivalent to the actions of murderous dictatorships past and present and carrying military grade weaponry about day to day is the only way to prevent those slackers from trying to take that well earned money away from you by force.
The real problem in politics is all the bucks.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
That ignoring the AGW alarmists is a good thing for our kids? But, no, that's pretty much impossible, right?
So, why is it okay when Norway does it, but the height of evil when we do it?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
The Gen Xers did alright and the boomers made out like bandits, but the Millennials are screwed. They're not getting pensions, their 401ks get eaten up by fees and the periodic stock market crashes brought on by weak regulation and risk free bail outs and their student loan debt means they can't start life until their 30s. Meanwhile outsourcing + H1-Bs means they're in intense competition for decent jobs so they worked much, much harder than their parents and grandparents for much, much less.
.com and house bubbles masked the ill effects of supply side economics until 2008 when it all came crashing down). With control of the government came control of media (Sinclair media's been allowed to buy up all local stations).
The right wing in America (who's defining feature is a pro-corporate bent that wants low wages, lax environmental regulations and lax worker protections) knows this. They're currently in control of all branches of Government (the Democratic party moved the Overton window to the left so Clinton could sail into the Whitehouse and got away with it when the
The question is, Americans may be ready for Democratic Socialism but will they get it? The ruling class has so much wealth and power now they can bury the will of the people. It's been shown a 2-3 week ad blitz is enough to change the public's opinion on anything. Hell, we can't get more than 60% of the population to agree that healthcare is a right and thanks to our political system that gives extra voting power to rural states (a Montana voter has something like 42 times more voting power than a California thanks to our Senate) and the effect of "swing states" I'm not sure any of this matters.
It literally doesn't matter how much evidence you have that Democratic Socialism works. The people opposed to it have unlimited money (we gave it to them) and the last two generations are very much in the "I got mine, fuck you" school of thought. Maybe when those people start dying. Hell, we (mostly) got gay rights. Then again the new SCOTUS might shoot all that down...
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Unfortunately the only thing the Trump pseudo president baby can babble is "but the Refugees" destroy Europe :-/ I have to say, things are pretty good here in Berlin, Germany, Europe. Actually I avoid traveling to the USA for all the crime, shootings, TSA and such, ... Instead I now travel more in Europe, France, Spain, Czech, Poland, and all the other nice neighbours we got. Together we are stronger!
Um, pretty much all of it. Median household income in the richest countries of the world is often right around there. For a young person in a single income household, that's rich.
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alvinrod challenged:
I'd really need to hear what your definition of socialism actually is to square it with the notion being compatible with (or as you later suggest required for) a market (I'm assuming you mean a free one, or one that is reasonably so) economy. Otherwise I suspect you're guilty of choosing your definition of socialism post priori so that you can find one that doesn't look like a miserable failure.
Private exchange doesn't make sense if you have communal ownership.
Social democracy isn't socialism. Hell, even socialism isn't socialism.
Theory be damned, socialism in practice is a philosophy that holds societies ought to provide the essentials for life (food, clean water, shelter, education, health care) for all their members, regardless of their income level, as fundamental rights. The definition of "pure" socialism-as-economics isn't really even worth discussing, because there is no such functioning economic system in existence. And there won't be, ever, as long as human beings are fallible creatures.
Communal ownership of some basic resources (infrastructure, for instance) is baked into western democratic practice. That's the case because it makes sense that those resources be held in common. Worker-owned companies can and do thrive in hyper-capitalist America, as long as their underlying business models are realistic and responsive to their markets.
Yes, you can build a wall of rhetorical purity around the term - or you can simply acknowledge that social democracy is the modern face of socialism, and it is not failing (at least, in the Scandanavian and Benelux countries) by any objective measure.
Life is complicated. Much too complicated, in fact, to be adequately modeled by rigid, ideological absolutes ...
Check out my novel.
Liberals would be more inclined to serve in the military of a social-democratic state like Norway.
There was no left-right difference in attitudes toward military service in the US until Vietnam. Vietnam draft deferments for the wealthy is what soured the left on the US military; the Establishment was for the war, but it had no skin in the game.
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The entire EU is like that and Denmark by no means has the highest taxes. The Norse have it good because of natural resources despite their social policies. A bit like Saudi Arabia and other such places. With good investments and diversifying their future (like the Emirates and Norway are doing) their population can enjoy socialized (in one way or another) governments. Places that waste that potential (eg Venezuela and the USA) are worse off.
