Presidential Election Aftermath: What Now / What Next?

"I moved to the US 7 years ago from Finland — here's what Americans don't understand about Nordic countries

• Anu Partanen, The Atlantic

• Mar. 19, 2016, 11:08
• 
  
• This is what Americans fail to understand: My taxes in Finland were used to pay for top-notch services for me.
  
  Bernie Sanders is hanging on, still pushing his vision of a Nordic-like socialist utopia for America, and his supporters love him for it. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, is chalking up victories by sounding more sensible. “We are not Denmark,” she said in the first Democratic debate, pointing instead to America’s strengths as a land of freedom for entrepreneurs and businesses.
  
  Commentators repeat endlessly the mantra that Sanders’s Nordic-style policies might sound nice, but they’d never work in the U.S. The upshot is that Sanders, and his supporters, are being treated a bit like children—good-hearted, but hopelessly naive. That’s probably how Nordic people seem to many Americans, too.
  
  A Nordic person myself, I left my native Finland seven years ago and moved to the U.S. Although I’m now a U.S. citizen, I hear these kinds of comments from Americans all the time—at cocktail parties and at panel discussions, in town hall meetings and on the opinion pages. Nordic countries are the way they are, I’m told, because they are small, homogeneous “nanny states” where everyone looks alike, thinks alike, and belongs to a big extended family.
  
  This, in turn, makes Nordic citizens willing to sacrifice their own interests to help their neighbors. Americans don’t feel a similar kinship with other Americans, I’m told, and thus will never sacrifice their own interests for the common good. What this is mostly taken to mean is that Americans will never, ever agree to pay higher taxes to provide universal social services, as the Nordics do. Thus Bernie Sanders, and anyone else in the U.S. who brings up Nordic countries as an example for America, is living in la-la land.
  
  But this vision of homogeneous, altruistic Nordic lands is mostly a fantasy. The choices Nordic countries have made have little to do with altruism or kinship. Rather, Nordic people have made their decisions out of self-interest. Nordic nations offer their citizens—all of their citizens, but especially the middle class—high-quality services that save people a lot of money, time, and trouble. This is what Americans fail to understand: My taxes in Finland were used to pay for top-notch services for me.
  
  REUTERS/Jim YoungBernie Sanders is espousing a Nordic-style social safety net.
  
  
  
  When I lived in Finland, as a middle-class citizen I paid income tax at a rate not much higher than what I now pay in New York City. True, Nordic countries have somewhat higher taxes on consumption than America, and overall they collect more tax revenue than the U.S. currently does—partly from the wealthy. But, as an example, here are some of the things I personally got in return for my taxes: nearly a full year of paid parental leave for each child (plus a smaller monthly payment for an additional two years, were I or the father of my child to choose to stay at home with our child longer), affordable high-quality day care for my kids, one of the world’s best public K-12 education systems, free college, free graduate school, nearly free world-class health care delivered through a pretty decent universal network, and a full year of partially paid disability leave.
  
  As far as I was concerned, it was a great deal. And it was equally beneficial for others. From a Nordic perspective, nothing Bernie Sanders is proposing is the least bit crazy—pretty much all Nordic countries have had policies like these in place for years.
  
  But wait, most Americans would say: Those policies work well because all Nordics share a sense of kinship and have fond feelings for each other. That might be nice if it were true, but it’s not, as anyone who has followed recent political debates about immigration or economic policy in Nordic countries understands.
  
  Nordics are not only just as selfish as everyone else on this earth but they can—and do—dislike many of their fellow citizens just as much as people with different political views dislike each other in other countries. As for homogeneity, Sweden already has a bigger share of foreign-born residents than the U.S. The reason Nordics stick with the system is because they can see that on the whole, they come out ahead—not just as a group, but as individuals.
  
  Even so, surely these Nordic “socialist nanny states” pay the price in squashing entrepreneurship and business innovation? This is another refrain I repeatedly hear: Nordic countries have produced no Steve Jobs, no General Motors, and no medical breakthroughs. In short, American entrepreneurs, scientists, and other innovators have changed the world while Nordic countries fall short of taking risks and working hard.
  
  This is what Hillary Clinton implied when she responded to Sanders’s praise of the Nordic region in the first Democratic debate. “When I think about capitalism,” Clinton said, “I think about all the small businesses that were started because we have the opportunity and the freedom in our country for people to do that and to make a good living for themselves and their families… And I think what Senator Sanders is saying certainly makes sense in the terms of the inequality that we have. But we are not Denmark. I love Denmark. We are the United States of America.”
  
