So having that happen up until the 70s proves that somehow the Swedes arent as healthy and living as long of lives today? Funny how O'Rourke is quoted, as he seemed to be quite complemental to the system there, even though he is a self-proclaimed "republican reptile".

Sweden is (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden#International_rankings):
#5 in the Human Development Index

#3 in Global Competitiveness

#1 in the State of the World's Mother's report: http://www.savethechildren.org/publications/mothers/2004/SOWM_2004_final.pdf

#5 in the Worldwide Quality of Life Index (which combines economic & quality of life ratings): http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/QUALITY_OF_LIFE.pdf


Noone's saying the US isn't a great place to live, it is, most definately. There just happens to be other nations which, while smaller and thus more able to be receptive to the myriad of issues that face a nation, are very successful and nice places to live as well despite there adherence to something you hate (apparently illogically, based on your weak argument).

WEAKSAUCE.


[Edited on December 6, 2006 at 4:13 PM. Reason : .]

12/6/2006 4:09:56 PM

Pink, you're correct in that there are plenty of other "nice" places to live. Sweden is one of them. Is it because of their socialist system or in spite of it? Well that's obviously really hard to say.

I, however, wouldn't like to live there because I get utility out of living in a more capitalist country. Thus, I'm willing to have a little shorter lifespan, deal with more crime, and work a little more. That's why I think the U.S. is better than Sweden. Of course, I haven't lived there so I can't say that I wouldn't like it just as much in the end, but given my aversion to socialism, I think I'd dislike it even if my lifestyle seemed very similar.

12/6/2006 4:55:24 PM

^^Is that because Sweden doesn't have any mexicans or blacks?

12/6/2006 4:56:43 PM

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?SID=mail&articleID=000AF3D5-6DC9-152E-A9F183414B7F0000&chanID=sa006

I would say that it's definately what has brought about their high standard of health and low amount of poverty. is this required in order to bring these things about? absolutely not, but there are plenty of examples out there of highly successful economies with such things in place, and not just in this part of the world. We know about the health systems of successful economies in Scandinavia, the UK, and Canada, but few realize that Taiwan, a very successful Asian economy, has a universal system as well. Likewise, there are plenty of successful nations that don't have such a system, but typically their health ratings are lower. Even still, you have cases like Cuba where people are healthy and the country blows, but that's moreso their overall structure and non-adherence to a market economy.

There is no set prescription for success in the world. For instance, countries with rigid labor laws might boom (Japan, where the lifetime contract is an institution), stagnate (France), or bust (Cuba). The same can be said of many features of successful nations. High taxes and social welfare do not break a country, and many countries succeed with them in place, contrary to the beliefs of many conservatives, who would rather just blow rhetorc about "nanny states" out their asses than actually dig into the numbers.

What we can all agree on, however, is that a country must accept a market economy and modernization in order to be successful.

[Edited on December 6, 2006 at 7:31 PM. Reason : of course, this has nothing to do w/ the thread, but i might as well post it here anyway]

12/6/2006 7:28:21 PM

Quote :

"The results for the households at the bottom of the income distribution are astoundingly good, especially in contrast to the mean-spirited neglect that now passes for American social policy."

Wow, that sounds like a completely unopinion-filled piece.

Quote :

"Jeffrey D. Sachs is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. "

[Edited on December 6, 2006 at 8:17 PM. Reason : .]

12/6/2006 8:15:40 PM

Radley Balko gives us the skinny on Sweden...

Quote :

"In truth, the Swedish economy is pretty similar to the politics of its rock bands: avowedly socialist by most outward appearances, but more than willing to embrace the machinery of capitalism behind the scenes in order to make the whole thing work. You might call it "boutique socialism." Perhaps a brief layman's history of Swedish politics is order. It's true that Sweden was socialist for most of the twentieth century. The socialists took power in the early 1930s and held it until the early 1990s. It's also true that in comparison to the rest of Europe, the Swedish economy flourished until the 1960s. But that's not really because of Sweden's socialist proclivities. Rather, it's more because of that notorious economy-killer called World War II, an endeavor that Milton Friedman noted "Sweden had the good economic sense to avoid."* Advocates of the "Sweden as the anti-Soviet" line of thought might also want to take note: Early socialist Sweden was hardly a utopia of political freedom and civil liberties. Mengele-ian social engineering projects saw government-enforced sterilization of thousands of "unfit" Swedes in the 1930s and 40s. As late as 1950, the Swedish government was still experimenting with lobotomies on alcoholics and convicts - often without their consent - in researching possible "cures" for such undesirable behavior. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Swedish economy was tanking. Western Europe's post-war capitalist economies caught and passed Sweden relatively quickly. And by the 1980s, Sweden was on the verge of collapse. Businesses fled for more friendly tax jurisdictions in continental Europe and the U.S. Sweden experienced a brain drain as its sharpest minds fled to market-driven economies that rewarded knowledge and know-how with wealth. Entrepreneurs in Sweden were painted as pariahs. Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad told Fortune magazine that Sweden's tax bureaucrats and politicians at the time routinely accused him of "using people" and "just wanting to make a profit." By 1989, Sweden's unemployment rate had risen to 12%. Social spending had driven the government's budget deficit to 35% of government spending and 13% of GDP. Swedish welfare provisions stipulated that anyone fired or laid off from a job could get up to 80% of his original salary in public assistance. Consequently, absenteeism in the private sector approached 25%. Free, comprehensive national health care made Sweden the "sickest" country in Europe - so long as government picked up the tab, Swedes demanded the highest care for the feeblest illnesses. The system buckled. Because almost everything was provided for, and because of income tax rates approaching 90% in the highest brackets, Swedish households accumulated almost no savings, making them even more dependent on social programs once the economy soured. In the early 1990s, the Swedes revolted at the ballot box. A neoliberal coalition led by Carl Bildt took power. Bildt quickly went to work. He capped national income taxes at 50%. He set corporate taxes at 28%. He rolled back regulations on telecommunications and banking. While hardly the epitome of laissez faire capitalism, those modest changes alone set in motion the path to Sweden's economic rebirth. In 1994, the Social Democrats regained power - mostly because Bildt's slashing of government services ignited a backlash. But the signs of recovery were already in place, and so the Social Democrats, led by finance minister Goran Persson, followed Bildt's lead. More privatization of government-controlled industries. More tax cuts. To that they added more cuts in government spending, and a real effort to balance the federal budget. The result? Native Swedish entrepreneurs who fled the oppressive tax and regulation codes to start businesses elsewhere brought their businesses and payrolls back to Sweden. Sweden today is home to some of the world's top telecommunications firms. In sharp contrast to the eugenicist philosophy of Sweden's ruling 1940s socialists, the streets of Stockholm and Goteborg teem with entrepreneurial immigrants from Asia and the Middle East. Fortune reports, "from 1995 to 1999, venture capital and private equity investment in Sweden rose 201% annually, against 40% in the U.S." Sweden of course is in no danger of becoming a shelter for tax-oppressed U.S. business. Education and health care are still free (and, consequently, still on the verge of collapse). Though corporate tax rates are reasonable, personal income tax rates are still inordinately high. And the lingering haze of conformity that comes with rampant socialism still holds a good number of Swedes in despair. Sweden's suicide rates are among the highest in the world (much higher than latitudinally similar, low-sunlight communities in, for example, Alaska). Alcoholism is rampant, and this in a country where the state owns all the liquor stores. Even Per Stalberg, singer for the socialism-espousing Division of Laura Lee admits that the everything's-taken-care-of life of a Swede leaves something to be desired. "You have to go to school, and then you have to work in an office, then drink a lot of booze, and then beat the s*** out of your wife," he told Rolling Stone. "There are a lot of personal problems here. I don't know many people who haven't been to a shrink." So what about that Swedish music invasion allegedly spurred on by rock star welfare? Well, it's probably telling that the program was phased out as part of finance minister Persson's mid-1990s cuts in social programs. If you give, say, five to eight years for a band to mature and catch on, you might make the case that the Swedish invasion is the product of ending rock star welfare, not institutionalizing it. And The Hives - easily Sweden's most successful band so far, and probably its most talented - were never on the public dole to begin with (bandleader Pelle Amlqvist told Rolling Stone, "We thought that was like working for The Man. Plus, we were crap at filling out all the forms."). Sixty years of Swedish socialism gave us ABBA and Ace of Base. Ten years of quasi-capitalism, and Sweden's holding the flag for the new garage revolution. That's as convincing a case for markets as I need. "

12/7/2006 12:18:07 AM

Ace Of Base kicks ass

12/7/2006 12:43:48 AM

first off, i'm referring to the present-day. everything I've presented on the quality of life has been from the past couple years.

secondly, i'm going to assume you wrote that yourself under a pseudonym, seeing as you didnt cite anything. come to think of it, you didnt cite your first article either. i sure hope you never actually had to do any sort of real research.

