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Funny thing is that system has worked marvelously for decades in Nordic countries with high standards of living and functional funding mechanisms. It's been great for them... until now. Sweden started taking in truck loads of refugees from Somalia and Syria and it's been a disaster. They are bleeding the system dry and they are starting to run big deficits and becoming very dependent on the system. There are large groups of unemployed people who then turn to crime and it's just becoming a really nasty situation in parts of Stockholm
All this to say is that a quasi socialist government works great when you have lots of oil revenues and everyone is on board and you have homogeneous demographics. But when you have large groups of uneducated dependent people the system starts to fall apart
I notice OyCrumbler conveniently stays quiet on this.
Funny thing is that system has worked marvelously for decades in Nordic countries with high standards of living and functional funding mechanisms. It's been great for them... until now. Sweden started taking in truck loads of refugees from Somalia and Syria and it's been a disaster. They are bleeding the system dry and they are starting to run big deficits and becoming very dependent on the system. There are large groups of unemployed people who then turn to crime and it's just becoming a really nasty situation in parts of Stockholm
All this to say is that a quasi socialist government works great when you have lots of oil revenues and everyone is on board and you have homogeneous demographics. But when you have large groups of uneducated dependent people the system starts to fall apart
Forget the Nordic countries. Just look at the mess in Germany. Angela Merkel with her "inclusionist" BS... Leeches sucking the system dry...
Those countries are hybrids. For example, Sweden, Denmark etc have lower taxes on corporations than even the United States, have no minimum wage laws, and they benefit from the economic/security situation in the world that is run by the United States. They have outsourced their foreign policy and military spending to the EU/US a long time ago. Not to blame them of course, they are very small countries and are not expected to solve issued like Somali pirates, Suez canal shipping, ME security situation, etc. It is also not clear how long they can actually maintain their social spending as their population grows.
I don't know why people bring up Norway. Norway is a tiny country that has a $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund from all the oil they extract that owns something like 1.5% of all the stocks in the world. Realistically, no one in Norway has to work at all for generations, and they can live under whatever economic system they want. All they care about is that other countries they invest in remain capitalist, so they can invest and extract returns. Saudi Arabia also has great standard of living, but that doesn't mean theocratic authoritarianism is the way to go.
Right, though as I said later, all countries are on a spectrum when it comes to socialism and state intervention versus a fully free market economy. There's no clear optimal solution and any optimal solution shifts with different conditions. With those attributes you've mentioned, it's also pretty fair to say overall that there is a large degree of state intervention and a very large social support network in those countries compared to the US. Sweden and Denmark as part of the EU has outsourced much of their foreign policy and the EU and NATO but they both contribute to those. Military spending is another can of worms that I think the US needs to redress and in some ways I'm aligned with parts of what the current federal administration has said about the matter. Also addressing the below (hi Blake!), I do think that for Sweden, the amount of refugees they take in in proportion to their population is a bad idea. One thing that hasn't happened is that the US and EU have not been able to impress on our wealthier "allies" in the Middle East to take in such refugees which is ridiculous.
It does make sense to bring up Norway to some degree as their sovereign wealth fund didn't just magically appear. It appeared because the North Sea oil resources were exploited only since the 70s and the nation as a whole kept it under state control and then took the revenues and put them into a sovereign wealth fund. Saudi Arabia is actually a worse counterpoint because their ratio of proven reserves to citizen population well overtakes that of Norway which has a much smaller ratio and their oil reserves aren't as sweet nor as easy to extract.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BlakeJones
Funny thing is that system has worked marvelously for decades in Nordic countries with high standards of living and functional funding mechanisms. It's been great for them... until now. Sweden started taking in truck loads of refugees from Somalia and Syria and it's been a disaster. They are bleeding the system dry and they are starting to run big deficits and becoming very dependent on the system. There are large groups of unemployed people who then turn to crime and it's just becoming a really nasty situation in parts of Stockholm
All this to say is that a quasi socialist government works great when you have lots of oil revenues and everyone is on board and you have homogeneous demographics. But when you have large groups of uneducated dependent people the system starts to fall apart
Right, as I said before, I don't think that Sweden taking in a large amount of refugees proportional to the population is sensible policy. I'm not saying no refugees as a humanitarian measure, but the proportion is way off and the facts are:
- they don't have a massive sovereign wealth fund
- they need to expend a lot of resources per refugee to acculturate as Swedish is not a well-known language anywhere outside of Scandinavia
- there are countries that are wealthy and speak Arabic
- Sweden, though a large arms dealer, had little culpability in the mess made in the Middle East historically or in recent times
That doesn't invalidate state intervention as Sweden's economy is incredibly productive and its social welfare support arguably much better than ours even with their proportionally massive refugee intake (which I think should be more limited).
