Modern Day Socialism
polaris_x
Posts: 13,559
Norway has:
* Very low unemployment
* Budget surpluses
* A Sovereign wealth fund to hit $1 trillion dollars
* 3rd highest per capita GDP
* A manufacturing sector - despite it's high standard of living!
* A Carbon Tax
* Top 3 in the UN Human Development Index
* Second wealthiest country in the world in monetary value
* A very high standard of living
* Universal health care
* One of the highest hourly productivity levels in the world
* Low prosperity gaps
*********
so - to preempt the discussion ... Norway is rich because of oil ... the difference is tho - they use that oil to benefit the people of the country NOT the corporations ... they also tax the shit out of oil production to help address global warming ... it also actually reduced its gHg emissions from 2010 to 2011 ...
it's egalitarian for sure but people are happy and they have a high standard of living ...
* Very low unemployment
* Budget surpluses
* A Sovereign wealth fund to hit $1 trillion dollars
* 3rd highest per capita GDP
* A manufacturing sector - despite it's high standard of living!
* A Carbon Tax
* Top 3 in the UN Human Development Index
* Second wealthiest country in the world in monetary value
* A very high standard of living
* Universal health care
* One of the highest hourly productivity levels in the world
* Low prosperity gaps
*********
so - to preempt the discussion ... Norway is rich because of oil ... the difference is tho - they use that oil to benefit the people of the country NOT the corporations ... they also tax the shit out of oil production to help address global warming ... it also actually reduced its gHg emissions from 2010 to 2011 ...
it's egalitarian for sure but people are happy and they have a high standard of living ...
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"Life Is What Happens To You When Your Busy Making Other Plans" John Lennon
Is Norway Really That Happy?
Got this from a letter I subscribe to. Before the libs start bashing it keep in mind this guy is anti-USA in terms of quality of life. He runs the largest expatriate blog/service/etc in the world and he probably would say his country is whatever country he is in at the moment. He is more about freedom to build your own wealth from a good business which he believes the US is beyond good anymore. He believes the US has seen it's best days and who knows, he may be right.
This guy is right about Norway - I can develop a software platform faster than a whole team of Norwegians, and I have:-) While they have no desire or incentive to work longer hours, they tend to complete projects in a longer timeframe. Still decent work, but if you need the project completed on schedule, make sure to get a fixed-cost contract with a definite end date. They are still good programmers but they lack the desire to do better, go the extra mile. If you want to live in a country that gives you everything and you work an average 31 hr week, go for it. All you need to do is live there for 7 years to establish residency.
I'm sorry I have no link because you don't have an account and you won't get one (unless you want to pay the $249/yr fee).
Quote:
Date: August 1, 2012
Reporting From: Bergen, Norway
Ah, Norway. Government-loving statists love to hold this place up as a shining example that big government and high taxes are good. Free education. Free healthcare. "Happy" people.
Yes, Norway is certainly one of the wealthiest countries in the world on the basis of GDP per capita... and in a variety of international surveys, it also ranks as one of the 'happiest'.
And yes, Norway is one of the most heavily taxed countries in the world with a total tax burden of roughly 45% of GDP-- almost 4x Hong Kong and nearly twice the US.
VAT here is a whopping 25%. Personal income tax rates border 55%. Corporate profits tax ranges from 28% to as high as 78%. Norway even has a direct WEALTH TAX.
This place is about as socialist as it gets. The Norwegian tax authority's own website even states, "The Norwegian tax system is based on the principle that everybody should pay tax according to their means and receive services according to their needs."
It's as if Karl Marx himself wrote the country's tax policy.
Further, when you step back and look at the Norwegian economy, you'll see that the state drives nearly all of it. The Norwegian government is the controlling shareholder in 8 out of the top 10 employers in the country-- companies like Statoil, DNB, Norsk Hydro, etc.
But since everyone seems to agree that Norwegians are so 'happy' and have such a high standard of living, is this central economic planning really so bad?
Let's first dispel this 'happy' nonsense.
It goes without saying that when you ask people who receive generous benefits from the government whether they're happy, chances are high they'll say yes.
But Norwegian happiness goes much deeper into human psyche and how we naturally compare ourselves to others in our peer group.
For example, when a childhood friend goes from rags to riches, people often feel extreme envy and reflect negatively on their own comparative lack of success.
Norway has created a system that makes it virtually impossible to pull ahead of your peers financially. People are excused for not working hard and squandering the opportunities they could have grabbed.
Everyone is the same status, and such equality imbues a unique socialist variety of happiness.
This attitude has been deeply inculcated in Norwegian society through what's known as Jante Law; this is an informal dictate which essentially says 'You're only as good as everyone else.'
Consequently, Norwegian culture limits aspirations of achievement. Workers come to the office, punch a clock, shuffle papers, and go home. There is no cultural drive to work hard and get promoted. Work is viewed as what you have to do for 30% of your life, not an opportunity to achieve more and do something that actually matters.
