With the glut of immigration burdening the welfare system, the skyrocketing unemployment and the immigrants perpetuating the rape culture and no go zones there since 2015, I find it hard to believe Wiki and the 2019 World Happiness report.
Obviously there’s a reason that these countries are being pushed as model countries, but I wonder if it’s for aboveboard reasons.
Does privatizing everything truly make it better?
What’s interesting is that you say progressive taxes, another article says flat taxes, and the interview with the Swede guy says higher taxes for the poor.
Hungary is an interesting case.
They have free education, universal healthcare and other social services, a mixed economy, yet socially they remain nationalistic and moderately conservative.
My argument is not that Finland and Scandinavia is a paradise, just an example that a mixed economy can work well.
I think you know me, I’m pro-free speech, gun and due process, and anti-immigration.
I also have some reservations about progressive taxation, I don’t think the working and middle classes should be taxed much, if at all, and if that means we have to cut back on some social services, so be it, or alternatively, go after the richest 1 or 0.1% even harder, make sure they’re not skirting around taxes.
I have reservations about them too, but I have reservations about ours as well, the Anglo-Saxon model, the cut taxes for the rich and spending on the poor, but bailout and subsidize private megacorporations anyway, model.
I think you mean nationalizing or corporatism here.
That’s not my argument.
The extreme left and right both offer simplistic solutions to complex problems.
I’m saying there’s a time and place for markets, nationalization and corporatism.
It’s a mix of progressive and flat taxes, I don’t think there’s any regressive taxes.
I’m anti-flat tax.
What is sad is that information can no longer be trusted it seems to me. How can there be so many different “facts” regarding the same things such as tax rates?
I thought that all healthcare in Sweden was covered by taxes, but there are still charges to see physicians, for prescriptions, and dental costs. To me universal healthcare covers citizens universally and all charges universally.
The 60% tax rate in Sweden is paid by the lower income folks and that’s regressive even if online materials is trying to say progressive or flat neither of which are probably true.
The high taxes are paid by everyone and the percentage goes up, the higher the income. Of course there are always more ways for the wealthy to get around taxes, though less ways than in the US.
Yes, you pay to see physicians, up to 150 bucks a year, then it is free. In fact, any medical costs going to a medical professional, like including physiotherapists, counts towards that 150. Once you have reached that amount, it’s free for a year. Think of it as a deductible. You’re insured, but after this minimal sum. Yes, medications cost, though if they are necessary and you really couldn’t pay there are possible solutions. Of course Thatcher and Reagan and the neocons are reaching Scandanavia. So the system is being piece by piece, slowly over time, reduced.
Children get free health care and dental till they are 18.
The system worked very well in many ways until the 2000s as all the finance sector and banking skimming, worldwide, meant that everyone had less money and got compensated less for actual work.
Imagine not having to be afraid of catastrophic illness reducing your family to financial rubble It gave workers real power in relation to employers. You really didn’t have to stay with asshole employers. Yet, the Swedes had better numbers as far as percentage who worked compared to countries without universal health care. They had a reputation as hard workers in fact, still do.
But GDP per capita isn’t a perfect measure of median household income because of uneven distribution.
Scandinavia has lower income inequality than the US, and its European neighbors.
Both Scandinavia and the US appear to have the highest median incomes in the world, and Canada isn’t far behind them, but the US still has much higher income inequality and a lower life expectancy, for whites included (surprisingly apparently both Asian, and Latino Americans have a much higher life expectancy than white Americans, was not expecting that).
I have no idea why Latino Americans are living longer than white Americans, since Latino Americans are poorer than white Americans, perhaps they’re more health conscious.
All that being said, Scandinavian income will be taxed, some of that will go into relatively universal healthcare and other social services, which may partly explain why Americans have a shorter life expectancy, lower class Americans don’t have as much access to healthcare.
A stab in the dark on this: Japanese people lived longer than Americans. Smoking japanese didn’t die much younger or at all younger. This confused people. Then they tracked immigrants to the US from Japan. If the immigrants took on the more individualistic lifestyle of americans - smaller families, less family contact, primarily all the tight family, and extended family stuff,
they died like americans. If they smoked, they died much younger like other americans.