  Michael Campanella/Getty ImagesSweden has a larger share of foreign-born residents than the US.
  
  
  
  In reality, however, Nordic nations have produced what is, by any metric, an impressive output of successful entrepreneurs, international businesses, and brands. Sweden has Ikea, H&M, Spotify, and Volvo, to name a few. From Denmark have come Lego, Carlsberg, and one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, Novo Nordisk. A Swede and a Dane co-founded the video calling service Skype.
  
  The core programming code of Linux—the leading operating system running on the world’s servers and supercomputers—was developed by a Finn. The Finnish company Nokia was the world’s largest mobile phone maker for more than a decade. And newer players like Finland’s Supercell and Rovio, creators of the ubiquitous video games Clash of Clans and Angry Birds, or Sweden’s Mojang, the publisher of the equally popular video game Minecraft, are changing the face of online gaming.
  
  Nordic countries are well-ranked when it comes to helping facilitate starting a business. At the most basic level, what the Nordic approach does is reduce the risk of starting a company, since basic services such as education and health care are covered for regardless of the fledgling company’s fate. In addition, companies themselves are freed from the burdens of having to offer such services for their employees at the scale American companies do. And if the entrepreneur succeeds, they are rewarded by tax rates on capital gains that are lower than the rate on wages.
  
  Nordic economies go through cycles like all countries, and they make mistakes like everyone else—Finland is in the midst of a recession right now, whereas the Swedish economy is doing phenomenally well. As in any region, some Nordic companies eventually crash and burn, and others never get off the ground.
  
  Some continue to dominate their market for decades. This is all as it should be in free-market, capitalist economies—which is what Nordic countries are. In fact, as capitalist economies the Nordic countries have proven that capitalism works better when it’s accompanied by smart, universal social policies that are in everyone’s self-interest.
  
  From my Nordic-American perspective, I’m actually surprised by how many Americans discount Bernie Sanders’s policy proposals because at their root they’re no different from what the Nordic countries have already proven works. I understand why Sanders supporters believe in his vision, and I can assure them that they are not being the least bit naive.
  
  The problem is the way Sanders has talked about it. The way he’s embraced the term socialisthas reinforced the American misunderstanding that universal social policies always require sacrifice for the good of others, and that such policies are anathema to the entrepreneurial, individualistic American spirit. It’s actually the other way around. For people to support a Nordic-style approach is not an act of altruism but of self-promotion. It’s also the future.
  
  Flickr/Tony WebsterCopenhagen, Denmark.
  
  
  
  In an age when more and more people are working as entrepreneurs or on short-term projects, and when global competition is requiring all citizens to be better prepared to handle economic turbulence, every nation needs to ensure that its people have the education, health care, and other support structures they need to take risks, start businesses, and build a better future for themselves and for their country. It’s simply a matter of keeping up with the times.
  
  Americans are not wrong to abhor the specters of socialism and big government. In fact, as a proud Finn, I often like to remind my American friends that my countrymen in Finland fought two brutal wars against the Soviet Union to preserve Finland’s freedom and independenceagainst socialism. No one wants to live in a society that doesn’t support individual liberty, entrepreneurship, and open markets.
  
  But the truth is that free-market capitalism and universal social policies go well together—this isn’t about big government, it’s about smart government. I suspect that despite Hillary Clinton’s efforts to distance herself from Sanders, she probably knows this. After all, Clinton is also endorsing policies that sound an awful lot like what the Nordics have done: paid family leave, better public schools, and affordable day care, health care and college for all.
  
  The United States is its own country, and no one expects it to become a Nordic utopia. But Nordic countries aren’t utopias either. What they’ve done has little to do with culture, size, or homogeneity, and everything to do with figuring out how to flourish and compete in the 21st century.
  
  In the U.S., supporters of not only Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, but also of Donald Trump, are worried about exactly the kinds of problems that universal social policies can help solve: worsening income inequality, shrinking opportunity, the decline of the middle class, and the survival of the ordinary family in the face of globalization. What America needs right now, desperately, isn’t to keep fighting the socialist bogeymen of the past, but to see the future—at least one presidential candidate should show them that.
  "

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-americans-dont-understand-about-nordic-countries-2016-3

 

Who knows.

You could ask the same about any US citizen that moves somewhere else.

 

How many people does Finland have? Do they have people trying to immigrant in? And sneak in? Are they $19 Trillion in debt? Are they the world police?