As an example, the office complex across from my hotel room was a ghost town by 5:06pm yesterday afternoon. And work hours in general here have declined steadily over past decades to just 31 hours per week.
It shows. How many Norwegian companies can you name? How many revolutionary products and services come out of Norway? Practically none.
So, yes, people are 'happy' here. Happy because the system incentivizes underachievement and leisure without the nasty consequence of watching a peer surge ahead financially.
For most people under the bell curve, this is a suitable arrangement. Bureaucrats call this happiness. Maybe so, but it's at the expense of someone else's potential.
The other ridiculous assertion is that Norwegians get 'a lot of value' for what they pay in taxes.
To be clear, the average Norwegian household pays roughly $70,000 per year in tax. Including the state's oil income, government tax revenue exceeds $100,000 per household.
Yes, they get free healthcare, free education, and pretty fountains. But for $100,000 per year? The value they get for what they pay is pitiful.
You could pay privately for the most expensive health plans and private schools in the world and still have tens of thousands of dollars in walking around money.
Not to mention, taxes have really driven up the cost of living. It is no coincidence that Norway is simultaneously the most heavily taxed AND most expensive country in the world.
Because of this, Norwegians have limited after-tax discretionary spending cash. Sure they have 'free' healthcare, but when dinner for two costs an arm and a leg, people scale back their activities.
This is by design. In keeping people at the same level, Norwegian society has lowered the bar for everyone. There is limited economic freedom to achieve more.
Sure, the system gives them lots of leisure time to enjoy... but this is not necessarily a choice they make freely, rather the only choice they have.
Now, even if this lack of economic freedom seems a reasonable price to pay for national healthcare... even if tamed aspirations and an uninspired career are valid trade-offs for more leisure and less hard work... Norway is not a replicable model.
People who think that 'we should just be like Norway' are missing an even greater point: all of this central planning is made possible by huge oil reserves... and for that matter, oil reserves that are DECADES past their peak production.
Norway's model is not only unreplicable in most other countries, it is also unsustainable.
Mediocrity works great when you can fool society into accepting it and have the oil wealth to finance it. But the true path to prosperity is, and always will be, a system based on economic freedom that rewards hard work, creativity, and achievement.
__________________
"I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress" - Frederick Douglass, lived a slave, died a statesman, and 1st Black Presidential candidate
Oil .. The key to successful socialism. Odd ... It's also the key to successful capitalism ... And successful dictatorship.
:think:
Sha la la la i'm in love with a jersey girl
I love you forever and forever
Adel 03 Melb 1 03 LA 2 06 Santa Barbara 06 Gorge 1 06 Gorge 2 06 Adel 1 06 Adel 2 06 Camden 1 08 Camden 2 08 Washington DC 08 Hartford 08
is Norway perfect!? ... heck is anywhere perfect!? ... hell no ... but ultimately this is the difference with Norway and us folks here in north america ...
they believe in "we" and they bought into the system with all its faults ... and most importantly ... the gov't is truly for the people by the people ... something that is lost on all of us here ...
That's impressive but a few questions immediately comes to mind:
Can you build a fire as quickly?
Can you travel across snow as quick and effectively on your own power?
Can you make friends as easily?
Do you less more about your future than they do?
As you as financially secure?
Can you receive medical attention as quickly and is it the same in terms of quality?
I don't know, maybe you can. To some of the above I would have to answer, "no" and admit to a certain amount of envy.
Here's a few photos I took in Bergen: http://www.flickr.com/photos/76116277@N ... 884215818/ (I did enhance the colors for dramatic effect)
If I can afford it someday, I also want to own a place in Bergen and spend my summers there. Norway is an expensive country, but people who live there are well-paid.
And if you want to talk about a utopia, then we need to discuss the last 2 days I spent in Detroit, Mi.
What a fucking HELL HOLE!
Till there aint nothing left worth taking away from me.....
I'm great Speedy! I see you're as jolly as always!
Always good to see ya here Mr. Olav.
Till there aint nothing left worth taking away from me.....
"With our thoughts we make the world"
1) No slums? All the houses are nicely painted? Who paints them all & keeps them looking nice? Do the residents and if they don't do their part - what happens then?
2) Does Norway contribute any of their horded sums to keeping World peace?
I think it's just that poverty isn't something that really happens there. No one is forced to keep things tidy, but they do have a lot of pride in their country.
Norway happens to give the highest percentage of their gross national product to foreign aid... I would say that does a lot to promote peace in the world... probably more than waging war... but they do participate in NATO, and their troops have served in Afghanistan. Norway is also where the Nobel Peace Prize is given out.
thanks for the insight ... i was in sweden in the summer and had inklings of heading up to oslo but the locals told me everything was twice as expensive as sweden so we skipped it for now ...
the purpose of this thread was two-fold:
1. that socialism isn't some system where everyone becomes lazy and that you can't be a success
2. and that fundamentally speaking - a collective society is always going to prosper more over one that is individualistic or one that serves business interests ...
obviously, there are some not so good things about norway but you can't deny the facts ...
http://www.davemanuel.com/2009/09/08/th ... ax-system/
5 million people. Immense oil supply. How could any other country, without those #s, hope to sustain this?