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I use the dictionary definition:
Well, the income tax rate in Denmark is just over 60%, so it fits that definition, too.
Denmark. Denmark plays by those rules. More than 60% of income in Denmark goes to taxes. Last time I checked the definition of "most", 60 percent meets the definition.
Face it: The happiest countries in the world are the countries that have struck a balance between socialism and market economies.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Norway is probably the only oil-producing country on earth that managed to share oil revenues among citizen. Most of the time oil is a curse for the people, resulting in corruption, kleptocracy and dictatorship.
What? Why didn't the oil/gas CEOs get all of it?
> Please, explain Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Germany, etc. Do they have oil? No.
You mean German where kids can't move out of their parents dinky apartment not because they don't have the money but because the housing market is so distorted that there isn't anything to buy?
Before you push nonsense propaganda, you might want to make sure some of us don't have relatives in the countries in question.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Even with that definition, I think there's a bit of a sticking point on what exactly is meant by "regulated". I'm not sure how much you'd appreciate your grocery shopping choices (i.e., your personal exchange) to be regulated by the rest of your neighbors. Do they get to pick what you're having for supper or what products can be sold at the grocery store?
Otherwise I'm not sure what you mean by "regulated" as unless you're thinking in terms of what is typically meant by government regulations. You can have those kind government or even community (think HOA) regulations without socialism so I don't believe that's a useful description.
Also, you'd need to plot out all of the countries and measure happiness and to what extent their governments are market socialist. Otherwise you can explain Norway, Denmark, etc. being happiest because Scandinavians are just happy people among a large set (for example, lots of good looking blonde women would make most people happy) of other explanations. China and Viet Nam are more classic mixed economies, but I don't know where their blend of market socialism lands them on the happiness axis.
My guess is that if you do a multivariate regression, there are other factors with more explanative power. I'm not even sure if you could do this kind of analysis as there aren't enough examples of what you'd probably classify as your brand of socialism to perform the kind of statistical analysis you'd need. But without doing that, you can't make that claim. Otherwise someone could just as easily point out some other ridiculous correlation and say that their reason must be correct. Let's pick something particular insidious such as lack of black people to illustrate the point. And before anyone jumps all over that, I don't believe (or have any good reason to believe) that would be the cause any more than market socialism.
Regardless, I suspect that if you tried to join the Socialist party in just about any country, the idea "capitalist economy with extensive social programs" would not be the platform of the party or one that they're likely to accept. It's no more than I would expect "drug induced orgies" as a form of worship to be a mainstay position of any Christian church so I probably wouldn't try to tell congregations that I'm Christian and slide that idea by them. The point is that if your point of view is going to be seen as heresy at best by the mainstream of that group, you may just want to characterize yourself as something else. Hence the term "social democrat" that gets used.
Social democracy is the model it can also be referred to as.
A mixture of state intervention (free education, free/ low cost health care etc.) and a regulated market economy. It is what Australia and NZ would refer to their systems as, even the right wing parties adhere to it as it would be political suicide to disestablish it.
Undercutting and weakening it is another thing however.
No one in NZ is conscripted/ coerced into being a doctor.
New Zealanders are well balanced with a chip on each shoulder. One represents Australia, the other the rest of the world
Maybe because they don't call you an enemy? At some point in your life, you do benefit from the system. You went to school? Maybe college? You get sick? Get unemployed? Retire?
There is literally nobody that doesn't, at some point in his life, gets to benefit from the system.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
People in the US are conditioned to think in black and white. Americans even use the same word -- "socialism" -- to refer to Maoist China and the contemporary Scandinavian countries. In fact, that confusion is the whole point of the campaign to get people to use the word "socialism" so broadly. It's supposed to make you feel the same about Norway and the Khmer Rouge.
This kind of thing is the contemporary American version of "Doublespeak" -- an attempt to control what people think by making it impossible for them to express certain forbidden ideas.
Although it does make it hard to discuss things without triggering irrational emotional responses, in the end doublespeak is futile. We have a generation of young people who think they are "socialists" because they look at the Nordic system and it seems reasonable to them. By in large they don't embrace "production for use" or the labor theory of value, although the rehabilitation of the word "socialism" may set the stage for a comeback for those ideas too. What most them are, are socially progressive capitalists.
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That's not what socialism means. Not at all.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The article says: 50k disposable income
That means: after taxes, house hold costs, food, energy, car, insurances, especially health insurance (yes I know that is covered by taxes in Scandinavia), so yes: if you have 50k left at the end of the year, which basically means you can spent 5k per month for what ever you want: you are rich.
