Yes, "business freedom" relates to the ease of legally opening and closing a business in a country.
Political Atheists Blog
Watch this Youtube video from ReasonTV with a Swedish classic liberal PhD. He explains in 9 min what I've been saying. That the US cannot go the Swedish way since the Public Sector in the US is so extremely inefficient.
He also discusses the development during the crazy years 1968-1993 and the extreme free market reforms of 1993 onwards that expalisn Sweden's growth, its not as teh left in teh US wants it to be because of socialism just the opposite, massive lowering of taxes, massive deregulation and privatization.
Lastly he aslo points out the most important thing. Taxes in Sweden are hihg but they are intra personal transfers 80-85 % of taxes paid by and indvudla goes back to himself. The rest 10-15 % covers defense and otehr governemetn functions, redistribution is virtually non existent. In fact Sweden has toghether wiht Germany the wolrds most regressive tax system, low income earners pay higher taxes on low income.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG51uCrYxVM
Hi the above sounds like a good system leading to a harmonious society. So I am a little confused.
In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king
What is he talking about? 40% income tax? If you calculate your income tax the way the government wants you to, the income tax for low wage earners is in most municipalities between 30-35 %. And if you include the payroll tax, which you should, low income earners have an income tax of well above 60% already. And of course it doesn't end there, when you have things like a 25% VAT, but that's another story.
Sorry to bump this thread, but I was curious if anyone has added anything to wikipedia. I just read the whole thread in the last few days. Great information. Sounds like Sweden is a social democratic-corporatist-welfare state. A mouthful!
Brian: Sorry to bump this thread, but I was curious if anyone has added anything to wikipedia. I just read the whole thread in the last few days. Great information. Sounds like Sweden is a social democratic-corporatist-welfare state. A mouthful!
which WIki page are you talking about?
This might be another good page for someone to answer (and then we could all vote it up after):
A page or so ago, someone suggested compiling and sourcing the information gathered on this thread a making a wikipedia article on it. I was curious is anyone has attempted to do so.
I live in the US and payed 60% of my income to taxes.
In the US we call them Mexicans
Big thanks to krazy_kaju and all who added resources to amazing thread, I've processed some into an article here (and I try to avoid using blogs and completely avoid forum posts, but this one is so incredibly useful it deserved a special mention).
Mises Wiki | Economic Resources and Books (search engine)
I am a Norwegian who has been to both Sweden and Denmark many times. I have studied at several universities, including LSE and I have been to Mises University and written a master's thesis about the Austrian School.
I'd like to repeat what I said in the beginning of this thread: It is wrong, and in fact ridiculous, to claim that Norway is the least successful of the Nordic countries. What is this based on? Rather, I'd claim it is probably the most successful nation by most measures.
Yes, Norway has a lot of oil, but it was not until about 1998 that this actually gave the country a surplus. Until that point, Norway was running a net deficit in terms of oil due to the fact that the investments in production of the oil was not yet covered. For the last 12 years, Norway has been fairly careful in their use of the so called "oil money", only bringing a small part of its return into the economy each year.
Im not gonna deny that there are a lot of problems in Norway. A very large proportion of the population survive on the welfare state and there are inefficiencies. Despite this, I really dont think the living standard is lower in Norway than in any other Nordic country, and its probably higher than in the wast majority of the nations of the world.
In Sweden, the benfits and problems are just about the same as in Norway, but Norwegians have much higher purchasing power than the Swedes do. No young Norwegian goes to Sweden to work, but if you go to Oslo (the capital of Norway), almost every waiter or salesperson in a kiosk or shop is Swedish. They flood Norway to take advantage of the prosperity and better economic oppurtunities that exist in Norway. Also, the Swedes have a major issue with their naïve immigration policy which in Norway is far more sober-minded.
Denmark is surely a nice country, but I don't really see how they may be regarded as a better country than Norway in economic terms, even though they have much better prerequisities, being essentially an urban central European nation, while Norway is a rural a wild country with a population density almost 1/10 of denmark. Obviously Norway is a more expensive country to run.