If $15 minimum wage is a good idea, I guess $50 is a great idea. I'd love to hear Bernie give his thoughts on that crazy idea.

 

I never understood this question in regards to comparing the US to the Scandinavian countries that make Socialism work. What difference does it make how many people are in the country? If there are 1,000 people in Finland producing a $5,000 economy, it stands to reason that the economy just scales up with the population. There is nothing unique enough about the US that makes all the programs in Finland prohibitive.

They are labeled a drain on the economy, but the truth is, without illegal immigrant labor, the economy would crumble. Farming and unskilled labor especially rely on the illegal immigrants. That dynamic doesn't change if we implemented a socialist system.

Probably not, but we waste the majority of our money on the military that is already far and away the best in the world. Cut just a sliver of the military budget, and stop wasting money on corporate subsidies, purchased legislature, and handouts, and bam, all of a sudden, we can afford every plan Bernie is suggesting.

No, we shouldn't be either.

One doesn't equate to the other, because $15 minimum wage wasn't just a random number pulled out of the ether like $50.

$15 minimum wage is being suggested because that is a living wage in most cities. There is no reason to do $50 minimum wage.

 

These wondrous Scandinavian countries, pillars of the socialists utopia, are not prospering like the socialists would have you believe. If the Scandinavian countries were turned into US states, Denmark would be the 10th poorest state in the union. Sweden would be the 7th poorest. Finland would be the fifth poorest. (Study) Also, they make crap for money AND there is still a huge disparity between the top and bottom...just like here. "In Finland, the average household net-adjusted disposable income per capita is USD 27 927 a year, more than the OECD average of USD 25 908 a year. But there is a considerable gap between the richest and poorest – the top 20% of the population earn almost four times as much as the bottom 20%." (Source)

It's all bull-s*** when they point to Finland, Norway etc. They point to these countries as examples because they are not colossal failures like most socialist countries. But the truth is they are not really a success, and merely treading water. But if you think 28k is an amazing net income, then you can mail me the difference in what you make over it.

 

That's a terrible argument. What kind of logic has anyone comparing a whole country to a state? The dynamics are completely skewed, and states economies are bolstered by just being a part of the US, where they are not autonomous. State economies are not allowed to collapse the way countries do because they are tied together too closely.

Economics are always relative as well, so a person living in Sweden making 30,000k per year might be living the good life compared to the cost of living in the US.

You will find lots of articles cherry picking stats about how Socialism isn't good right now, but check the dates. The great majority are within the last year, because the big media conglomerations and outlets have an interest in Hillary winning, so they will try to smear Bernie by smearing his ideals.

Huh? The very link you give here concludes "In general, Finns are more satisfied with their lives than the OECD average. When asked to rate their general satisfaction with life on a scale from 0 to 10, Finns gave it a 7.4 grade, higher than the OECD average of 6.6.".

Bottom line is you can nitpick facts to make anywhere look bad. But the people that actually live there are happier and the economy/government model they've made works.

The Economist's bottom line take on Scandinavia:

"The main lesson to learn from the Nordics is not ideological but practical. The state is popular not because it is big but because it works. A Swede pays tax more willingly than a Californian because he gets decent schools and free health care. The Nordics have pushed far-reaching reforms past unions and business lobbies. The proof is there. You can inject market mechanisms into the welfare state to sharpen its performance. You can put entitlement programmes on sound foundations to avoid beggaring future generations. But you need to be willing to root out corruption and vested interests. And you must be ready to abandon tired orthodoxies of the left and right and forage for good ideas across the political spectrum. The world will be studying the Nordic model for years to come."

http://www.economist.com/news/leade...-could-learn-nordic-countries-next-supermodel

 

No, it's not even close.

Remember Greece's economy collapsing and having that banking crisis a few years ago? It's been 7 years now in total since they started the down hill spiral. Since then it's only gotten much worse. That's because the EU is not tied to each other nearly as tightly as the US. Greece's credit rating is still in the C range for some financial institutions, which is terrible for a country. Could you even imagine any state going through a continued financial crisis for 7 years?

The suggestion that a European country is similar to a US State is so far off it shouldn't even be made. They don't have hundreds of years of collective organization to ensure stability.

 

Can a moral case be made for taking the rightful property of one American and giving it to another to whom it does not belong? I think not. That’s why socialism is evil. It uses evil means (coercion) to achieve what are seen as good ends (helping people). We might also note that an act that is inherently evil does not become moral simply because there’s a majority consensus.
- Walter Williams

I'd rather rob my neighbor than have the government do it for me.
- John (me)

 

Elegant Shakesperian pros of an apocalyptic delusion.

