B) Dude....I love burnout bernie and Scandinavian Socialists...
Posted on 05/17/2016 8:00:26 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
His collegiate followers are receptive to Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders exhortations that the United States should be more like Sweden and its Scandinavian neighbors. Yet and still, the self-identified socialist should be careful what he asks for: He may not want to get it.
"Although Norway, Sweden, and Denmark have social-welfare states, they outrank the United States on a variety of other economic-freedom indices calculated by the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute; they have, for example, less business regulation, lower corporate tax rates, and more trade freedom," Emily Ekins writes in the May 23, 2016 issue of National Review. "Their liberal markets are what enable them to accommodate massive social-welfare spending."
"If Sanders says that America should be more like Sweden, he should acknowledge what it takes to be more like Sweden: freer markets, not more government control." Ekins is a research fellow and the director of polling at the Cato Institute.
Indeed, Sen. Sanders may be on a collision course with his youthful acolytes. Ekins notes that one poll, "Reason-Rupe has found that, the label 'socialism' aside, Millennials prefer, by a ratio of two to one, a 'free market-economy' over a 'government-managed economy.'"
This last tidbit should not surprise the truly observant: When was the last time you saw a Millennial riding in a cab as opposed to Uber?
B) Dude....I love burnout bernie and Scandinavian Socialists...
A Scandinavian economist once stated to Milton Friedman: "In Scandinavia we have no poverty." Milton Friedman replied, "That's interesting, because in America among Scandinavians, we have no poverty either."
Those wishing for socialism need to be shown Venezuela. Just because they imagine that the policies they are arguing for work in one location doesn’t mean that socialism works. What do they want? And how does it look like Venezuela and Scandinavia? Much of what they want is Venezuela.
Then again, maybe they like Venezuela. Income inequality is very low (or at least meaningless) when neither the rich or poor can’t get an aspirin or toilet paper.
“Their liberal markets are what enable them to accommodate massive social-welfare spending.”
Well, don’t forget petrowealth. Countries that are sitting on large petroleum and natural gas reserves can afford to be wasteful with their spending. Also, even with those factors taken into account, the taxes are so sky-high in Scandinavia that there is a booming black market economy of “off the books” labor, because that’s the only way most people can escape the crushing taxes and actually save a little money to improve their station.
Bernie, and the Left, only wish to install the Socialist things piece-meal, from many sources, for a totality of Socialism.
For instance, they will never lower taxes/regs, voter ID, school choice, illegals, etc.
But they will take 1-2 times from X, 3-4 from Y, 2 from Z...and join them all for the U.S.
Good grief! Just compare the freeloaders we have to put up with here. The entire Scandinavia, ie Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland,Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands total a population of 25,251,000.That’s 2 million less than the state of Texas. Sweden, Norway, and Denmark together total about the same figures as Florida.
Norway funds their social welfare state by being one of the largest oil exporters in the world and being the 14th ranked arms exporter. Sweden affords their by being the 10th ranked arms exporter. I wonder how those progressives feel about their wonder countries funding their socialist policies by exporting dirty oil and guns?
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