Iceland is not really part of Scandinavia (another error in the article. Scandinavia = Norway, Sweden, Denmark. Nordic= Scandinavia + Finland + Iceland), but it can in no way be regarded as more successful than Norway. I think it is enough to remember the financial issues of Iceland 2 years ago, and the fact that Norway bailed Iceland out.
In general, I think the bottom line with this thread is that, whether Austrians like it or not (they do not), a welfare state that is too large is probably no more harmful than a laissez faire economy. In the former, there are inefficiencies and people shirking from work, living off the state benefits. In the latter, you ignore the wast number of situations in which the market does not clear in any relevant sense.
My opinion is that it is too simple to stick to an ideology and to defend it on every issue. What one should aim for is rational politics- if a free market is rational then go for it, but lets not try to justify the free market simply to defend an ideological bias.
In general, I think the bottom line with this thread is that, whether Austrians like it or not (they do not), a welfare state that is too large is probably no more harmful than a laissez faire economy.
Now all you have to do is explain how that works. If the best that you can come up with is, "Oh, producing 0.7 barrels of oil per day per capita is no benefit," you might want to try a little harder. I suggest starting with a less laughable argument.
Two minor clarifications to get rid of: Britannica defines Scandinavia as you do, adding that some authorities also include Finland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. (And fairly or not, many people outside of those countries don't make a distinction either.)
Also, at least the initial post from krazy_kaju doesn't say that Norway is the least successful of these countries. Don't know anymore what happened later in this long thread, but let's not make this a "my favorite country is better than your favorite country". And if, then with sources please. :)
With those asides, I would be also intrigued to hear about the comparative dangers of an oversized welfare state and a laissez faire economy.
Youve written a master thesis but dont know that valuation is subjective?
He didn't say it was favourable.
Im extremely busy, but I finally found time to write a reply. This post is on Norway, the next one ideology and why I believe social rights may be justified.
Im not very nationalistic and have no interest in making it a "my favorite country is better than your favorite country" kind of thing. However, you are trying to make an encyclopedia article right? So I just wanted to contribute by pointing out that its wrong to state that Norway is the least successful country. I think, like I said, that the extensive immigration to Norway of young Swedes is one proof of that. Why would they all come to Norway if its less successful? And why have Norwegians been able to the majority of holiday homes along the south-western Swedish coast? Besides, Norway with half the population has passed Sweden in TOTAL GDP (at least in one quarter of 2009). That is pretty incredible, and I don’t think oil can explain all of that.
Which country to include in Scandinavia, Nordic etc is of course not a very important matter, especially for those who are not from the area and all different people are good friends so no one would be insulted like the irish might be if you said they were part of the UK. A couple of points though: Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Denmark) has been one country in the past. Finland, Iceland and Faroe have been parts of the other three at various times, but always as a subordinate. Also, Scandinavia is tied together by the language- unless the dialect is weird it is relatively easy for people from the three countries to understand one another. Iceland, and especially Finland, on the other hand have languages that are very different and not understandable to a Norwegian, Swede or Dane.
Obviously, the oil discoveries have been great for Norway, but this fact by itself cannot account for the success of the country. Its not enough to find resources, you need to take advantage of them in a good way also.I think the Norwegian government has done so. As history shows, it is not always unambiguously positive for a nation to get a free lunch like that. Galloping domestic costs, a degenerating and increasingly lazy population and generally unwise usage of the newly acquired wealth may easily be the outcome. To some extent it has I guess, but I think it has been a wise policy to invest the money and only to spend parts of the real yearly return for government consumption. Currently, the Norwegian petro fund is the second largest in the world (see list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_wealth_fund) and through it, the Norwegian government (ruling on behalf of less than 5m ppl) on average own 1 % of all the companies in the world. That is astonishing and it puts Norway in a very healthy position in facing the aging population etc compared with most other European nations. Hence, most of the oil-money has been invested and has only to a relatively small extent been used to keep the welfare state running.