Quote :

"In truth, the Swedish economy is pretty similar to the politics of its rock bands: avowedly socialist by most outward appearances, but more than willing to embrace the machinery of capitalism behind the scenes in order to make the whole thing work."

well no shit. that's kind of what i was talking about when i said that you need market+modernization to win in this world, and what you do with the rest of it can go both ways. the country is very competitve in the world market. You've done nothing to disprove the information I've prevented to prove my initial point, which is that greater taxation and social welfare doesnt kill your country and it doesnt kill your people (which is an idiotic claim, anyway), this based on present statistics.

seems to me youre pulling a randy here and painting everything to the left of you with wide-ass brushstrokes.

Quote :

", "We thought that was like working for The Man. Plus, we were crap at filling out all the forms.")"

Yeah, you never hear anyone else anywhere say things like this, especially not musicians.

[Edited on December 7, 2006 at 12:50 AM. Reason : .]

12/7/2006 12:49:10 AM

Quote :

"i'm going to assume you wrote that yourself under a pseudonym, "

I'm flattered but the words are not my own. Radley Balko is a editor for Reason Magazine

http://www.theagitator.com/

and I liked both Abba and Ace of Base.

[Edited on December 7, 2006 at 1:53 AM. Reason : .]

12/7/2006 1:52:40 AM

Pink, I think what his point was is that even if raising taxes marginally won't ruin a country, Sweden isn't the perfect picture of that working out. Taxes are tending downward in Sweden, so it would be a better example of how lowering taxes and government interference can stimulate an economy.

12/7/2006 7:35:52 AM

maybe i should have said "existance of extensive social welfare" instead of "higher taxes", b/c that's the most important thing I'm getting at anyway.

however they do it, it works. whether or not you like the rheoric in the article i posted or not, the statistics still speak for themselves.

12/7/2006 11:35:53 AM

I will say that you're on the right track there, but you should probably read the book

"How to Lie with Statistics" (I would assume you already have)

Statistics on there own have absolutely nothing to say about causation. What the statistics show is that it is possible to have high social welfare programs and prosperity economically at the same time. It says nothing about whether one causes the other or even how long the two can coexist (which could very well be forever).

12/7/2006 12:59:54 PM

Quote :

"Yes, but we had the good taste to use prisoners. Sweden lobotomized and sterilized all types of citizens, even children. "

Are you really that dense? The United States was sterlizing everyone up until the 1970s.

12/7/2006 1:41:59 PM

Everyone? Where did all the children come from?

12/7/2006 2:05:47 PM

i didn't mean everyone as in everyone, but everyone as in people in every segment of the population, not just criminals.

12/7/2006 3:02:11 PM

Quote :

"It says nothing about whether one causes the other or even how long the two can coexist (which could very well be forever)."

Of course, but I'm not saying this will last forever, nor may our form of capitalism. history is a series of cycles. we just have to have the foresight to adapt to the needs of the nation in an incremental, pragmatic way to encourage growth, combat poverty, preserve common goals, etc.

I think our nation is currently seeing the the objectives for obtaining such goals can be confounding. Opponents of immigration will find out soon that while they may find themselves confounded right now, they will surly be proven wrong in the future.

It's all in good time, and adherence to dogma without an eye towards the needs, goals, and prospective benefits to be afforded to a nation is what is ultimately fatal.

12/7/2006 3:17:01 PM

Quote :

"not just criminals."

Quote :

"From 1907 onward, at least 60,000 Americans were sterilized against their will. The legal basis for these forced sterilizations was provided by so-called eugenics laws. Most compulsory sterilizations occurred in the 1930s and '40s, but some states, such as Virginia, continued the practice until the late 1970s. Most of the victims were poor and members of minorities, and none of them received compensation, according to Paul Lombardo, professor of law and bioethics at the University of Virginia. "

Thanks n-smackr... I stand corrected.

12/7/2006 7:41:10 PM

Quote :

"i'm going to assume you wrote that yourself"

Hahaha, earthdogg never writes anything himself, he's the liberitarian equivlent of salisburyboy, he just reads stupid stuff on stupid websites and then just vomits them up here.

12/7/2006 8:47:23 PM

at least salisburyboy cites his sources

12/7/2006 10:33:15 PM