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Old 09-10-2014, 08:46 AM
 
1,259 posts, read 826,235 times
Reputation: 142

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil P View Post
One guy from Sweden said in my class the other day that there is this unwritten rule in Sweden that it's really looked down upon if you look or try to look like your above the rest of people in monetary class. It's showy and they don't like it. That does not exist here in the US, and it's probably a very big difference between the two countries.
Nobody like show-offs and Sweden although not religious, is still culturally a Protestant country, shunning the unnecessary glitter.
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Old 09-10-2014, 08:49 AM
 
Location: Taos NM
5,342 posts, read 5,085,183 times
Reputation: 6756
Quote:
Originally Posted by random_thoughts View Post
Nobody like show-offs and Sweden although not religious, is still culturally a Protestant country, shunning the unnecessary glitter.
I'd question that nobody likes showoffs. Just look at peoples cars here in the US, sooooo much show on them.
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Old 09-10-2014, 08:52 AM
 
10,545 posts, read 13,561,768 times
Reputation: 2823
Quote:
Originally Posted by knowledgeiskey View Post
No they aren't. Stop making up lies.
If you want to present some information, that's fine, but you can quit with the unsupported accusations.

They have started having those problems and with financing which is why in those countries there has been a move toward privatizing more of what had been government services and things such as their pension systems.

You also have this:

Immigrants: The ins and the outs | The Economist

Mass immigration is posing serious problems for the region. For the Nordic countries to be able to afford their welfare states they need to have 80% of their adults in the workforce, but labour-force participation among non-European immigrants is much lower than that. In Sweden only 51% of non-Europeans have a job, compared with over 84% of native Swedes. The Nordic countries need to persuade their citizens that they are getting a good return on their taxes, but mass immigration is creating a class of people who are permanently dependent on the state.

Torben Tranaes, of Denmark’s Rockwool Foundation Research Unit, calculates that in the mid-1990s immigrants in their 40s—the age group that generally contributes most to the public budget—paid only marginally more in taxes than they received in benefits. In Sweden 26% of all prisoners, and 50% of prisoners serving more than five years, are foreigners. Some 46% of the jobless are non-Europeans, and 40% of non-Europeans are classified as poor, compared with only 10% of native Swedes.
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Old 09-10-2014, 09:01 AM
 
Location: New Jersey
12,755 posts, read 9,622,380 times
Reputation: 13164
Quote:
Originally Posted by lycos679 View Post
I do. In addition to not liking each other we don't trust each other either.

We just want a reason to shoot up, imprison, and marginalize other Americans.
Are you saying you don't like people you don't even know?

This is a personal bias, and not representative of all 300 million Americans, I'm sure.
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Old 09-10-2014, 09:03 AM
 
6,940 posts, read 9,658,473 times
Reputation: 3153
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rggr View Post
If you want to present some information, that's fine, but you can quit with the unsupported accusations.

They have started having those problems and with financing which is why in those countries there has been a move toward privatizing more of what had been government services and things such as their pension systems.

You also have this:

Immigrants: The ins and the outs | The Economist

Mass immigration is posing serious problems for the region. For the Nordic countries to be able to afford their welfare states they need to have 80% of their adults in the workforce, but labour-force participation among non-European immigrants is much lower than that. In Sweden only 51% of non-Europeans have a job, compared with over 84% of native Swedes. The Nordic countries need to persuade their citizens that they are getting a good return on their taxes, but mass immigration is creating a class of people who are permanently dependent on the state.

Torben Tranaes, of Denmark’s Rockwool Foundation Research Unit, calculates that in the mid-1990s immigrants in their 40s—the age group that generally contributes most to the public budget—paid only marginally more in taxes than they received in benefits. In Sweden 26% of all prisoners, and 50% of prisoners serving more than five years, are foreigners. Some 46% of the jobless are non-Europeans, and 40% of non-Europeans are classified as poor, compared with only 10% of native Swedes.
They can afford it though.
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Old 09-10-2014, 09:10 AM
 
11,768 posts, read 10,238,266 times
Reputation: 3444
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fox Terrier View Post
Are you saying you don't like people you don't even know?

This is a personal bias, and not representative of all 300 million Americans, I'm sure.
I'm saying Americans don't like other Americans.
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Old 09-10-2014, 09:15 AM
 
10,545 posts, read 13,561,768 times
Reputation: 2823
Quote:
Originally Posted by knowledgeiskey View Post
They can afford it though.
I wasn't syaing they've reached a tipping point or were in crisis, but they have had to make adjustments in what they offer because the problems have started to surface. The increase in immigration has further complicated it.
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Old 09-10-2014, 10:25 AM
 
Location: Midwest City, Oklahoma
14,856 posts, read 8,178,556 times
Reputation: 4590
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fox Terrier View Post
Wow, I don't agree with this at all!

