Comments on: Numberscruncher: Sweden Is Not Socialist

By: tax advice

tax advice — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:22:57 +0000

tax advice…

Numberscruncher: Sweden Is Not Socialist | Popdose is an excellent post about the tax advice….

By: koymkeng

koymkeng — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:22:26 +0000

I had not added up the high costs of living in the US. No wonder I thoroughly enjoyed 13.5 years in the good life outside our country.

By: koymkeng

koymkeng — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:22:26 +0000

I had not added up the high costs of living in the US. No wonder I thoroughly enjoyed 13.5 years in the good life outside our country.

By: annielogue

annielogue — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:16:52 +0000

How about, “Yes, the Japanese have national healthcare, and that's one reason their auto industry crushed ours?” I could have topics for a year or more based on this!

By: JonCummings

JonCummings — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:38:57 +0000

This was really nicely done, Annie! Maybe you should turn your column into a nation-by-nation refutation of far-right lunacy. Next: “Brits don't have to wait three years for an appendectomy.”

By: elizabethgardner

elizabethgardner — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:07:21 +0000

Well, I've been to Sweden (in fact, I lived there for two years) and while you've correctly identified some of the advantages, there are lots more! Free public education through college (and even through graduate school if you have those kinds of aptitudes). Subsidized daycare. A year of paid parental leave per child. Decent public transportation and lavish networks of bicycle paths so that a lot of people get by quite happily without a car. Safe streets. (A single nightclub shooting in Stockholm led the evening news for weeks–weeks! Because stuff like that doesn't happen every day, or even every year.) Secure though not lavish retirement. When you look at all the stuff they get, the top tax rate looks like quite a bargain.There is a national penchant for alcoholism and depression, but I think that's genetics and the weather rather than the social organization, which generally they seem quite happy with. Even their most conservative politicians wouldn't dream of touching any of the many entitlements they have.

Why people invoke Sweden as an example of the horrors of socialism is a mystery. It seemed pretty darn cushy to me.

By: annielogue

annielogue — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:06:32 +0000

Thanks, facebook-1037999596!

By: facebook-1037999596

facebook-1037999596 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:40:49 +0000

Great article! I posted it onto my Facebook page so that others can see it. Don't worry it's linked to Popdose! Thanks so much for this much needed common sense!