I think the success of Norway (and the other Nordics) is to a larger extent based on other factors. In terms of economic theory- yes the welfare state is too large and the negative effects may not be seen for generations yet – but one has also largely avoided the incentive problems that was so typical in the Soviet block. This is partly to do with the fact that the Scandinavian countries after all are market economies (by Mises definition, i.e. they all have stock markets), which I guess is one of the aims of the encyclopedia article to point out. Also, I think the policies that have been conducted have been determined and executed in a generally wise way in which specialized professionals have been holding key positions in the national administration and bureaucracy, and in general have aimed to achieve preferable outcomes rather than to be social democrats at all costs. I.e. the market has been allowed to operate freely whenever it did not have consequences that were seen as unacceptable by the electorate and/or the professional bureaucrats.
To the extent that the state still has been oversized and inefficient, I think that most of the Nordic success may be explained from other fortunate factors: These include high levels of human capital, easy access to technology from W.Europe and the US, no serious conflicts among different population groups, no wars to fund or fight (apart from WW2 of course) and abundance of natural resources. Most important, however, has probably been the high level of social capital. People trust each other (or at least they did in the past) because most people share the same values and have the same background. People are few and homogeneous. I think this is an essential point, I think that a welfare state may be a lot more successful in a small and homogeneous country than in a country like the US.
Now to the ideological issues that have been raised. Let me just say that I have learned loads from the libertarian movement which I greatly respect- hence, to some extent I play the devil’s advocate here. However, I no longer think that a laissez-faire should be an ideal to be approached.
Obviously, I don’t need to go into the potential inefficiencies of an excessive welfare state, this is after all mises.org. Regarding the laissez-faire state it is pretty obvious (unless all you read is Ayn Rand and Austrian Economics) that this is not “efficient” in the most relevant sense either . It is basically irrational to leave the state out, claiming that it cannot have any potentially beneficiary role other than as a policeman or as a judge. There are many situations in which the self-interest of individuals by itself does not lead to the desired outcome by most standards, both when it comes to efficiency and moral.
Firstly, there are all the market failures that are identified in economic theory. I recognize that some of these might be taken into account by a laissez-faire constitutional state (at least if you stretch concepts a little), but I think the concept of market failure justified a much larger role for the state than what is implied by the laissez-faire concept. I have heard leading Austrians lecturing to match this problem and I was not impressed.
Second, I think the libertarian movement in general has a too weak and meaningless concept of power. The standard claim is that coercion is wrong. But when is it coercion? Is that only when there is a threat of imprisonment or fines? In a more realistic and broader definition of power, it has to be included that one individual may have power over another in more relative terms as well. The fact that some people (either by skill, luck or heritage) have ownership of resources, usually implies that they have power relative to those who have no resources. I’d say its pretty narrow-minded not to acknowledge that this also may have some relevance and a potentially equalizing role for the state. A high level of inequality, in which a large portion of the population are forced (not in theory, but in practice) to work for wages below what is necessary to maintain a healthy life (by most standards) may be harmful to the extent that these people will suffer and probably develop a hostile view of society.
Third, libertarians acknowledge civil- negative- rights, but refuse to accept any social- positive- rights. Again, I think this is too narrow minded as the latter certainly may affect your ability to claim the former. In principle a person or a company may have the right not to be damaged by anyone else, but in order to claim your civil rights and fight injustice in the court, you need resources and you need at least some basic level of power. Rejecting the social rights as a part of citizenship essentially also deteriorate the civil rights.
Fourth, as economic theory tells us, the marginal utility is declining. Hence, the first dollars you spend on consumption gives the most satisfaction before they the utility of the next one decreases. This justifies redistribution. It is little comfort to people who struggle with health issues and very low income that rich people will invest.
Fifth, there is a society, a community, and- whether you like it or not- we are all living in it, affected and shaped by it. Social capital is extremely important, and it’s the role of the welfare state to safeguard and increase this type of capital.
Do you really think that the working poor, the ill who do not have insurance, the ones with low IQ, etc. are to be left to the whim of charity? I think one of the great advantages of the welfare state is that it creates a sense of security for all the inhabitants, one always knows that one has the most basic social rights no matter what happens in life and I think this improves quality of life and also allows more risk taking.
Darn the lack of time!