If you believe otherwise you have an absurd definition of rich.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Not by law ...
https://www.lifeinnorway.net/n...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The difference is that we use the government to ensure that we maintain healthy capitalism rather than just a single large company dominating the market.
Tell that to the Finns that used to work at Nokia.
Enigma
That's socialism, bro.
Call it what you want - The result is some of the happiest, healthiest, best-educated free people in the world, with 80%+ less crime than the USA. If that's "socialism" I think many, many Americans would happily take it.
Let's not forget Norway is by far one of the most expensive countries in the world to live in. Those 460,000 kroner (around $56,200) won't last nearly as long as you think.
Quality costs more. I also live in an expensive country, and I prefer that to a country where things are really cheap but you could be homeless at the whim of your corporate overlord.
This whole Denmark is the happiest country is a myth because the survey ignores cultural norms. Simple example, it is frowned upon in Denmark to say your unhappy while saying your happy in Japan is frowned upon.
Additionally, what works in Denmark won't work in the US. Why? Because the population of Denmark is 95%+ homogeneous and is about equal to the population of Brooklyn and Queens.
Oh, and those Scandinavian countries are not socialist countries but democracies with a social-welfare state (free enterprise, high tax, high social services).
Hell..I live in California and almost 50% of my income goes to taxes (Federal + State + St Sales Tax)
The US has socialized medicine (Medicare, Medicaid, and ~45% of all healthcare spending is by the Federal Government), socialized education (free K-12 throughout the US, and highly subsidized/free universities/colleges in many places), socialized welfare (SNAP, Welfare, etc) socialized retirement (Social Security) and highly regulated corporations (SEC, FDA, EPA, IRS, etc). I guess we're socialist, too, comrade!
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Seven out of ten dollars spent by the Federal Government goes to non-defense, non-corporate, non-religious spending.
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According to this website, $56,000 would put you in the top 0.9% worldwide...
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It is socialism, and many Americans would love to see it happen here. And it will.
You are welcome on my lawn.
And that my friend, is why California is most desirable state to live in, and we have a bigger population than any other state in the US. Because it's nice here.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You missed a pretty important word in that quote of yours: Welfare. Welfare is not socialism.
feel free to name one, JUST ONE majority-black nation (or even a city!) that's a pleasant prosperous place to live.
Nigeria.
Cities in the USA where the majority of the population is poor an criminalised fail and decay into high crime hellholes, that may be because of the graduate to prison programs that the USA is famous for.
50x the cost in taxes? Are you high? My university degree costed nothing and is highly sought after worldwide. How about yours? If your country is too corrupt to run a school system, change your government to something that doesn't suck but don't blame mine for your shortcomings.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"The moment you conscript (yes) a doctor or teacher, and Require society to pay them a set wage, you'll find that they become in short supply, especially when considering the rest of the market is more or less open and free."
Except, of course, that's EXACTLY what happens in basically the whole of first world with the exception of USA without the ominous results you predict. By the way, even in USA, that's what happens to military personnel, which your country doesn't seem to be in short supply, either.
But, of course, don't let reality get in the way of your very well built rationalizations.
"Do they get to pick what you're having for supper or what products can be sold at the grocery store?"
Yes, at least, up to a point. In most countries there are in place one regulation or another regarding, i.e. the ability to sell (or not) tobacco, alcohol and/or prescription drugs.
"I suspect that if you tried to join the Socialist party in just about any country, the idea "capitalist economy with extensive social programs" would not be the platform of the party or one that they're likely to accept."
Where are you from? I say this because that's exactly what any Socialist party in any European country would support: "capitalist economy with extensive social programs". Maybe it is "communist party" what you are looking for, not Socialist. And even Communist parties, starting on the late 70's early 80's, had strong factions embracing what was called "eurocommunism" which is, basically, that: "capitalist economy with extensive social programs".
I think you should review your sources.
It's not that hard, the explanation was already given: a country with relatively high taxes that are used to provide (for free or a small fee) services that benefit the population at large. Mainly safety, education and healthcare. You get to keep the money you make in transactions, just not all of it. Everyone is OK with this because they value an equal society where no one is "left behind" more than a society where its acceptable if some people don't make it and others make it many lifetimes over
This illustrates why many freedom-loving Americans are confused by European socialism. Ironically it's because they don't understand freedom.
with much freedom to pursue your dreams and live your life as you wish
In other words it's not just freedom from things, it's freedom to do things.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
You are redefining words, this is not what socialism meant for 150 years....
