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Interesting, it seems that extremely rich americans are discovering what scandinavian countries solve through taxation and effective government. They used to h

• 11101010001100 2y ago
  Yes, these sorts of posts strike me as rich people learning that being rich doesn't solve everyone else's problems. Better late than never.
• robertlagrant 2y ago
  America has a lot of taxation. Fortunately for the Scandinavian countries it spends it on "protecting Scandinavian shipping lanes" and "medical research grants that benefit Scandinavia", rather than solely on local welfare spending. The America First lot are learning a lot from Scandinavia there, though. I'm not sure we're all going to like where that could lead.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • wslh 2y ago
    It is very difficult to compare or extrapolate US with Scandinavian countries. US is socially super-heterogeneus, huge, and big population while Scandinavian countries are socially homogeneus, small size and population. And this is just the beginning.
  • adamc 2y ago
    This is just wrong, on many levels. If you look where tax revenues go, it's mostly defense (military industrial complex) and middle-class entitlements.
    • mminer237 2y ago
      That's just wrong. Defense spending is 13% of the budget: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59727 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59727 Federal taxes are mostly spent on welfare like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, & SSI.
      • ericjmorey 2y ago
        You just said that "the budget is mostly Y" in response to, "the budget is mostly X + Y"
        • dgfitz 2y ago
          Huh? adamc said "budget is mostly A + B" and the response was "no, its mostly W + X + Y + Z"
          • adamc 2y ago
            The things he cites are mostly middle-class entitlements. That's where a lot of social security and medicare spending goes.
            • dgfitz 2y ago
              After… age 65. Right? Depending on when you draw SS. So the middle class is now the 50+ age group? This explains everything.
      • adamc 2y ago
        That isn't welfare. Most of those are middle-class entitlements. And defense is the second highest category: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder... Calling Social Security "welfare" is some weird political stance.
  • scotty79 2y ago
    I though America spends its taxation on destabilizing Middle East and flooding Europe and Scandinavia with migrants. If Europe tried to do what America does for Europe it should dump military equipment onto various central and South American countries so they can fight among themselves and create droves of refugees traveling North.
    • ericjmorey 2y ago
      The US has been destabilizing South and Central American Nations quite well on its own.
  • ellen364 2y ago
    I can't immediately think of a major US naval deployment in the North Sea outside the big NATO exercises every 1-2 years. Were you thinking of a specific shipping lane?
    • robertlagrant 2y ago
      Scandinavia (like most countries; it's not specific to them) benefits from a relatively piracy-free world, and a constrained Russia. This takes a giant amount of money to achieve, and it's mostly funded by the US taxpayer.
    • dh2022 2y ago
      US keeps the 6th fleet in Europe / Mediterranean sea. It costs a pretty penny to defend Europe's seas - about 40 ships,175 aircraft and 21 thousands people. https://www.c6f.navy.mil/ https://www.c6f.navy.mil/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Sixth_Fleet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Sixth_Fleet
  • josho 2y ago
    This is a common misunderstanding. The US doesn’t send its military around the world because they want to protect freedom and democracy. The US does this to protect open markets that it then gets first right to exploit. The US has benefited from this situation since WW2. It’s one reason why the US economy has been so successful. It’s also only now that the US has exploited these markets that they can question the purpose to continue their military imperialism. TLDR: the US military across the globe wasn’t done out of altruism. It was to expand US economic power.
    • robertlagrant 2y ago
      Arguing intentions seems foolish. The result is the world gets free trade defended basically at zero cost, which was my point. If Scandinavia had to pay for that, it would have far less money available to spend its money on Scandinavia First policies.
      • fastasucan 2y ago
        >the world gets free trade defended basically at zero cost At zero cost? Ask the families of those who have been killed by american millitary. >If Scandinavia had to pay for that Other than the Scandinavian soldiers killed, and millitary gear lost in the different wars? Other than the thousanda of refugees scandinavia and europe have taken in from the destabilized middle East? >it would have far less money available to spend its money on Scandinavia First policies. There are no Scandinavian first policies. Again, why should Scandinavian countries pay for Americas geopolitical activities more than is already done?