Neither does anyone I personally know.

I work/live with many different ethnicities.

How is it possible for one to not like a person they don't even know?
The question you have to first ask is "What causes crime?". Better yet ask "Why is rioting and looting such a problem in America and not in most other countries?"

Obviously some crime is just going to happen, but some people who become criminals aren't necessarily bad or evil people.

When I was younger, I used to steal from stores like Wal-mart without much thought. To me, Wal-mart was a non-person. Wal-mart was rich, I was poor. I would never in a million years steal from my family or friends but saw no issue whatsoever with taking anything and everything I could from these "corporate stores".

In general, thieves come in two types. You have the thieves who would steal from their own mother. Then you have the thieves who only steal from people they don't know. Most thieves, especially "professional thieves" wouldn't steal from people they care about.

The kinds of thieves who would never steal from people they care about, under the Nordic system, would probably never become thieves to begin with. In most cases, those kinds of people become thieves because they feel justified in taking from people who either have so much more than them, or because they believe they have been taken advantage of by people who don't even deserve what they have.


The problem in America, is that on some level you have a combination of classism, racism, and ethnocentrism which makes it easy to justify criminal behavior by one group against another group. Even worse, in America, the criminal behavior is not only justified by the individual/group, but the media and politicians will even start to justify it. Saying in effect that "they deserved it".

In a more "homogeneous" nation like Norway, this kind of behavior is much more frowned upon. And it is more difficult to justify taking from "your own people" than from "others".


The goal of a nation is to try to convince all of us that we are all the same people. But is every American truly the same as me? Why should I feel any differently about a "Mexican-American" than an actual Mexican? Why should I feel differently about an Iraqi refugee living in America than I do an Iraqi still in Iraq?


The idea that I should think of other ethnic groups as "my people"(even if they have an American passport) should actually require me to think of everyone in the whole world as "my people". But how many Americans really think about people in other countries the same as they think about Americans? For that matter, who thinks of people of other ethnic groups, races, classes, or even families, as being the same?


If your sister dropped a $20 bill in front of you and didn't notice. Probably 99% of all people on this Earth would hand her back her $20 bill. But if some white businessman dropped a $20 bill and walked off, what percentage of Americans would return it to him? I think of myself as fairly honest, but there is a good possibility that I would pick it up, stand there for a minute to see if he comes back, if not, I would just drop it in my pocket and go on with my life. I'm not going to track him down to give him his money because at best I just don't care about him, and at worse I probably assume he is a scumbag whose entire job is to screw everyone else out of their money.


Americans are not the same people, and as soon as there is a controversy you can see the country break down by race, culture, ethnic group, and social-class. And that is why you cannot have the "Nordic model" in America.


I tend to dislike and distrust people who aren't like me. If you say you are from New Jersey, I assume you are a liberal and are probably employed in some capacity in finance/investments. I hate liberals, I hate investors/speculators, and I hate bankers.

Last edited by Redshadowz; 09-10-2014 at 11:16 AM..
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Old 09-10-2014, 10:53 AM
 
46,887 posts, read 25,854,193 times
Reputation: 29353
Being Scandinavian, I have had a great time reading this thread. Can't really find the time to post a proper reply, but even so, there are a few misconceptions that could do with a response:

Off-shore oil is a relatively new phenomenon, way younger than the Nordic Model per se. And it only really benefits Norway - Denmark has more-or-less enough for her own use, Sweden has next to nothing.

The environmental consequences have been thought through with some care, and government regulations (OMG!) keep the operations working under a microscope. The absence of a tradition for corruption (this is really, I think, one of the key requirements for the model to work at all) keeps regulators from becoming too chummy with the industry. Remember the Louisiana leak and the frantic efforts to get a relief well drilled? In North Sea operations, the relief well is drilled in parallel with the production well. And if oil companies don't want to extract oil under those conditions, they can go somewhere else.

It does make a difference when companies can talk about being "good corporate citizens" without the stockholders revolting. And when unions and management can look at each other as adversaries without being mortal enemies.

And while there is permanent adjustments made to the model, no politician in their right mind wants to try to dismantle it.

For people like myself - with a portable, fairly well-paid skillset - the differences in day-to-day life are actually kinda minor. What I pay in tax and other necessities like health insurance, 401(k) etc. here in the US is not, as a percentage, that different from what I'd be paying in Denmark. As long as I don't stray from my nice little safe beach community, the weather and the lack of vacation days is the main difference. But all systems work well if you are a reasonably resourceful.

And I am damn happy that my family back home has a fairly well-working system to fall back on in times of need.
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Old 09-10-2014, 10:59 AM
 
Location: georgia
939 posts, read 792,690 times
Reputation: 704
It's too nordic.
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