4 ms·

As a Swede living in the United States, I can agree that the average person has a higher quality of life in Scandinavia! I don't think it's possible to have tha

by alehul 8y ago

As a Swede living in the United States, I can agree that the average person has a higher quality of life in Scandinavia! I don't think it's possible to have that in the States, though; the country doesn't seem meant for it. The Scandinavian model relies on many incompatible tenets that could be mentioned, including but not limited to immigration. The Swedish system is already practically collapsing from its first major influx of immigrants ever. If we want a country in which everyone is welcome, it can't be a country in which we offer a fantastic quality of life automatically through living there. I mean, not until we have some post-scarcity economy, at least. Another issue is that maybe part of the States' success is related to having more income to yourself, to spend at your discretion after taxes, rather than it being spent for you by the government. It inspires a lot of immigration from people with big ideas, and that could easily change if the U.S. surpasses other countries in taxes. I think there are models the U.S. should adopt from Scandinavia, however they're smaller in scope and address efficiency with tax money. One example is that all your income tax goes to the local government up until a certain point (~65,000 USD?), and it's redistributed at that level, rather than being siphoned through so many levels of bureaucracy like in the States. It's funny, while being the polar opposite of the U.S. and its conservative values, Sweden still manages a smaller federal government!

joejerryronnie 8y ago
The population of Sweden is 10 million vs 325 million for the US. The issues faced by each country are vastly different in scale and policies which work at one scale will not necessarily work at the other. In this context we should be comparing the policies of Sweden to the policies of New York (but even that doesn't really work because of the vastly more diverse population of NY).
- kungtotte 8y ago
  I totally accept the argument that it's not the same thing to run a country of 10 milion versus 325 million, but why does demographics matter so much? A lot of the differences between Sweden and the US comes down to things like whether health care should be a human right etc. Do you think people are less inclined to want "free" health care if they live in a community that's ethnically mixed? I don't buy it.
  - JBReefer 8y ago
    There are major differences between American culture and Scandavian - the Law of Jante, for example [1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
toomanybeersies 8y ago
Australia is a nation of immigrants. About 30% of the Australian population are immigrants, and rising. Less than 50% of Australians have both parents born in Australia. Australia still manages to have great quality of life (unless you are an Aboriginal). I'm not sure how they manage it, I haven't looked into it, but somehow they have.
- adventured 8y ago
  They've managed it through the greatest major real estate bubble in modern history (by a large margin). Their housing market value as a share of GDP, is about 2.6x that of the US rate. https://i.imgur.com/h0BOtzE.png https://i.imgur.com/h0BOtzE.png The other thing has been the rise of China and selling them a vast supply of commodities. In 2002, Australia's GDP per capita was $20,000, while the US was $38,000. A dramatic gap. China's GDP explosion began in 2003 (their economy went from $1.4t in 2002 to $4.6t in 2008, and on upward from there). Australia's GDP soared right along with China's economy.
- xtreme 8y ago
  Since we are just speculating, I hypothesize that not sharing a land border with relatively poor countries has something to do with it. Australia does take in immigrants, but since most of them come legally they can pick and choose. They don't get the huge number of illegal immigrants USA deals with. This is not a diatribe against immigration, I'm an immigrant myself.
reaperducer 8y ago
One example is that all your income tax goes to the local government up until a certain point (~65,000 USD?), and it's redistributed at that level, rather than being siphoned through so many levels of bureaucracy like in the States. A very intriguing idea. I like it on the surface, but it falls down a little bit because local taxation is varied. Some cities have their own income taxes, while others don't. Some states have income taxes, while others don't. Some states|counties|cities have sales tax, while others don't. It's a hodge-podge. The local jurisdictions use this as an incentive to draw in new businesses. The idea is for local control of taxation. But your proposal seems to give the locals more control over taxes than the top-down structure we have now. It's worth thinking about.
- alehul 8y ago
  Very true! This is only possible through Sweden's standardization of tax rates — it's more like if the federal government directed the taxes they receive immediately to the local jurisdictions, but the federal government still sets the specific tax rate. Local governments won't need other forms of taxation in this model, as the income tax received is more than enough to have perfect infrastructure and all. It's currently infeasible in the US due to how substantial our federal government is, but it's funny as it's a libertarian dream to minimize the government; Sweden's success is in fact doing so, but also keeping tax rates high in the process.
kungtotte 8y ago
I'm a Swede still living in Sweden, and I take issue with some of what you say. We are nowhere close to collapsing, first of all. I don't know if you've been back recently or if you get your information from social media only, but really things are fine. Secondly this was hardly the first major influx of immigrants ever. We saw a major influx during the conflicts in former Yugoslavia during the 90s, lots of people came here after the US started wars against Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 00s. And back in the 60s there was a huge amount of workforce immigration, so much so that Finnish people are still the largest non-Swedish group in the country. Fun fact: the second largest group of people to come to Sweden in 2016 were repatriating swedes.

by alehul 8y ago

joejerryronnie 8y ago

The population of Sweden is 10 million vs 325 million for the US. The issues faced by each country are vastly different in scale and policies which work at one scale will not necessarily work at the other. In this context we should be comparing the policies of Sweden to the policies of New York (but even that doesn't really work because of the vastly more diverse population of NY).

kungtotte 8y ago
I totally accept the argument that it's not the same thing to run a country of 10 milion versus 325 million, but why does demographics matter so much? A lot of the differences between Sweden and the US comes down to things like whether health care should be a human right etc. Do you think people are less inclined to want "free" health care if they live in a community that's ethnically mixed? I don't buy it.
- JBReefer 8y ago
  There are major differences between American culture and Scandavian - the Law of Jante, for example [1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

toomanybeersies 8y ago

Australia is a nation of immigrants. About 30% of the Australian population are immigrants, and rising. Less than 50% of Australians have both parents born in Australia. Australia still manages to have great quality of life (unless you are an Aboriginal). I'm not sure how they manage it, I haven't looked into it, but somehow they have.

adventured 8y ago
They've managed it through the greatest major real estate bubble in modern history (by a large margin). Their housing market value as a share of GDP, is about 2.6x that of the US rate. https://i.imgur.com/h0BOtzE.png https://i.imgur.com/h0BOtzE.png The other thing has been the rise of China and selling them a vast supply of commodities. In 2002, Australia's GDP per capita was $20,000, while the US was $38,000. A dramatic gap. China's GDP explosion began in 2003 (their economy went from $1.4t in 2002 to $4.6t in 2008, and on upward from there). Australia's GDP soared right along with China's economy.
xtreme 8y ago
Since we are just speculating, I hypothesize that not sharing a land border with relatively poor countries has something to do with it. Australia does take in immigrants, but since most of them come legally they can pick and choose. They don't get the huge number of illegal immigrants USA deals with. This is not a diatribe against immigration, I'm an immigrant myself.

reaperducer 8y ago

One example is that all your income tax goes to the local government up until a certain point (~65,000 USD?), and it's redistributed at that level, rather than being siphoned through so many levels of bureaucracy like in the States. A very intriguing idea. I like it on the surface, but it falls down a little bit because local taxation is varied. Some cities have their own income taxes, while others don't. Some states have income taxes, while others don't. Some states|counties|cities have sales tax, while others don't. It's a hodge-podge. The local jurisdictions use this as an incentive to draw in new businesses. The idea is for local control of taxation. But your proposal seems to give the locals more control over taxes than the top-down structure we have now. It's worth thinking about.

alehul 8y ago
Very true! This is only possible through Sweden's standardization of tax rates — it's more like if the federal government directed the taxes they receive immediately to the local jurisdictions, but the federal government still sets the specific tax rate. Local governments won't need other forms of taxation in this model, as the income tax received is more than enough to have perfect infrastructure and all. It's currently infeasible in the US due to how substantial our federal government is, but it's funny as it's a libertarian dream to minimize the government; Sweden's success is in fact doing so, but also keeping tax rates high in the process.

kungtotte 8y ago

I'm a Swede still living in Sweden, and I take issue with some of what you say. We are nowhere close to collapsing, first of all. I don't know if you've been back recently or if you get your information from social media only, but really things are fine. Secondly this was hardly the first major influx of immigrants ever. We saw a major influx during the conflicts in former Yugoslavia during the 90s, lots of people came here after the US started wars against Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 00s. And back in the 60s there was a huge amount of workforce immigration, so much so that Finnish people are still the largest non-Swedish group in the country. Fun fact: the second largest group of people to come to Sweden in 2016 were repatriating swedes.