I'll tell you one thing Norway has done right, though -- not only have they not funded their entitlement programs via deficit spending, they are putting away huge chunks of their (misappropriated, in my opinion) oil revenues into what seems to be a "rainy day fund".
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/ ... curse.html
Norway has pursued a classically Scandinavian solution. It has viewed oil revenues as a temporary, collectively owned windfall that, instead of spurring consumption today, can be used to insulate the country from the storms of the global economy and provide a thick, goose-down cushion for the distant day when the oil wells run dry.
Less than 20 years after they started producing oil, the Norwegians realized their geological good luck would only be temporary. In 1990, the nation's parliament set up the Petroleum Fund of Norway to function as a fiscal shock absorber. Run under the auspices of the country's central bank, the fund, like the Alaska Fund, converts petrodollars into stocks and bonds. But instead of paying dividends, it uses revenues and appreciation to ensure the equitable distribution of wealth across generations.
Here's how it works. Cash flow from the government's petroleum activities—the state owns 81 percent of the aptly named Statoil—is funneled into the fund. Last year, the total came to 91.9 billion kroner (about $14 billion). The fund then hires external managers to invest, generally using low-cost indexing strategies. It's conservatively managed—more bonds than stocks, and investments divided equally between Europe and the rest of the world. (Here are the results of six years of active management.)
Of course, the fund's history reveals some of the pitfalls of having socialists manage oodles of cash. The fund didn't start to invest in stocks until 1998, thus missing out on a big chunk of the boom. In 2001, it started a sub-fund to make eco-friendly investments—good social policy, dubious asset-management strategy.
uhhh ... no one would argue the taxation is high ... but it's all relative ...
one needs to compare apples to apples ... what does it cost us in north america to achieve the level of services they achieve ...
sure taxes are lower in the states but you don't have universal health care and education is super expensive ...
No one in this thread has done a thorough examination of the costs and benefits (i.e., what the citizens put in versus what they get out) of a model like Norway's ... The article that ariel copy/pasted started to, but left a bit to be desired...holistically speaking...
If I'm paying $70,000+ into anything, I better be getting a fucking lot out of that thing in return...$70k/year...over an earning period of, let's say, 30 years...$2.1M...the likelihood I spend that much on education and healthcare in my life is pretty small...obviously that tax revenue pays for other things as well...so in order for us to have a meaningful conversation, at least economically speaking...we need to see how efficiently those tax revenues are spent...
where the heck are you getting $70k ...
either way ... like i said - we can nitpick this and nitpick that ... but it still goes back to the 2 fundamental differences that essentially puts norway over the top vs. us in north america ...
1. they collectively believe in the "we" system
2. the gov't operates for the people by the people (not for corporations)
everything else is just the benefits ...
So, maybe their system hasn't capitalized (no pun intended) on every efficiency possible. No system ever will. Can't throw the baby out with the bath water. Norway is doing its thing and Norwegians, as a whole, are happy, well off, healthy and educated (or so these studies say, anyway).
"With our thoughts we make the world"
The Romney campaign called. They were their stupid talking points back.
Madison Square Garden 6/25/08
OSLO- Norway, which has led developed nations by investing billions of dollars to slow tropical deforestation, announced plans on Wednesday to step up its efforts as part of “first aid” to slow climate change.
Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, whose country is rich thanks to offshore oil and gas, said new measures to slow global warming were needed now because a new UN-led climate deal is due to be agreed only in 2015 and enter into force from 2020.
“In the meantime we must give the climate first aid,” he told a news conference.
“The government will step up its efforts to slow deforestation and work to cut emissions that give the greatest climate effect in the shortest time,” he said. Stoltenberg did not, however, announce fresh investments or targets.
Deforestation, often clearing land for farms, accounts for about 17 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions from human sources. Forests, from the Congo to the Amazon, soak up carbon dioxide from the air as they grow and release it when they rot or burn.
Norway has been the most generous nation in giving aid to slow tropical deforestation with annual investments worth $500 million in recent years, funded from its own vast fossil fuel revenues.
It has $1 billion programs in both Brazil and Indonesia and smaller projects in nations including Guyana and Tanzania.
Stoltenberg said that other fast-acting measures that would qualify as first aid included cuts in industrial emissions of soot and methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, and reductions in subsidies for the use of fossil fuels.
Oil Change International, an environmental group campaigning for a shift towards cleaner energies such as solar or wind power, estimates that fossil fuel subsidies worldwide will reach $775 billion in 2012.
It also estimates that Norway itself handed out almost $700 million in fossil fuel subsidies last year.
UN-led talks in Qatar this month ended with a deal to extend the Kyoto Protocol, a weak pact that sets greenhouse gas goals for industrialized nations, until 2020.
That unblocked talks on the new, worldwide deal meant to be sealed in 2015. But world greenhouse gas emissions are rising, led by growth in emerging economies such as China and India.