- Oct 31, 2012
- 53,761
- 52,614
- 3,605
Most advocates for socialism, like Bernie Sanders and AOC, always point to Europe, while pretending that places like Venezuela and North Korea don't really exist.
But this article sheds some light on how socialism really has worked in Europe. Let's just say, not well.
Swedish Economist Schools Sanders On The Ravages Of Socialism | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD
Election '16: Socialist Bernie Sanders believes nations "like Denmark, like Sweden, and Norway" employ the welfare-state economic model that the U.S. should replicate. An economist from one of these countries shows how wrong he is.
Sanders' teenage infatuation with the European welfare state is well-documented. He's convinced that America could learn from what those nations listed above "have accomplished for their working people." He has said that it "makes a lot of sense" to him that “it is very hard to become very, very rich, but it’s pretty hard to be very, very poor” in Denmark. In his single-issue mind, capitalism and free markets are evil forces that government must restrain.
These positions are why he appeals to his supporters, and there are enough of them within the Democratic Party to have kept him in the presidential primary race this long -- much longer than anyone expected. But, Sanders and his supporters who think they know so much in reality know nothing at all.
At one time, Sweden, a small nation, had the fourth-largest economy in the world. That was in 1970. Twenty-five years later, the economy had tumbled to 14th and the private sector stopped creating jobs, according to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development data. This wasn't caused by Sanders' demonic duo of capitalism and free markets. It was caused by the very policies he idolizes.
"Sweden got rich first with free trade and an open economy, before we had the big government," Swedish economist Johan Norberg explains in a new YouTube video.
"In the 1950s, Sweden was already one of the world's richest countries, and back then, taxes were lower in Sweden than in the United States."
It was only after that, says Norberg, "did we start expanding the government dramatically."
"And do you know what happened then? We started losing," says Norberg.
"It all ended in a terrible crisis."
As we have noted before, Sweden has been repealing its welfare state post-crisis. Norberg says the country has become "successful again, but only after a new reform period, with more deregulation and free trade than in other countries." Taxes have been cut, school vouchers allocated, and the pension system partially privatized as Sweden distances itself from its welfare-state past.
Norberg's rebuke of Sanders -- he never calls him by name, but it's clear who he has in mind -- is reminiscent of Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, who said he had enough of Sanders slurring his country with the "socialist" label.
Sanders needs more lessons such as these, because he simply doesn't know what he's continuously spouting off about. Yet he's been invited to the Vatican to talk about building a "moral economy," as if he's an authority on that subject. Simply put, there's nothing moral about the economic system Sanders favors -- it destroys jobs and snuffs out opportunities to rise higher. What was the Vatican thinking when it extended the offer?
The Vatican was being no less obtuse than Sanders' American supporters, though, because what they are advocating are policies that in the end will create a terrible crisis in this country
But this article sheds some light on how socialism really has worked in Europe. Let's just say, not well.
Swedish Economist Schools Sanders On The Ravages Of Socialism | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD
Election '16: Socialist Bernie Sanders believes nations "like Denmark, like Sweden, and Norway" employ the welfare-state economic model that the U.S. should replicate. An economist from one of these countries shows how wrong he is.
Sanders' teenage infatuation with the European welfare state is well-documented. He's convinced that America could learn from what those nations listed above "have accomplished for their working people." He has said that it "makes a lot of sense" to him that “it is very hard to become very, very rich, but it’s pretty hard to be very, very poor” in Denmark. In his single-issue mind, capitalism and free markets are evil forces that government must restrain.
These positions are why he appeals to his supporters, and there are enough of them within the Democratic Party to have kept him in the presidential primary race this long -- much longer than anyone expected. But, Sanders and his supporters who think they know so much in reality know nothing at all.
At one time, Sweden, a small nation, had the fourth-largest economy in the world. That was in 1970. Twenty-five years later, the economy had tumbled to 14th and the private sector stopped creating jobs, according to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development data. This wasn't caused by Sanders' demonic duo of capitalism and free markets. It was caused by the very policies he idolizes.
"Sweden got rich first with free trade and an open economy, before we had the big government," Swedish economist Johan Norberg explains in a new YouTube video.
"In the 1950s, Sweden was already one of the world's richest countries, and back then, taxes were lower in Sweden than in the United States."
It was only after that, says Norberg, "did we start expanding the government dramatically."
"And do you know what happened then? We started losing," says Norberg.
"It all ended in a terrible crisis."
As we have noted before, Sweden has been repealing its welfare state post-crisis. Norberg says the country has become "successful again, but only after a new reform period, with more deregulation and free trade than in other countries." Taxes have been cut, school vouchers allocated, and the pension system partially privatized as Sweden distances itself from its welfare-state past.
Norberg's rebuke of Sanders -- he never calls him by name, but it's clear who he has in mind -- is reminiscent of Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, who said he had enough of Sanders slurring his country with the "socialist" label.
Sanders needs more lessons such as these, because he simply doesn't know what he's continuously spouting off about. Yet he's been invited to the Vatican to talk about building a "moral economy," as if he's an authority on that subject. Simply put, there's nothing moral about the economic system Sanders favors -- it destroys jobs and snuffs out opportunities to rise higher. What was the Vatican thinking when it extended the offer?
The Vatican was being no less obtuse than Sanders' American supporters, though, because what they are advocating are policies that in the end will create a terrible crisis in this country