I finally found the 'least successful' mention, should have been looking better! Thanks for correction, tke, the description has been reworded. Norway has the lowest ranking according to the Index of Economic Freedom, which is certainly not perfect and not an ultimate indicator of success. An encyclopedic entry indeed deserves better. (On the side: if you happen to have respectable resources on the arguments you used, I'd be happy to include them - especially 'social capital' and similar hard-to-measure factors, the article is rather heavy on numbers which by far don't tell the whole story - although the luck to avoid many wars is included, as the strong free-market features these countries have.)
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Alas, I don't have time to refute the second post, hopefully someone else can jump in or point to previous discussions. Suffice to say, the concept of market failure is rather disputed around here, and, even assuming that it exists, one has to compare it to the very real concept of government failure. Will a state improve the evils it sets out to mend, or will it make them them worse? That is a question even a minarchist has to face (hope the label is appropriate).
The other points have more issues and deserve a more detailed address. (Note: the fourth and fifth point are clearly non-sequitur, you might want to look into those.)
I am a Dane who has lived in Danmark and Sweden, and has travelled to norway.
I don't know what point I made earlier when I entered in this thread, but I think it's a little silly to argue about how one of the Scandinavian countries is slightly better then another. Because honestly, are the differences that great? To be honest, I get the vibe that your post is tainted with nationalist bias, something incredibly prevalent although tempered in all three scandinavian countries.
tke:In Sweden, the benfits and problems are just about the same as in Norway, but Norwegians have much higher purchasing power than the Swedes do. No young Norwegian goes to Sweden to work, but if you go to Oslo (the capital of Norway), almost every waiter or salesperson in a kiosk or shop is Swedish. They flood Norway to take advantage of the prosperity and better economic oppurtunities that exist in Norway.
Its the same in copenhagen. However, typically, I would argue that Swedes do not go to Norway or Danmark to live there. They go to work there. No young Swede in their right mind goes to "live" permanently in Norway, let alone spend a vast majority of their earnings given how expensive it. When I was in Luleå thats what all the exchange students and Swedes bitched about, was how expensive norway is. The Swedes live in Malmö and work in Copenhagen. Also, a lot of "fun" things for the average jo-blo is highly regulated and taxed in norway. Relative to Danmark or Sweden. Another reason not move.
I want to see some statistics on the claim that Swedes are emigrating to Norway, and residing their permanently.
Also to further explain the difference between Sweden, Norway and Denmark look at their relative positions on the list of countries by GDP (PPP) and the same list per capita. In the first you will find that Sweden is #32, Norway #42, and Danmark #50. This is exactly why Swedes will come work in Norway and Danmark to earn some DKK or NOK to be spent back in Sweden.
tke:Also, the Swedes have a major issue with their naïve immigration policy which in Norway is far more sober-minded.
More opinion here. Statistics would be nice.
tke:Iceland is not really part of Scandinavia (another error in the article. Scandinavia = Norway, Sweden, Denmark. Nordic= Scandinavia + Finland + Iceland), but it can in no way be regarded as more successful than Norway. I think it is enough to remember the financial issues of Iceland 2 years ago, and the fact that Norway bailed Iceland out.
This statement is accurate apart from the Norway bailing out Iceland out thing. Not that Norway didn't bail them out, but that also Danmark, Sweden, Finland, U.K, and Russia all contributed ^^....and the IMF. Maybe Germany did too? Can't remember.
And if you want to reason it this way, well how do you explain that Danmark dominated Norway for the greater part of the millennium? And Sweden owned Norway for about 100 years. ^^ (This is the chip in their shoulder that a lot of Norwegians carry.)
tke:In general, I think the bottom line with this thread is that, whether Austrians like it or not (they do not), a welfare state that is too large is probably no more harmful than a laissez faire economy. In the former, there are inefficiencies and people shirking from work, living off the state benefits. In the latter, you ignore the wast number of situations in which the market does not clear in any relevant sense.
I don't think any Austrian forum will agree to this. Especially not here when they sell T-Shirts that say Markets Clear.