But those that stayed very traditional, they maintained longevity.
Latinos tend to have tighter and more extended family connections right through life and of course this likely leads to elderly being in home, rather than sent off to die. And their lives probably are richer and more filled with love. That could make a big difference.
I am still surprised, however. But I thought I’d toss a guess out.
There’s a lot of bs written about Sweden by the Right and the Left probably thinks it is better than it is. The supposed war zone of Malmö is a city I would walk anywhere in, which is not the case for cities that size in the US. Most of the big violence is between criminals. The areas that have problems that get called no go zones do have warehoused people aspects. Immigrants are shunted by real estate agents into certain areas. Employers will choose people with Swedish names over people with stronger qualifications with foreign names. And this includes people with their degrees in Sweden. If they change their names, they get to interviews and often jobs. There is a push towards meaningful lives and a lot of the immigrants who want to work, and certainly the majority of the men want to have a hard time getting it. Of course the immigrants contribute in their own ways, some cultural, some individual and many coming from war zones are damaged. But this all gets painted by the Right as a pure, they don’t want to work, they want the welfare state’s teat. Overly simple. The Left tends to not want to see that different cultures lead to problems, sometimes severe ones.
How the incoming immigrants and refugees have affected rape is not made public, which is simply wrong. Let’s chips fall where they may, and make sure to count in factors like income, unemployment and so on. But deal with it. You have one of the most enormous culture differences around female behavior possible. In Sweden women are able to be extremely free with their bodies and sexuality and have more positions of power than most places in the world. Cues that say ‘I want to have sex with you’ or ‘I am a prostitute’ in many cultures mean nothing at all that in Sweden. This does not justify rape, at all. But not enough is done to deal with the incredible differences. But it’s nice to see the Right so concerned about rape. Of course, it’s the stranger rape, especially between races that really gets them political on the issue.
There are many things wrong in Sweden and I think the Right is sometimes correct in what they see. And Sweden is not a world power, which allows it to do things that would not work in larger and more powerful countries. I just see so much bs in the news.
I have three sources so far for my information and it differs from what you are purporting as well as the sources differing from one another. Points of contention 1. The poor pay the higher tax rate of 60% where the wealthier pay the lower tax rate of 44%. I’m not trusting Wiki at this point Gloom, sorry. Do you have a better sources? 2. What I read about physician charges said nothing about a spend down. It stated that charges between 180-300 SEK per visit to a physician. 3. Children get free health and dental care until they are 21.
These discrepancies are what I’m talking about regarding online materials. How in the Hell do you research truth when there are numerous truths about the same thing rather than one? KT, where’d you get your info? Link?
I don’t understand your paragraph about the rape epidemic there. The left covers it up and Sweden’s own women are coming out on YouTube with the truth on the matter. A sad truth that deserves more attention than letting the chips fall where they may and monitoring factors like income and employment. That’s ludicrously inadequate.
I was thinking something along the same lines.
Naw I’m sure you’re right, that must be it, Latino Americans have all the benefits of the American economy + all the benefits of their Catholic, Latin American culture; strong families, home-cooking.
They may be a little poorer on average, but it’s not enough to make much of a difference.
Yea, some places are better to live than others, but every place has its issues, unfortunately increasingly the left and right are talking passed each other, they each can’t see any value in what the other has to say.
Yea, we got to rely on our own interpretations of our own observations, anecdotes, alternative academia and media as well, because as you know, mainstream academia and media are biased and agenda laden.
If we never criticize or question the mainstream, we reward all that’s corrupt in it, and it’ll just get worse and worse.
Question everything.
No need to be sorry, and not at the moment, I checked out some of that wiki articles sources and, well, they didn’t check out, or I wasn’t able to verify them because they were in Swedish.
I’ll let you know if I can find anything else.
That’s the Hypocrisy though and it goes both ways. Following the Ethos of a world religion or leader, is essentially ‘Religion’. Again, superstition and supernatural details, are not necessary. You can claim “Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior” without believing in Divine Intervention, or specifically, defining the metaphorical interpretation of Divine Intervention, or what it means to be the son, or any relative, of any “god”. Thus, what is God? What is a god? What is any god? It already begs-the-question, which most people avoid, because they lack intelligence, knowledge, wisdom, etc. They rather defer to (moral, religious) authorities.
