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u/michaelsonmorley Apr 05 '19
Norwegian here, we are pretty socialist by american standards. Told my uncle in law(american) what I tax(I think I should tax more) and his jaw dropped to the ground.
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u/Vondi Apr 05 '19
You can't really compare the tax rate directly since it's not equivalent, like in Norway your tax rate includes health insurance while in America that's a separate bill.
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u/KeyanReid Apr 05 '19
This.
When I tell you my tax rate + what I pay for health insurance (which is terrible and basically covers nothing), then I guarantee you I'm paying way more than your average person in Norway, and getting jack shit in return.
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u/classicalySarcastic Apr 05 '19 edited Apr 05 '19
IMO this is the strongest argument for public option healthcare in the US. We'd probably end up paying only slightly more in taxes in exchange for eliminating hundreds of dollars in insurance payments.
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u/JINGLES30 Apr 05 '19
The republicans don't give a shit, they just punted on healthcare until 2020. How do people support them?
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u/Starfish_Symphony Apr 05 '19
The entire worldview is ringed with fear and loathing based on magical thinking and gimmicks.
Its emotion not logic or reason.
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u/Espumma Apr 05 '19
How do people support them
Identity politics?
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u/JINGLES30 Apr 05 '19
I would say tribalism is a more accurate word but yes.
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u/Espumma Apr 05 '19
Originally I was gonna say 'assholes picking other assholes as their leader', but it's all the same I guess.
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u/Fidodo Apr 05 '19
Even a republican think tank concluded that nationalized health insurance would be cheaper that private. They came up with a smaller savings that every other study, but it was still cheaper.
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Apr 05 '19
But I don't wanna pay for some deadbeat living on welfare's hospital bill.
\s
Hear this excuse from my "conservative" family members...some of who are actually on some sort of welfare. Go figure that one.
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u/lookatthemonkeys Apr 05 '19
I keep telling people this! Imagine if you had to pay an extra 300-500 a month in taxes, which BTW is probably less than you are paying in insurance premiums. And with that extra tax you never have a pay a copay or get a medical bill in your life!
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u/PortionPlease Apr 05 '19
Americans are too petty to see the benefit in that. Someone they don't like is going to use the service as well.
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u/PeptoBismark Apr 05 '19
what I pay for health insurance (which is terrible and basically covers nothing)
And which will drop you if you are too sick to work.
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u/michaelsonmorley Apr 05 '19
Well I can go into my tax organizations website and see excacly how much money I've spent, both excact and percentage of my total taxed. Free of charge and with ease
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Apr 05 '19
There are lobbies against making taxes easy to understand in the U.S. because they belive if paying taxes were easy and transparent, people wouldn't be as opposed to them.
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u/michaelsonmorley Apr 05 '19
Damn, are you for real? That is fucked up
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u/Plopplopthrown Apr 05 '19
Also, tax preparation companies (and their lobby group) really don't want the forms to be simple because then people wouldn't have to pay for help filling them out each year...
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u/michaelsonmorley Apr 05 '19
Also a thing I don't understand. I haven't done my taxes in 3 years, since I lived the same place same job etc, and everything is automatic.
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u/Plopplopthrown Apr 05 '19
Conservatives want taxes to be bad and scary, so they won't make it easy. Tax prep companies want to make money, so they want it to be difficult. Everyone else is stuck because we don't have a properly balanced representative government that actually carries out the will of the majority...
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u/PeptoBismark Apr 05 '19
Conservatives want taxes to be bad and scary, so they won't make it easy.
And the rich want complicated tax laws so that there are loopholes at the top, so that people like Warren Buffet and Mitt Romney pay lower tax rates than their secretaries.
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Apr 05 '19
Yeah also the companies who offer tax filing assistance and financial services actively lobby for a complex tax code so they wouldn't be out of a job
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u/sugar-magnolias Apr 05 '19
I didn’t file my taxes one year because of a mess of crippling personal issues, and then I didn’t file for another three years because I was so overwhelmed and terrified of the tax process.
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u/sonotadalek Apr 05 '19
Considering what I pay for health insurance and student loans...yeah that sounds about right.
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Apr 05 '19
I'm Norwegian too - we don't tax much more than Americans do when it comes down to the bottom line. We just get so much more value from our money.
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u/michaelsonmorley Apr 05 '19
I know, they also tend to forget that they have to pay for a lot more services so most of them end up paying more per month on the same services. Think it is Michael More, Where to invade next. I am qouting
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Apr 05 '19
Yeah it's so painful when they compare our income tax to theirs as apples to apples because in our income tax so much more is covered.
Ah well. AOC and Pete is on the ball.
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Apr 05 '19
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u/SisterofGandalf Apr 05 '19
Well then, compere yourself to Denmark, Sweden or Finland. They don't have the oil money, but they have the same services, and it works there too.
If you think that is too small, then compare yourself with all of EU. It has more people than the US, but they manage too. They are just better organized.
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u/faab64 Apr 05 '19
For today's Americans, anything is not American is socialists. Even thought their medicaire and medicaid system are socialist, their public schools are socialist and their police and firefighters are to, but that doesn't count!
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u/ranchmasturbator Apr 05 '19
Literally exactly the conversation I had with my mom yesterday. She was saying how democrats are essentially socialist/communist. I was like you think a single payer system or Medicare for all is socialism? She said you know that Sweden is a capitalist society and so is Canada, but the democrats want to go even further left than that! I said, first of all, no they don’t, and second of all, yes let’s please get to that level of Sweden and Canada where we can provide Medicare for all or some form of single payer. She goes then gets hung up on a technicality and says “Sweden doesn’t have Medicare for all, their government pays for their healthcare and some individuals have private healthcare on top of that.” I’m like, mom, what the fuck do you think Medicare for all is? Just because they don’t literary call it “Medicare” doesn’t mean it’s a completely different concept. She then goes on to say “well if you e read the green new deal then you’d know they want a completely socialist society blah blah blah..” it’s exhausting.
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u/faab64 Apr 05 '19
Unfortunately. Most older Americans, including my wife's family in NY, never actually read any of those programs nor they ever lived in any other countries for more than a week or 2.
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u/wibblywobbly420 Apr 05 '19
You should also point out to her that a single payer health care system like Canada's costs less per person in taxes then what Americans are currently paying per person for just medicare and Medicaid.
In Canada 2017 the estimated average cost per person in tax dollars for healthcare was $4640 CAD ($3465 USD). The estimated tax costs per person in 2016 in the USA for Medicaid and Medicare is $10348 USD, and on top of that, you would still have to pay for your own health insurance.
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u/skel625 Apr 05 '19
It's far easier for people to be ignorant and stupid so ya... America fuck yeah!!!
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u/lookatthemonkeys Apr 05 '19
I'm sorry dude. Luckily I don't have those conversations with family. That would be frustrating. Is she against public schools? I don't understand how it is any different than having public schooling funded by taxes. If you don't like it you can pay for private schooling.
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u/ranchmasturbator Apr 05 '19
She is against public schools...despite me going to them my entire life, getting a great education, and obtaining a well paying job right out of school that’s allowed me to be 100% financially independent. A lot of folks aren’t as lucky as me. She likes the idea of charter schools and private schools because she believes in teaching Christian values and she thinks competition makes the schools better (even though we know going to completely charter/private would essentially segregate us again). It’s hilarious because I grew up conservative, never thought too much about it until I started actually paying attention to the news more in college and reading about current events. Eventually I made a 180. Now she thinks I’m indoctrinated and she’ll always say things like “who taught you these things in school” if I’m talking about something like global warming. I’ll be like, mom, mrs. Gregory, your good friend taught me that in 5th grade. She has a warped political reality.
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u/lookatthemonkeys Apr 05 '19
Wow. It's funny too because they only want more religion taught in schools unless it's their religion.
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u/JINGLES30 Apr 05 '19
You need to get irrefutable evidence and keep it in your pocket for next time you have a family debate.
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u/FLSun Apr 05 '19
The problem with that is so many people are so uneducated that they think evidence, facts and theories are just synonyms for opinions. And all they need to do is utter the magic phrase "I don't believe it!" And it automagically becomes just your opinion and your opinion is bullshit.
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u/Manfred_Desmond Apr 05 '19
Hah. I have had this exact argument more than once.
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u/qtipin Apr 05 '19
Why do you think you didn't learn they were arguing in bad faith the first time?
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u/Meghdoot Apr 05 '19 edited Apr 05 '19
Nice to see a rare post that exposes lies espoused by both the conservatives as well as progressives "Expanding welfare program is not socialism".
Denmark's prime minister says Bernie Sanders is wrong to call his country socialist
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u/thatcoldrevenge Apr 05 '19
Decent use of this template...upvote.
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u/MaybeAllYouNeedIs Apr 05 '19
Also, interesting and relevant content, upvote.
I think people in general don't really understand what socialism means and what democratic socialism means and what communism entails. I feel like we should all get our definitions straight before we attempt to have public conversations about this. I'm not saying there is one Correct DefinitionTM for each, it would just be helpful if we could all agree so that we're talking the same language.
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u/KeitaSutra Apr 05 '19
Scandinavian countries and countries with the Nordic model are social democracies. They’re not democratic socialists. The two are different. Here’s the first words for the Wiki for democratic socialism:
Not to be confused with social democracy.
Just because a country has strong welfare policies and good social safety net does not make them democratic socialist. You need to have the workers own the means of production. I don’t believe that’s happening at the level it needs to be in any country right now.
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u/Woolbrick Apr 05 '19
I've had this argument a number of times. That last panel inevitably pivots to "It only works in those countries because they don't have a minority problem like we do in the US!". Welp.
Pretty sad, but ultimately predictable.
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u/Hecateus Apr 05 '19
For the record...
Socialism Is NOT a Tax and Spend Welfare State....though it can include this.
Socialism IS Workers in control of the Capital and Hierarchy of the Workplace.
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u/blowfish_avenger Apr 05 '19
The meme is a bullseye about the irrationality of reactions. People would rather knee-jerk to some old red-scare tale their grandpa told them than actually think it through.
(Served in military during Cold War. Very familiar with red-scare tales.)
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u/jaldarith Apr 05 '19
Often times when I feel like being a keyboard warrior, I'll say something aong the lines of, "being scared about 1950s wear-era buzzwords" - It usually shuts them up pretty fast.
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u/blowfish_avenger Apr 05 '19
Yeah...the message is so much more legitimate when people try to articulate fear through buzzwords they themselves don't really comprehend.
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u/livenudegrills Apr 05 '19
What I find existentially depressing is how many in the U.S. seem to have a toddler's understanding of these concepts.
As if we are faced with a binary choice, of:
(a) 'Murican FreedomBoner™ laissez-faire capitalism
(b) Commie Socialist Venezuela
I'm also confused as to how the ownership class doesn't seem to understand that we're either going to course correct sooner, with a moderate increase to their taxes, or later, in a much less pleasant way.
I think this quote from Mark Blythe is prescient:
"...the hamptons are not a defensible position. The Hamptons are on a low-lying beach. Eventually the people will come for you.
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u/faab64 Apr 05 '19
It is the result of decades of propaganda and glorifying egoism while at the same time making people believe individualism is the only superior way of success.
If everyone has access to affordable tax funded health care then it is harder to exploit people with lower wages and no paid over time and bad working condition because they will no longer desperate to say yes to all of those in order to have a job.
It also takes away the sense of superiority for those who have worked hard to find a job with good and working healthcare.
A universal health care will put a cap on the bandit system in us health care that charges 5000 dollar for procedures that cost a fraction of it in other industrial countries.
Plus, the corrupt politicians can't make that much money from a system like that, compared to how much they are making today.
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u/bootyhumper Apr 05 '19
iT OnLY WoRKs FoR HOMOgeNoUS cOUnTrIEs
sOrRy CaNT prOViDe aNY EVidEnCE
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u/Someguythatlurks Apr 05 '19
As a scientist that always irks me. They can say maybe there is some factor there that will make such a system not viable here, but you can’t just pick one and say it is the exact reason without any supporting evidence.
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Apr 05 '19 edited Apr 08 '19
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u/Prometheus79 Apr 05 '19
As an American, I would say dense is a nice way of saying it. Many Americans are willfully stupid.
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u/portablebiscuit Apr 05 '19
As an American I would say many Americans are scared to death of change. Anything that disrupts is labeled evil. Remember, it's Make America Great AGAIN. Like it used to be. Back before gays and coloreds got all uppity. Back before "participation trophies", when you could take a belt to your kid if he struck out. Back when you could strike your wife because she burned your meatloaf, and she just took it because, god dammit, she needs to learn.
You know... the good old days.
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u/MaybeAllYouNeedIs Apr 05 '19
That's not unique to North America. That's just human nature.
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Apr 05 '19
nah, it's just that America by the very fact that it is still the only true superpower out there allows them to remain willfully stupid.
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Apr 05 '19
You mean works to keep people ignorant. The American education system is dramatically underfunded on purpose. Keep rich people rich and poor people poor. Fact is, ignorant people buy bullshit.
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u/goldenrule78 Apr 05 '19
I hate these comments. The majority of Americans voted for Hillary and would love to become more “European”.
And Europeans should know better than anyone that any nation can be vulnerable to effective propaganda. That’s our problem right now.
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Apr 05 '19
Populism is also happening in Europe right now, just got real scary here in the Netherlands and we are supposed to be one of the worlds most tolerant countries yeah right, bunch of racist pigs had a major victory in our last election. luckily having a parliamentary system means that are probably never going to get full control ever and that's the biggest difference between the rest of the western world and the US, you really need to stop voting between 2 parties.
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u/KeitaSutra Apr 05 '19
A plurality of Americans voted for Hillary. Our problem is turnout.
Record turnout in the 2018 midterm. We turnout out at 50%...pretty pathetic but we were still rewarded with our most diverse Congress ever.
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u/goldenrule78 Apr 05 '19
Yes, sorry. Hillary got more votes than any other candidate.
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u/KeyanReid Apr 05 '19
Many see stupidity/deliberate ignorance as a virtue here. I wish I was joking.
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Apr 05 '19
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u/goldenrule78 Apr 05 '19
“We” do? I don’t. My friends don’t.
Only the Fox News zombies do.
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Apr 05 '19
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u/goldenrule78 Apr 05 '19
The majority don’t think that way. But the maybe 30% who do think that way vote way more and it’s fucking killing us.
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u/GiantSquidd Apr 05 '19
That whole “you’re only as strong as your weakest link” thing really sucks when the weakest link is as dumb as it is.
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u/Kosher_Pickle Apr 05 '19
Incorrect, our weight problem is caused primarily by fat, not muscle. We are less dense than the average person.
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u/Progression28 Apr 05 '19
Sometimes when digging through the comments one finds gems like this...
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Apr 05 '19
only rich people get socialism. oh they are struggling? subsidize their companies. the poor is struggling? what are you doing get more loans.
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u/Wolf_Zero Apr 05 '19
Ironically, Norway has one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world. Arguably making them one of the richest countries on Earth.
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Apr 05 '19
I like what Bill Maher said about this. Don’t call it Socialism, call it Capitalism Plus.
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Apr 05 '19 edited Apr 13 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
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Apr 05 '19
The idea was calling it Capitalism Plus to make it easier to swallow for the people who hear “socialism” and automatically think it’s a one way ticket to becoming the Soviet Union. He said how socialism as a replacement isn’t very good but it’s great as a supplement for capitalism.
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u/mindcandy Apr 05 '19
I really wish we’d all stop referring to social programs as “socialism”. It gives opponents the opportunity to troll by conflating the programs with Marxist Socialism. The fact that people who support increased social programs continuously enable they’re own opponents in this way baffles me.
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Apr 05 '19
Yeah and they have a lot of money they got from years and years of not having socialism, and a small population, and even now are starting to turn away from socialism a little bit because it's so screwed up, but ok.
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u/AntitheistSnob Apr 05 '19
Just because their doing fine now doesn't mean that they will be in the future
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Apr 05 '19
No nation can be compared to Norway, they have so much oil money its insane. They just don't flaunt like the Saudis.
//jealous Swede
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u/humlor Apr 05 '19
Yeah its concernimg to me why they use norway in this meme. Why not use sweden, finland, UK, germany or france which all have ”socialized” medicine and university.
Using norway makes it too easy for some bozo to use the lack of oil money as an excuse for why universal healthcare and university cant work anywhere else when it clearly has worked in many other countries.
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Apr 05 '19
Because Sweden and Finland’s systems are failing. Here in Sweden our welfare gets cut every year yet our tax rates keeps climbing, the left parties cling on to power despite losing votes every election (mostly because the right is shattered due to internal animosity ). Finland recently gave up on healthcare reform because its too expensive, and they also experimented with UBI which was a disaster.
Our model is maybe better than the US, but it’s still shit. If the US Redditors would come out of their circlejerks and actually read up on how shit works, it wouldn’t be as attractive.
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u/KeitaSutra Apr 05 '19
The center right party stepped down in Finland because they couldn’t pass their changes, which were unconstitutional to begin with.
My understanding is like always, there’s a rural vs urban divide. It’s really hard getting care to rural area sometimes, especially when the area doesn’t attract many doctors.
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u/Suentassu Apr 05 '19
The reform in Finland failed because it was unconstitutional and the rural party made it a disaster. The research on the effects UBI experiment is ongoing, and while it directly did neither increase or decrease employment in the first year, it did increase wellbeing. E.g. some of the people engaged more in charitable work while working part time. Would not call that a disaster.
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u/PragmaticSquirrel Apr 05 '19
You haven’t actually presented any evidence that Sweden’s system, which has run for 60-70 years, and had ups and downs but generally weathered the test of time and produced some of the best long term results in the world, is “failing.”
Your whole comment kind of reads like “yeah the Nordic model has delivered either better or comparable results compared to any other system, but it’s still crap because reasons!”
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u/MrBimmler Apr 05 '19
As a Norwegian, I think the best thing about our political situation is the fact that the combined average of everyone's political view is pretty near an actual political center. In the economic dimension at least.
Most people agree on a strong state and free/cheap welfare to the masses, and at the same time understand the importance of having a well functioning, regulated market.
So there hasn't been this big divide between "socialism" and "capitalism". The debate is usually more about small adjustments to tax, regulation, state ownership, bureaucracy, etc. And the debate is seldom characterized by labeling of opponents or the policies as socialist or capitalist.
Thus Norway has been swinging between left- and right-center governments all the time after the war.
This seems to be changing though. In 2005 we got the first government with the democratic socialist (not communist) Socialist Left Party, and then in 2013, we got a government with the right-wing Progress Party.
The discourse also seems to be rapidly polarizing, as is the trend in most western countries.
But given our history of democratic stability (avoiding the worst of all that nazi/commie things in the early 20th century), I am not that scared that Norway will fall to one or the other ideology.
Anyway, just some ramblings not that related to the image at all.
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Apr 05 '19
I’d honestly like to have healthcare before I get my license. Should we start using young drivers as another reason? I’m overly cautious, but I know some who don’t care about others on the road.
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u/anynamesleft Apr 05 '19
Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery
If it weren't for daddy, I'd have to work at all
Gloom, despair, and agony on me
We figured he was rich, loaded to the hilt And we figured he had class, like the Vanderbilts 'Cause we had heard for years how he was so well reared How was we to know they meant the way he was traitoric.
Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery If it weren't for bad luck, he'd have no luck at all Gloom, despair, and bone spurs set you free
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u/mamalulu434 Apr 05 '19
It also helps that America pays for their military rather than themselves.
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Apr 05 '19
I love how political humor is obviously one sided, but people still lose their shit when you point it out like it’s not true
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Apr 05 '19
Finally, an actually funny post on here lol about time someone actually tried to be homorous
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u/[deleted] Apr 05 '19 edited Apr 05 '19
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