And no I'm not taking that out of context. Although perhaps I'm wrong, maybe someone will post a link to a thread showing just contentious the issue of Markets clearing is in the Austrian Community. ^^
To be honest, I get the vibe that your post is tainted with nationalist bias, something incredibly prevalent although tempered in all three scandinavian countries.
I've noticed since long ago that Scandinavians are exceptionally jingoist.
OK, may be its nationalism may be its not- it doesnt really matter anyway. I would have argued against a statement saying that sweden or (especially) denmark are the least successful also. This is because i agree with your statement: They are so similar that it is hard to argue that one is better than the other- to a large extent its a question of individual preference and I believe this goes for most wealthy countries in the world.
On the immigration point: Look at the election results, Sverigedemokraterna and the reactions towards the party. They are seen as a highly racist party, yet they got over 5% nationally and over 10% in Skåne, and the other party leaders dont even want to be in the same room as them.
I dont think anyone yet knows whether the thousands of young swedes will stay in norway, and i have not seen any statistics on their intentions for the future. From the small sample i have talked to, they dont seem that determined to go back. Of course you can argue that they only stay there temporarily etc etc, but fact is still that there are tens of thousands of young swedes working in oslo (a city of 600 000) and they people dont just take wage into account when they choose where to live do they? I think Friedman was right in saying that people vote with their feet. Living in malmö and working in copenhagen is not the same thing, you just have to drive across a bridge, not move country. Regarding your comment about denmark and sweden dominating norway in history- I know the black plague hit norway extremely hard and it took centuries before the population was back up to pre 1349 levels, this made the country weak and easy to dominate. The swedish union was (like the danish union for the first 180 years) to a much larger extent based on equality between the nations (even though they were the bigger brother). I have no problem with this history even though im sure some norwegians do- i would have to have a very collectivist/nationalist outlook to be bothered by something that happened to other people hundreds of years ago. Anyway, it is not that relevant for this thread is it? A sign of danish nationalism?
That is pretty incredible, and I don’t think oil can explain all of that.
You realize that 30% of Norway state revenue is oil, right? Norway is also the largest exporter of natural gas. The province of Alberta in Canada has the same things. Norway has $52k gdp per capita. Sounds good? Alberta has $80k. You don't see this with national statistics because it is aggregated with leach provinces like Quebec.
I dont really see how the "jingoist-comment" in any way is revelant here, but it is kind of interesting.
Wikipedia says that jingoist is "extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy".
It is kind of a peculiar thing to say given that none of these countries voluntarily seem to have participated in a war for the past 200 years (except some NATO and UN operations far away).
Can you point to some important historical events in which this has been the case for the Nordic countries?
Yes, i realize that norway gets a lot of income from natural resources- my point was just that this will not automatically be of a great benefit for a country (dutch disease etc), and an explanation for ALL the wonderful things that may happen to it. I think its a bit like a child can get spoild and wasteful by getting things too easily.
Obviously there are regional differences, also in norway. It is an interesting point though as one may question where the lines of comparison are drawn.
I come from Norway myself, although I don't live there anymore.
If Norway didn't have oil, Norway would probably be the poorest country in Scandinavia. Back in the 1970s Norway had the same GDP per capita as Italia and was way behind Sweden and Denmark. Also, Norway had much lower growth rates and had a huge trade deficit. Things were going wrong. If Norway didn't find oil, then they would keep struggeling to fuel their deficit. Then we would get the crisis in the 90s and living standards would plummet.
Mainland GDP of Norway is around 34K. The oil has given Norway huge trade surplus that have been used to get foreign workers, to buy cheap goods abroad and therefore increase it's living standard. In Norway, electronics is very cheap, but if you want a hair cut, then you have to pay 80-100 dollars. This has happened with charp increases in nominal wages, but no drop in currency like in Sweden.
In the 1980s the Norwegian wage was 24K USD dollar while in the 1970s the Swedish wage was 32.6K dollars. Today the Norwegian wage is 44K dollars while in Sweden it is 27K dollars, Think what the Norwegian wae would have been if Norway didn't find oil.
I meant italy and the cost of 60-80 dollars. I was using a different dollars. Also the reason I didn't use 1970 data for Norway was because I didn't have them.