        • robertlagrant 2y ago
          You're being too general, in my opinion. Piracy is almost completed stopped just by presence, not by combat. American also engages in and their taxpayers fund foreign wars, which perhaps it should stop doing, but that is very separate to economically bouying up a global economy via and global R&D via global grant awards and open sharing of American research findings. Trump is right now pausing NIH funding and detaching from the WHO. All the funding that paid for benefited other countries is now gone, partly because people globally laughed at America for not spending enough on its citizens, and eventually enough of its citizens didn't think it was worth keeping on doing that any more.
• PKop 2y ago
  I prefer my higher wages and lower taxes, thanks. We need to get a handle (moratorium) on mass immigration into US before we care about handing out more of our money for welfare. Why would I want my hard earned wages to be given to an endless influx of poor foreigners? The problem with higher taxes is the money is not spent well. Solve that and people are more willing to contribute. Look at how badly run are the high tax cities and states in the US. Talk of taxing more without discussion of bad governance is a non starter.
  • kstrauser 2y ago
    I was raised in a low tax American state, and now live in a high tax one. The quality of life is so vastly better here that I could never go back. Turns out those taxes actually build nice places to live.
    • scarface_74 2y ago
      Is it better for the people who live in the rural areas of whatever state you live in? Are the better areas affordable? I’m far from a “disaffected rural White American Trump supporter” (yes I’m purposefully using a cliche). None of those adjectives describe me besides “American”. But a lot of people on the left (which I am when it comes to social issues) are very self unaware.
      • jamespo 2y ago
        Being on the left, but specifying on social issues suggests you want someone else to pay to solve those social issues.
        • scarface_74 2y ago
          No, I have no problem paying taxes or government requiring business to pay taxes. I don’t agree with the over and mostly dumb regulation of tech from the left and I think they over index on the wrong issues and the reason we are where we are now is because old folks on the left wouldn’t exit the stage when they should have - Supreme Court justices and Biden specifically. I’m pro Vax and have been shot up with every vaccine imaginable including multiple Covid boosters. But the anti-vax movement was exasperated by Democrats trying to force the Covid vaccine on people
• 9question1 2y ago
  https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2025/01/elon-musk-doge-government-efficiency/681366/ https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2025/01/elon-mu... "Like, the same font, right? And she points this out to the HR manager, and they’re like, Yeah, that means that this person’s the most qualified, because it’s the exact same language. And she’s like, This person is clearly unqualified because they didn’t even know to reformat. And this is not an outlier. Like, this happens a lot. So first they’re looking for these exact matches. And then they take everybody who was really close in language—and also, by the way, who has something called a government resume, which is different from a private-sector resume, and you have to know that somehow, magically, before you apply. Then from that pool, they send everyone a self-assessment questionnaire, and everybody who marks themselves as master, and I literally mean master—I think that’s the top rating in a lot of these—they make the next down select, so they move on to the next pool." This is not necessarily what I would consider transparent or fair. FWIW I do think government can provide value, but I think folks who don't live in America don't understand how dramatically different and worse the implementation of government is in America from many other countries who sometimes do get value from some aspects of government even if the goals are similar.
  • ceejayoz 2y ago
    This happens in private corporations, too. Most of us have gotten clearly bullshit resumes forwarded by HR.
  • ericjmorey 2y ago
    I don't think you understand how bad it is in literally any large organization ever.
    • vdqtp3 2y ago
      I don't know your background, so I won't say I don't think you understand - but in my experience, government is multiple times worse than any private organization. Yes, the same problems exist - but without any of the pressures that force private business to adapt or fail, so the problems are worse by far.
• keybored 2y ago
  Policymaking is never discovered. It’s forced. Like class struggle forced the hand of actors like FDR during his presidency. Then that was forced away by the reaction (class struggle) of the most right-wing capitalists and ideologues which ultimately lead to neoliberalism. So sure, there are some set of relatively enlightened capitalists that want more of a social democratic status quo for the stability it brings. But the material conditions are not there.[1] So people like Jeff Atwood will write opinion pieces and give what is the grand of scheme of things token material support. But it can’t realistically happen right now in the US. Of course the same principles apply to Scandinavian countries. They’re (our) false ideology is called the Nordic Model. [1] Look at Bernie Sanders. The Independent senator who ran for the ostensibly left-wing Democratic Party as a mere social democrat and was shot down by the Establishment. Now that he is too old to run again and the presidential election is done for you see people in the Establishment say things like, huh I think that guy had a point!
  • spencerflem 2y ago
    This is downvoted, but its true. Actual change will not come easily and it is opposed mightily by the ruling class