Meanwhile the people that actually live in these Scandinavian Countries are on average, much happier than people in the US

 

Could they be happier though? I always dislike that kind of argument. Everyone could be "happy" but maybe they could be even happier than that.

The cave argument so to speak.

 

Happiness index is always measured against the average for 1st world nations, or the average for the world.

Scandinavian states consistently rank at the top. So if they could be happier, no other nation has figured out how.

 

"BERNIE SANDERS IS SET TO WIN ALL OF THE UPCOMING 8 STATES, EXPERT SAYS
March 21, 2016 Political People 3 comments


According to polling expert Nate Silver, Bernie Sanders is likely to win all of the upcoming 8 states in the race to become the Democratic nominee. Silver boasts a long record of accurate predictions which includes successfully calling the outcomes in 49 of the 50 states in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, for example. As a result of that particular achievement, he was named one of The World’s 100 Most Influential People by Time in 2009.


Currently working at polling organization FiveThirtyEight, Silver has done a remarkable job of predicting state by state who will win in both the Democratic and Republican fields during this election cycle. His credibility took a blow, however, following a win for the rising Democratic candidate, Bernie Sanders in the state of Michigan. Silver and his polling organization claimed that Sanders’ opponent – former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton – had a greater than 99% chance of winning the Michigan primary, when in fact Bernie Sanders won the state by 2%.


After that upset, Silver went back through the records and found that only one primary, the 1984 Democratic one in New Hampshire, was on the same scale as the historical Sanders win in Michigan. The whole polling game changed that day, proclaimed many experts in the period that followed the primary.Silver decided to create an entirely different model and formula for predicting the primaries, one which incorporated demographic factors much more.

Using his new method of predicting, Silver would have been able to predict the Michigan caucus far more accurately, as he explains, “Our demographic “retrodiction” for Michigan still has Clinton winning, but only barely — by 3 percentage points, compared with the actual 2-point win for Sanders. Especially under the Democrats’ proportional allocation method, that’s a pretty minor difference.” The difference is even more minor when you incorporate the fact that most polling companies, in the run-up to Michigan had Sanders losing to Clinton by almost 20%.

It is critical to the Sanders campaign that they finally begin to enter a period of sustained victories, if they are to clinch the nomination. Now, however, following a change in Silver’s prediction system, it seems as though Sanders is on track to achieve just that. While Clinton tends to do better in more conservative regions, such as the Deep South, there aren’t many of such places left to vote. The next 8 states to engage in the Democratic nominating process are Arizona, Idaho, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Silver feels Sanders has a shot at winning all of them.

In Idaho, Nate Silver says that Bernie Sanders has a 75% chance of winning. Similarly, in Utah he has an even greater chance of winning at 82%, in Alaska Sanders is almost certain to win with a 91% chance. Hawaii and Washington are the next two states after that, and according to Silver’s mathematical analysis – Bernie has a 81% and 85% chances of winning. Finally, in Wisconsin, Bernie has a 61% chance of winning and in Wyoming he has an 81% chance of winning.

The only state that I have omitted so far is Arizona, which is on the same date as the Idaho and Utah primaries. In Arizona, according to Nate Silver’s prediction – Bernie Sanders has a 40% chance of winning. These predictions however, were made a couple of weeks ago, before Sanders held multiple rallies in the state, before he invested over 1.5 million dollars in ads and before polls emerged showing Sanders rapidly closing the gap. The incorporation of all these influences means that Sanders has a far better chance of winning Arizona now than he did when Silver’s predictions were made.

Therefore – with the exception of perhaps Arizona – Bernie Sanders looks set to enter a period of successive wins in very important states. Last week, the Sanders campaign claimed that Clinton’s best days are now behind us and according to polling experts such as Nate Silver it seems as though they were right. Sanders fans will hope that winning all of the upcoming 8 states would provide Bernie with sufficient momentum to enable him to win bigger states in the future such as California and New York.
"

http://www.politicalpeopleblog.com/bernie-sanders-set-to-win-all-of-the-upcoming-8-states/

 

Eventually Bernie and his voters will run out of the big bad 1% to rip off and they'll come for me. I challenge you to show 1 thing I acquired immorally or by manipulating a broken system.

The problem with Socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money to spend.

Every candidate paints the "rich" as greedy, but none of them change anything. Did the Obama fiasco not teach the Left anything? They don't care about you.

 

BTW, here's the latest Happiness index rankings: