Did you write that? If so - inspiring.
Thanks from an Ayn Rand fan.
I was kinda under the impression that Sweden had 60% income tax, etc.
“I doubt there is ANY part of the Earth that boasts such a work ethic as Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Finland.”
In no way, form, or fashion should Norway be included in this grouping.
Hours worked per year
Norway: 1360
Germany: 1437
Belgium: 1534
Demmark: 1540
France: 1546
Sweden: 1587
Ireland: 1638
Finland: 1714
Australia: 1730
Japan: 1775
United States: 1841
Poland: 1994
except for the welfare part....
Taxation: The rate of corporation tax is 28%. Personal taxation is based on worldwide income derived from employment, business and investments and is largely raised by local government. Including central government, the top rate is 60%. Capital gains tax is levied at a general rate of 30%. Value-added tax (VAT) applies to the sale of all goods and most services. The basic rate of VAT is 25%, with reduced rates of 12% on food and 6% on items including books and personal transport.
So if one earns 100 kronor at a job, one can buy 32 kronor worth of goods (60% income tax plus 25% VAT on the remaining 40). If one owns stock in a company whose share of gross profits is 100 kronor, one can buy just over 40 kronor worth of goods (28% corporate tax, 30% capital gains, and then the 25% VAT).
Sounds like Swedes have to work twice as hard for the government as they do for themselves, and their companies are almost as bad off. I am impressed that any can afford Volvos and the like at all after that burden, but it sounds a lot more like oppressive Eurosocialism than capitalism to me.
Yeah. They’re hard working all right. That’s why the shelves of the world are chock full of Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish products. (snicker).
Excerpt:
Over the past few years, it seems, everybody and his brother speaks about the capitalist system in America. Before, using the word was the hallmark of marxist training or influence. Yet lately, everybody is using the word - regardless of political leaning.
It bothers me because capitalism - the word and the concept - was the brainchild of Karl Marx. As well as offering an “-ism” opposite his own -ism, it describes a rigid class society in which one class possesses the means of production, the other nothing except its labor. The latter class is called “The Proletariat” who, as Lenin declared, can lose nothing but its chains when it rises against the oppressor.
This is not the place to argue whether capitalism was the appropriate way to describe certain European societies. The point is that owning things has always been open to Americans. The moment you buy one share of stock, you part-own “means of production,” not to mention owning your home and arriving at your place of work in your own automobile - a very American image.
America never had a proletariat.
In that case, America could not have been a capitalist country.
http://balintvazsonyi.org/shns/shns100202.html
Yes, and Iberia has lots of ships . . .
That is where my ancestor came from -- Timen Stiddem, ship's doctor for the Kalmar Nyckel (containing the colonizers of New Sweden, or Delaware) back in 1638. His dad, Luloff Stiddem, was the first known minister of commerce for Gothenburg. I may be the only person on the planet who cares about this; but I think it's really cool.