" The definition of "pure" socialism-as-economics isn't really even worth discussing..." -- yet there have been thousands of books in the 19 and 20 century that did exactly this. Not to mention the practical applications in USSR, Venezuela, Cuba, Estern Europe, China etc etc etc.....
Basically you want to sweep under the rug ("not worth discussing") the failures of your religion...
Just because some people mis-use a term does not mean it isn't a term.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
There you go, an encyclopedia entry. That wasn't hard, was it?
If that's too long for you, then here's a Quora summary:
"Social democracy had made its peace with capitalism. It seeks to reform capitalism from within, and not dismantle the major structures that are associated with capitalism."
I'm gonna guess you're American - there is a general inability to see a difference between "not-capitalism" and communism there. Not everything is binary, you know, there are mid points along the line between unfettered capitalism and "the state owns everything".
What in the world are you on about?
There are private practices in all these countries. There isnâ€(TM)t even anything that says you have to be a government employed doctor after the country pays for your education. You donâ€(TM)t even have to stay in the country.
As for salary, some countries like Lithuania have very poor pay for doctors and dentists as part of their socialistic system. But the Nordic countries still have doctors and surgeons being paid very well for their time. And even better, you donâ€(TM)t have an army of idiot doctors checking each room just to add an hour to their billing because theyâ€(TM)re buried under student debt.
There is no indentured servitude or slavery. No serfs. Itâ€(TM)s a competitive market and doctors can job hop freely to increase their income just like anywhere else.
There are even things like serving as a doctor in backwoods places like Longyearbyen which pays very well and entirely tax free to make it so that you can be damn near rich within a few years of graduation and move back to civilization.
But Iâ€(TM)m guessing you have some picture in your mind which makes you think that socialism is some sort of forced work or labor. Soviet Socialism was not socialism. It was simply sold that way.
I was raised American and I am now in Norway. I am on a 5 week long vacation traveling first class by train with my wife, kids and a niece. We have been to Hamburg, Brussels, Paris and London and weâ€(TM)re continuing on tomorrow... and itâ€(TM)s thanks to socialism that I can market myself in a free market socialist economy and do this.
Oh and I happily pay 50% income tax on a BIG FAT salary and bonuses.
Though... you probably know better. You heard about it on Fox News.
When you're so retarded, you don't even know what was someone's platform, but you attribute his name to beliefs you don't like, because that's a last refuge of an ignorant extremist who got caught peddling garbage.
P.S. By your ridiculous redefinition of words, almost every state on the planet is socialist already, because they have all those things. Even in Africa, most states have some socialized medicine, some socialized education, some socialized welfare system, some socialized retirement and some highly regulated corporations.
Just like we do here.
So we have now established that your measuring stick of "socialism" doesn't actually measure anything that is relevant to socialism.
...except for in every other metric besides stock prices, you mean. Who'd have though that business leaders would react positively to an administration staffed by their own lobbyists, which views any law which regulates their behavior as "Un-American"
Because the immigration we get is shit.
America is a different country, Swedes emmigration to America was at a different time, Swedes effect as immigrants to America is different to the shit we get to Sweden. It's totally unrelated to Sweden. By law I'm not allowed to say talk in a negative way in whatever way about specific people groups but there's of course a massive difference with an American immigrant of Swiss immigrant or Norwegian immigrant on average and the shit we get the most of.
There wasn't much to leech of in America. Except plenty of newly conquered land. The average American didn't had to spend for that shit or accept to have his people raped and murdered.
Now we no longer have the best sides of America in Sweden. We don't have freedom. We don't have border control. We don't have a smallish government (American is also pretty large but of course a bit less into things than our.) and we no longer have low taxes. We don't get to carry weapons for protection.
The immigrants are shit. We could have good immigrants but we have shit immigrants. We could have a social system which made them less shit (lower taxes, lower welfare, less benefits) but we don't. Our social system is the most attractive for shit people and the least attractive for the best people. The system are shit and the kind of immigrants we get are shit. If we got well-educated obedient productive people then it would still hurt our people but be much better than the shit we get now. I could specify beyond "immigrants" but it's questionable if I'm allowed to and just because "immigrants" could provide benefits doesn't make the immigrants to Sweden any good.
We don't necessarily have to be as many and that could easily had been affected. We could had given couples who got a child 1-2 million SEK for getting one. Way cheaper than the asylum seekers and their families we don't want and would likely help people decide to get one. That people work the most in the EU and get very little from it makes it harder to have children too. How fucking shitty the society is with all the unwanted immigrants and how little one want to stay here is another one. That a lot of them are young men and that they throw the balance of the sexes out of the water and leave (both immigrant and native) men without women is another one. I don't know if you are aware but it takes two to make a baby and if you import men who occupy your women then it become harder to get children too. It's genocide in multiple ways. As (((planned.)))
The reason Norway have Swedes working there is mostly because it's less of a shit-hole than Sweden. Norwegians are of no obligation to like having Swedes there and some may even think they are taking their jobs which is a totally fair opinion. But the difference between those Swedes and a Somali mother is that they are there to work.
Canadian are likely also less shit. As long as they doesn't defend the Muslim invasion and plundering and African welfare migration. Which you obviously do. Any contribution you've done to Norwegian society is most likely taken away by many times if you make them take in one non-European immigrant. In Norway they estimate a western immigrant contribute ~one million NOK to the society whereas a non-european one cost ~4.5 million NOK. Some years ago at-least. So just for the coffers everything else being the Poles, The Swedes, The Canadians in Norway isn't a problem. The Syrians, the Afghans, The Somalis, .. are.
Whatever I emmigrate or not doesn't change the fact that they are shit. Economically, by enforcing change of society, for our people.
What I've read about those ancestor DNA tests is that they aren't flawless. I don't know how specific the changes are of it they use statistics (the claim that we've got more variation between a specific population/"race" than between two races (likely with very specific interpretation / the only parts which change beyond the first rather than all of it or whatever) has been made. Anyway I already know I
I use the dictionary definition:
Well, the income tax rate in Denmark is just over 60%, so it fits that definition, too.
Denmark. Denmark plays by those rules. More than 60% of income in Denmark goes to taxes. Last time I checked the definition of "most", 60 percent meets the definition.
Face it: The happiest countries in the world are the countries that have struck a balance between socialism and market economies.
Market economies are independent of socialist/capitalist governments. The market economy fails when a government puts it's ideologies above functional economics... I.E. under extremist governments. Both extreme socialism and extreme capitalism will lead to a collapse of a market economy, ironically due to the same issue, one party gaining too much power over the market, under socialism it's the government, under capitalism it'll be a corporation. End result is the same really.
No country operates a successful "pure" capitalist or socialist economy, they're all mixed in various amounts.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Oh, and those Scandinavian countries are not socialist countries but democracies with a social-welfare state (free enterprise, high tax, high social services).
They're not socialist, they are democracies with a social-welfare state? How is that not socialist? Try a dictionary.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I guess we're socialist, too, comrade!
All democratic government is socialist, unless only the people at the top benefit and all the people below are slaves. The only real question is to what degree they are socialist. A government that doesn't do anything for The People fails; a government that does things for The People is engaging in socialism. To be fair, the USA is not very democratic, but then, it's not very socialist either. We have some half-assed, inefficient health care which is only given to the very poor. Whoopeeshit!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Socialism is the means of production being owned by the state.
No, no it is not. That is communism. Socialism is the means of production being controlled by The People... through the state, generally, unless you live in a social group too small to have one.
Stop attacking socialism on the basis that it is communism, because it is not.
While we're at it, "liberals" want business and not morality regulated, "conservatives" want the opposite. People attribute other meanings to those labels left and right, but they're as wrong as you are about socialism.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You are, and have been for a long time. Which makes it very strange that you fight so hard against more universal socialization (45% -> ~100%) in areas like health care that have proven so successful in other places.
In the US social democracy seems to have been successfully conflated with Soviet-style totalitarian communism.
don't call them centrists. They're right wing. Calling them centrists makes them sound reasonable when they're not. Call a spade a spade and a right wing Democrat right wing.
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from public Universities. I was in college in the 90s when this crap started and remember the school paper talking to the economics professors who pointed out that without the subsidies tuition would hit $12k+/yr by 2020. They were wrong, we hit that in 2016 when my kid hit college.
College was _always_ this expensive. It didn't go up in price any more than inflation. The federal government was subsidizing education. They stopped doing that so they could give tax cuts to billionaires.
Trump is very much a member of the ruling class. He's a billionaire who sites on golden thrones. Swing states haven't changed since I was a kid. I'm 40.
You're twisting the logic. This is a common right wing tactic pioneered by Karl Rove in the United States and the Soviets before him. Why should somebody in Montana be able to force their politics on the more populace California? How the hell is that Democracy?
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