That is why I said earlier in the thread to look at <1970 GDP per capita stats for Norway, which you can find here.
Caley,
Thank you for this. I'm compiling a comparison between Sweden and Switzerland to show what might happen if the US take the same road as Sweden did between 1968-1993, the functional socialist years. I will compare taxes, public spending, private sector job decline and public sector expansion as well as the factual attempt to socialize i.e. nationalize all Swedish business by adding a tax on profits that would have given the trade unions a majority in all Swedish listed companies.
According to your statistic Switzerland 1973 was no 1 and the US no 2, Sweden no 4 (Norway 17). 1993 Sweden was no 17, the US and Switzerland still was on the top. It shows the price you pay for egalitarianism and welfarism. Everybody gets more equal but all get poorer as well as solidifying wealth income equality. Sweden has the worlds lowest income equality, GINI, but has the developed worlds highest wealth inequality, GINI. higher than the US.
I will also show how the neoliberal, Friedmanite policies of the early 90s saved Sweden and reduced public spending from some 60 % of GDP to almost 45 %.
* Income tax rates where drastically cut.
* Wealth and inheritance tax abolished.
* Caps on property tax.
* Capital gains cut to a flat tax.
* Corporate taxation cut from 54 % to an effective tax rate of 21 %.
* Privatization of public utilities such as railroads, light rail etc.
* Massive deregulation.
*Semi privatization and fully funding of Social Security and as a consequence the only developed country that has no problems with retirement provisions.
*Full school choice ala Friedman with school vouchers.
Spending caps and restriction on budget deficits and budget surpluses also taken out of the political realm. Politicians has no say on when to stimulate or when to retract, its done by automatic balancing mechanism as advocated by Friedman.
I live in Scandinavia.
My countries governmen spending as GDP is 41%... And we get at least better return on it than USA.
in US it is over 44%, most of it is going towards some type of ultimate stupidity plan... (This BTW Is taking account all government).
I would say this busts the myth pretty well.
How many mexicans are there in scandinavia :I
Sieben: How many mexicans are there in scandinavia :I
How many asylum seekers are there in America?
First of there is no scandinavian country. It's three different countries. But you are wrong. Here's the countries spending after Heritage index.
Sweden: 52.5%
Denmark: 51%
Finland: 47.3%
Norway: 40.8% (due to oil)
US: 37.4%
Also, just to mention that other countries in US has just as much federal spending, like France, Austria. Belgium and Italy. And I never heard people holding them up as a model for the US. Also to the post above, US doesn't have many asylum seekers, but neither do Scandinavia yet. Muslims as a part of population in Sweden, which has taken the most is around 5%. In the US around 15% are latinoes. However, Scandinavian countries has much bigger problems with their minorites and they will significantly increase in some years.
Walmart spends 95% of its "GDP" (sales*volume) on centrally planning its "economy". I guess walmart is socialist.
No.
US spending is 44% it is 6.4 trillion divided by the GDP. In fact I jus counted that the estimate is only 43% but somwhere there. (remember in the future it has to be bigger due to the debt though).
My country (finland) has spending of 41%... Though there is also mandatory military half a year and a mandatory TV "tax" if you own TV. I did not specify the country in my last post...
What we get is free education, free healthcare, free social security.... Sure it maybe worse than private sector.
But in US the public sector is a disaster. If I was in US I would not want to have anything to do with it. What do US citizens get for tax money? Wars, inflated housing, education, and healthcare costs and... bunch of regulations and... bubble economies that can't fix themselves due to government subsidy. I do say it would be better if that money was spent digging diches and filling them back up again, so perhaps Krugman has a point...
Us just doesn't seem to get even the reduced benefits of government spending. In fact many dollars would be better not spent....
You are still talking bullshit. You are taking GDP of 2009 or 2008 and dividing it by spending of 2010. Which is wrong. My numbers are coming from the heritage index, and who should we trust. You, or the hertage index. However, their numbers are pre-crisis, but I really doubt that Finland reduced spending after the crisis. especially since spending increased while GDP dropped from 273 billion to 239 billion dollars.
