Thought you would find this to be of interest:
https://nypost.com/2019/07/07/norwegian-startups-flocking-to-new-york-for-lower-tax-rates/
https://nypost.com/2019/07/07/norwegian-startups-flocking-to-new-york-for-lower-tax-rates/
For My Friend, Pilt
- Thread starter Ponca Dan
- Start date
What genre is this, Ponca Dan? Is it "Norway isn't actually socialist" or "Norway is socialist and not actually good?"
Yeah, I expected you to catch that! Norway is not socialist, even though the reporter says it is. It's a system composed of mostly private ownership burdened with high taxes and high regulation coupled with a really sweet welfare system. I thought it was interesting that young entrepreneurs are bailing out of Norway to do their startups in New York of all places. If New York looks like a tax haven to them one can only wonder what the tax bite is in Norway!
"Startups are mushrooming in Norway as the nation seeks economic diversity outside the dominant oil sector, with as many as 60,000 startups formed in 2018, compared with 40,000 in 2009."
Sounds awful
Also if you look closely the only person attributing this phenomenon to taxes, rather than New York being the financial capital of the largest consumer market in the world is some one who works at a place called the Mises Institute in Alabama.
Sounds awful
Also if you look closely the only person attributing this phenomenon to taxes, rather than New York being the financial capital of the largest consumer market in the world is some one who works at a place called the Mises Institute in Alabama.
I didn't think anything was awful, just interesting. I read it and thought of you, knowing the reverence you have for Norway. The Mises Institute is a well known academic and informational outlet for Austrian economics, named after Ludwig von Mises that's been around for years, located in Auburn, Alabama. (I don't know if it has any affiliation with the university.) You should visit their website from time to time. It has many very interesting things to say about economics, rarely about politics.
One thing I would point out to the author of the piece: if Norway is home to 40-60K private enterprise startups every year one could hardly call it a socialist country!
Norway has a population of 5 million with an average IQ of 100.
The U. S. has a population of 329 million with an average IQ of 98.
The U. S. has a population of 329 million with an average IQ of 98.
Wow never would have guessed social democracy would yield that big of an IQ bump
It adds up across millions of peopleTwo points?
Oh yes, that's Mensa huge.
So have you abandoned your claim that Norway is socialist in favor of calling it a social democracy?
Not at all but definitely tired of tedious arguments about it
The other day I posted a video of George Will being interviewed. It was highly dismissed by several Trump supporters who refused to even watch it. But in the video he talks about the transformation of Lenin’s definition of socialism from total government control of the economy to a more watered down version of only control of major industry, and with each failure the definition has been diluted into being called social democracy. I thought of you while watching that portion of the interview and wondered if you had watched it.
From my time in Norway, it is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. And the women are even more beautiful. But the taxes are insane.
All "private enterprises" in Norway are partially government owned.
There is little foreign private investment money coming into Norway, so the government gives incentives to start ups. Of course, that doesn't come without a price. Not saying the system doesn't work well, but the state has their hand in the private sector.
I wonder what (oil) is propping up Norway's economy?
https://www.norskpetroleum.no/en/economy/governments-revenues/
I will give them credit however. They at least have the fiscal discipline to put the tax revenues in an endowment and only pull from the interest gained.
https://www.norskpetroleum.no/en/economy/governments-revenues/
I will give them credit however. They at least have the fiscal discipline to put the tax revenues in an endowment and only pull from the interest gained.
Those who favor socialism often site Norway. I simply sought to illustrate two totally different worlds.
Socialism is the rest stop on the road to communism.
I recommend The Communist Manifesto, 1910 English version by Marx and Engles.
Hugo Sanders knows socialism has failed everywhere it's been tried, but believes he's the one anointed to make it work.
Venezuela was the crown jewel of Latin America til Bernie Sanders economic policies were introduced in the early eighties.
Bernie Sanders promises to destroy our Medicare system, yet he has followers. I attribute his followers to a costly, miserable and failing public education system. I remember when public education taught Economics 101 and civics. No more.
Dan, when we get to Norwegian style Social Democracy/Socialism however you like to call it, we can have a discussion on the merits of distilling it further to meet Lenin's definition. In the mean time policy should favor, democracy, internationalism, and a more socialist economy.
Coincidentally, if Lenin would have done things in order Liberal Democracy-->Social Democracy-->Socialism thing probably would have gone smoother initially, but they all would have ended up speaking German (the ones not exterminated). Just a quirk of history that a tragic revolution ended up saving the world.
If I understand you correctly you think socialism/communism under Lenin would have worked had he only taken an alternative route. We'll just have to disagree about that. Lenin led to Stalin, Stalin to Malenkov to Khrushchev (We will bury you!) to Brezhnev, then Andropov, Chernenico and finally Gorbachev before it imploded in their faces. And that doesn't count the troikas that were formed following Lenin's stroke. All those leaders, and not one figured out the proper path to socialist utopia? I don't buy it. How many were massacred in the interim, 100 million?
Socialism/communism in China: Mao Zedong to Liu Shoai, followed in succession by Zhou Enlai, Hua Guofeng, and finally Deng Xiaoping loosened the tyrannical shackles a little. In the meantime another 100 million or so were butchered. And what's ironic is one would have given China the best chance at proving socialism could work on a massive scale. It is about ethnically homogenous as a country of a billion people could be.
Pol Pot in Cambodia managed to murder upwards of 2 million of his own people, roughly 30% of the population. Castro in Cuba and Chavez/Maduro in Venezuela have been about as brutal toward their own people as can be.
So all those vaunted socialist leaders would have succeeded if only they had known the proper line of succession to take? That's a long list of really stupid people!
We have gone over this before. Norway captured lightning in a bottle. A country with a population about the same as Dallas, TX, ethnically and religiously coherent, became rich during the enlightenment period while capitalism was flourishing, struck the mother load of oil and natural gas, which it "nationalized." It's government agents have proven to be essentially corruption-proof. It's a one-off situation. I know you are smart enough to know that. But you're right, this argument has become tedious, so this will be my last word on the subject (for now).
No not even close to 100 million. But yes the revolutionary nature of their project doomed it from the start.
Not even close to 100 million. Again the revolutionary nature of the project doomed it as well. And where did this idea that ethnic homogeneity is a key component of socialist success come from?
Pol Pot is bad. Chavez was good. Once again revolutions are bad.
Imagine industrial capitalism being tried anywhere but England in the 18th century. Lots of failure would ensue. Read some Marx, Dan, it will really clear some of this up for you.
I think smaller in scale actually makes success harder. Again why does homogeneity matter? Lots of countries are rich in natural resources and have materially worse off societies than Norway. Don't forget about Finland.