One thing neither of you talked about is Canada which has large proven oil reserves but are mostly very, very difficult and costly to extract from tar sands and has a very diverse population and has several policies in place that would make a Democrat blush. Sure, Canada is large, but the vast majority of that land mass would be horrendously energy and resource intensive in order to make inhabitable and thriving which is why their population centers are all concentrated at its southern extremities.
Of course, the US can't take all policies of these places, but you have to remember that my response was to an idiotic strawman post from our resident special buddy who marked Cuba and Venezuela as the models for socialism which was an incredibly naive statement.
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Originally Posted by antinimby
I didn't bother reading most of this babbling about nothing. Doubt most anybody else did either. I know you have lots of free time. Back to your false claim...basically you are attributing your false premise on "people in the U.S." Who are these people?
No one here said those European countries were socialist. You basically set up your own straw man argument and then went on explaining it as if you were some authority.
We've been through this before--I already know you have a hard time with more complex arguments. I'm obviously talking about you and those like you when I refer to those (too) many people in the US who have difficulty grappling with larger issues. Your characterizations were wrong and it's okay if you don't realize it, but it's better on a larger forum that people can see where you're wrong even if you yourself are having a harder time with it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by antinimby
I notice OyCrumbler conveniently stays quiet on this.
Sometimes I actually work on other things and I also like to actually see how some things play out before responding. It goes well with actual putting some modicum of thought into topics like this. Try it.
Might want to educate yourself on why the founders of our country, esp. Madison & Hamilton, went to great lengths to avoid the distortion of public policy and decisions by mob rule - which he called faction.
I won't hold my breath waiting though.
Answer is simple: because Madison and Hamilton and Jefferson and Washington were rich men in control and wanted to remain in control. And that is why the U.S. was never set up as a democracy but rather as a plutocracy, with slavery no less. The "founding fathers were no less selfish than Robespierre and Danton, vain, power hungry martinets.
The rich minority is ALWAYS petrified of the poor majority.
Last edited by Kefir King; 02-07-2019 at 11:57 AM..
Answer is simple: because Madison and Hamilton and Jefferson and Washington were rich men in control and wanted to remain in control. And that is why the U.S. was never set up as a democracy but rather as a plutocracy.
Surely you jest - after the revolutionary war Washington was basically Emperor of America. It was his army and he controlled everything.
What did he do? He handed the army over to the government, prescribed how to set up the new administration, then left and went home to his farm.
We've been through this before--I already know you have a hard time with more complex arguments. I'm obviously talking about you and those like you when I refer to those (too) many people in the US who have difficulty grappling with larger issues. Your characterizations were wrong and it's okay if you don't realize it, but it's better on a larger forum that people can see where you're wrong even if you yourself are having a harder time with it.
Actually, you have been through this many times before. This is your schtick. Create a straw man argument and then go on to argue based on your own straw man and because you have lots of free time, you think you "win" the argument because you get the last word.
Tell me exactly what characterization of mine was wrong. Nothing in my posts that you replied to had any wrong characterizations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler
Sometimes I actually work on other things and I also like to actually see how some things play out before responding. It goes well with actual putting some modicum of thought into topics like this. Try it.