There is nothing wrong with Finland and it's a good country, but don't go around and spread lies. I have no interest in defending US, because I'm not from the US. But I can mention the higher wages and lower taxes, which would be beneficial. US do have free education up to high school. Many people do recieve free health care and social security exist in the US as well. Also, education is a disaster in Sweden, Denmark and especially Norway. It's only Finland that has a good education system.
And your point doesn't make any sense. You first argue that Finland spend less than US, then you argue that US doesn't get any benefits for less governmental spending and argue for more governmental spending, and also that US should waste money on giving pointless jobs to unemployed people. The reason US spend nearly as much, but recieve substancially less is because of all the waste. Scandinavian countries are the most successful social democratic countries and people in Scandinavia was much more honest, hard working than other people. Other countries have tried the same as Scandinavia with less success. For instance the services in France and especially Italy is nothing to celebrate for. If US increased spending to 50% of GDP. US would still not be able to afford scandinavian welfare. Italy and France spends 50% of their GDP and their social services are much weaker than for instance Finland or Iceland before the crisis. However, the Scandinavian work ethics is falling apart and the huge asylum immigration is not helping either.
Sratwman after strawman.
I do not argue that US should spend any more to government, the opposite is what I am saying. How did you conclude that US should spend more? I am pretty much against all government spending, but I said that US is spending the money much LESS efficiently still.
And I checked these numbers from official US government site. The spending is 6.4 trillion and nominal GDP (which obviously should be used here - or if not the government spending has to be converted to the index of real GDP) is around 14.5 trillion.
For finland the GDP is 172 billion euro.
Finland spending is 70.4 billiion (50.4 state, 20 local) = bit less than 41%.
Now I am not including the TV tax (which you have to pay if you own a TV), around 500 million, or the mandatory army service here. Also I had to count the local taxes as how much taxes they recieved(I did add some though). So there you go.
Calmon:My numbers are coming from the heritage index, and who should we trust.
Calmon:Scandinavian countries are the most successful social democratic countries and people in Scandinavia was much more honest, hard working than other people. Other countries have tried the same as Scandinavia with less success.
Calmon:However, the Scandinavian work ethics is falling apart and the huge asylum immigration is not helping either.
There is no nominal GDP of 2010 out yet, so don't use numbers you do not have. Although after crisis, your US numbers are pretty good but your Finnish numbers are way off. Don't tell me that Finland is providing the same services as Denmark or Sweden. But has 10% less governmental spending. Iceland did before the crisis, but Iceland also had a much higher GDP. Finland doesn't. Also, the numbers from heritage provide a different story. I'm sure something is not included.
I found some numbers here, and in 2008 the governmental spending in Finland was 91 billion Euro. After that it has just increased. In 2008, that means around 49% before crisis. And about 56% governmental spending in 2009. You completely forgot to add the social security fund. US however had 37% in 2008 and 42% in 2009.
http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SNA_TABLE11
Sieben: 1. And the UN development index is part of left wing propaganda. They are still not going to use wrong numbers to get countries like Norway higher up. Actually US is dropping. it's not like right wing people don't criticize US. While left wing people in Scandinavia do not criticize their own country, but it's not because it's perfect, but because their pride is in their country. If Finland fails, then Finnish people think they have failed.
There is no way they have used wrong numbers to get US higher up and you know that very well.
Yeah why is that
Due to their culture they come from. If they worked against each other, they wouldn't have survived the harsh winter. That culture developed when the welfare state didn't exist.
Source. I have trouble picturing thousands of starving african immigrants getting citizenship.
There are something you can look at. For instance school results are dropping, sickness rates are much higher than when the system was created and other countres around the world. Same with disability benefits. People were much more hardworking before. You can even look at the photoes and they will tell the same story.
Also, there is a substancial immigration to Scandinavia. Sweden is 5% muslim, and pretty much none of them came because Sweden needed them. They were all asylum seekers. In Norway there was around 10000 muslims in 1980, around 40000 in 1990, around 100000 in 2000 and 180000 in 2010. It's quite a new trend and it's increasing fast.