Superstition is for women and children, to translate higher Ethos to them, “moral lessons”, etc.
You said it yourself. Rights, from where, from whom, by what authority?
That’s the Modern-Post-Modern ‘race’ conundrum, inserted into everything, especially religion. Isn’t “God” a rich-white-male WASP?
Wiccans and other New Age Pagans are usually quite embarrassing, by what they say. However so are Modern-Post-Modern Christians and other default religious peoples. There is “Maia” on this forum; she claims to be a wiccan and witch. She is just one example of many. Usually children and teenagers, want to “resurrect the dead”, so to speak, concerning the superstitious and supernatural. People want more to believe in than real-life. Thus they seek-out ghosts, demons, angels, mystical creatures, foreign and fantasy lands, etc. Real-life is boring. Real-life is monotonous. No demons. No beasts. No after-life. Nothing. If there were a God then he is long-dead. Thus I characterize Pop Religions as dead-worshipers, death-worshipers.
The average “religious person”, Christian for example, devotes him or herself to dead people from centuries and millenniums ago. It’s like owing fealty to a long dead Monarch, or to Julius Caesar. Get over it. They want to live in the past, using rose-tinted goggles.
The Old religions have still not updated to the New Era, the New Age, the New World Order. Secularism is only the first step toward what comes around the corner. Technology, AI, diseases, many aspects and dangers of common life are growing so fast and powerful, much of humanity will wake up, within this Century, and not even recognize the world around them. They will be passed-by, as new powers rise and overtake ‘Humanity’.
There is no New World Religion or Order, yet, but the seeds are already sewn, as people seek religion and Nietzsche’s Rebirth and transvaluation. When you can’t believe in the Old Mythos, which is pretty much impossible at this point, then a new Mythos must take its place.
For example, look at how popular, yet controversial the Star Wars franchise has become. This is an example of that craving for Mythos. Or Star Trek, or Marvel Superhero movies, Avengers, etc.
‘Sweden’s own women are coming out on youtube…’
Some Swedish women have said things on youtube. Those women say things that fit what you want to believe about people of other races and from other countries. so for you this is final evidence. Anectdotal evidence. I get so fucking tired of people who simply state as true what they hear from sources they don’t ever think the least bit about in epistemological terms because it fits their rage and viewpoint. There are those who do that on the left and there are those who do it on the right, and you deserve each other. Unfortunately the rest of us have to live with what you think is proof and live with your hysterics and certainty.
My points were that the government, which includes both Left and Right, iow counterparts to dems and reps both don’t want that information out there. For whatever reasons, no doubt pc reasons involved. But we don’t know what those statistics are. I would guess that cultural factors do play out in rape. I do think that regardless of what the statistics say we should find out the statistics. I think the left’s taboos on this subject and their hallucination that culture has no bearing on behavior is a problem.
I also am so glad that the Right is concerned about rape, even if it tends to only be stranger rape. They do have a tendency to only consider rape when someone pulls someone who is not dressed sexy into the bushes and forces them to have sex. Many other kinds of rape they consider no one’s business and fought the idea that children might get sexually abused in any large numbers within their families. Or that if you were dressed sexy you still had the right to not be forced to have sex and so on. That was my shot at the right.
The Left cannot face the fact that how people are brought up to look at women could possibly cause problems, including what holy texts say about women. And in this way they have betrayed, indirectly and directly, women, gays, jews, atheists, pagans, transpeople and more.
Everybody wants Sweden - and of course this happens in other places - to PROVE whatever their pet beliefs are and most of them regardless of political leaning cherry picks their facts, finds a few videos on the internet showing the truth period because a few people in the target country say something.
It’s a philosophy forum and yet binary thinkers with the epistemology of preschoolers never, even after years of having their deductive and inductive weaknesses pointed out to them, consider that they might want to consider
participation as a way to improve their thinking (also)
and not just somewhere to express themselves and their certainties about the world.