Just another way of saying you have lots of free time and get off by outlasting others on meaningless online forums.
As for SALT deductions, I’m in favor of gradually phasing them out and I very much want the federal tax code to be simplified. However, my qualms with the tax code revision is that the phase out of SALT deductions were essentially done to fund federal tax cuts for those in the top brackets but without a plan to revisit the 16th amendment or a push towards better equalizing the federal tax receipt to federal expenditure ratios for different states. It is not mere coincidence that the states that are hit hardest by the reduction of SALT deductions also have some of the worst absolute and per capita federal expenditure to federal tax receipt ratios. The other major issues are that there was a relative paucity of white papers and studies on the effects of the tax code revision as well as tax code not actually having been simplified much if at all.
This is another liberal talking point that needs to be addressed.
The reason why these states do have less federal funds going to them is because they refuse to take these federal funds in the first place. Whenever the federal government proposes a nuclear test site, a nuclear or chemical waste storage facility, a missile range, or a federal prison, these states are the first to refuse and outsource these "undesirable" programs on the poorer states. So these poorer states end up with more federal government facilities and with more federal government funding flowing to them.
If the good people of Long Island, or wherever else, want more federal government money, I am sure they wouldn't mind the feds opening a Supermax facility in the Hamptons.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler
One thing neither of you talked about is Canada which has large proven oil reserves but are mostly very, very difficult and costly to extract from tar sands and has a very diverse population and has several policies in place that would make a Democrat blush. Sure, Canada is large, but the vast majority of that land mass would be horrendously energy and resource intensive in order to make inhabitable and thriving which is why their population centers are all concentrated at its southern extremities.
Canada has much stricter immigration laws. They do not border any poor countries, and most of their immigrants are rich and educated Asians, Europeans, Americans, and Africans coming through their "Economic migrant" programs. Also, their financial system is much less regulated compared to the US and they are running budget deficits just like the US, but with elevated tax burden already.
Actually, you have been through this many times before. This is your schtick. Create a straw man argument and then go on to argue based on your own straw man and because you have lots of free time, you think you "win" the argument because you get the last word.
Tell me exactly what characterization of mine was wrong. Nothing in my posts that you replied to had any wrong characterizations.
Just another way of saying you have lots of free time and get off by outlasting others on meaningless online forums.
Let me help you!
Here is what you said and what I responded to you.
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Originally Posted by antinimby
So now you care about Democracy? I thought you loved socialism. Cuba and Venezuela should be more to your liking. Those are your only choices left. (Even Russia, China and Vietnam had to ditch socialism because that crap don't work).
This is literally my response to that where you state where your characterizations are wrong. You didn't refute any of that though, probably because refuting those would be inaccurate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler
Socialism does not necessarily have to be authoritarian rule. Certainly Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland are still generally considered democracies but have many policies that would be considered far to the left and “socialist” within the US. I, for one, prefer those models instead of Cuba and Venezuela.
Also, neither China nor Vietnam have ditched socialism. They’ve ditched communism almost in all but name and decorum but they have a massive public support structure still to this day and rely strongly on state-controlled resources (take a look at Fortune’s Global 500 companies and then look up what those Chinese companies at the top actually are) and utilities for generating revenue and the taxes are massively lopsided and much more heavily toward the wealthy and large corporations. They have limited free market capitalism that has very aggressive government intervention. Now, I’m not in favor of China’s political system and they are, in my eyes, a far worse model to follow with the authoritarianism they have and the lack of resilience a system like that can have, but I think it’s good to actually get your characterizations correct.
As for free time--yes, I actually do have free time! I work pretty efficiently and through odd hours, but I let myself wander when I need a break since I work for myself and do pretty alright. Besides, it doesn't really matter what I say because on one hand you're saying I'm merely outlasting people and then you try a weak-wristed jab below:
Quote:
Originally Posted by antinimby
I notice OyCrumbler conveniently stays quiet on this.
It's good sport!
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