Norway has a large population of hunters.[3] Semi-automatic and bolt action rifles, as well as shotguns, make up the better part of the guns in civilian homes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Norway
Posted on 02/04/2013 5:50:35 PM PST by beaversmom
SMALLISH countries are often in the vanguard when it comes to reforming government. In the 1980s Britain was out in the lead, thanks to Thatcherism and privatisation. Tiny Singapore has long been a role model for many reformers. Now the Nordic countries are likely to assume a similar role.
That is partly because the four main Nordics—Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland—are doing rather well. If you had to be reborn anywhere in the world as a person with average talents and income, you would want to be a Viking. The Nordics cluster at the top of league tables of everything from economic competitiveness to social health to happiness. They have avoided both southern Europe’s economic sclerosis and America’s extreme inequality. Development theorists have taken to calling successful modernisation “getting to Denmark”. Meanwhile a region that was once synonymous with do-it-yourself furniture and Abba has even become a cultural haven, home to “The Killing”, Noma and “Angry Birds”.
As our special report this week explains, some of this is down to lucky timing: the Nordics cleverly managed to have their debt crisis in the 1990s. But the second reason why the Nordic model is in vogue is more interesting. To politicians around the world—especially in the debt-ridden West—they offer a blueprint of how to reform the public sector, making the state far more efficient and responsive.
From Pippi Longstocking to private schools
The idea of lean Nordic government will come as a shock both to French leftists who dream of socialist Scandinavia and to American conservatives who fear that Barack Obama is bent on “Swedenisation”. They are out of date. In the 1970s and 1980s the Nordics were indeed tax-and-spend countries. Sweden’s public spending reached 67% of GDP in 1993. Astrid Lindgren, the inventor of Pippi Longstocking, was forced to pay more than 100% of her income in taxes. But tax-and-spend did not work: Sweden fell from being the fourth-richest country in the world in 1970 to the 14th in 1993.
Since then the Nordics have changed course—mainly to the right. Government’s share of GDP in Sweden, which has dropped by around 18 percentage points, is lower than France’s and could soon be lower than Britain’s. Taxes have been cut: the corporate rate is 22%, far lower than America’s. The Nordics have focused on balancing the books. While Mr Obama and Congress dither over entitlement reform, Sweden has reformed its pension system (see Free exchange). Its budget deficit is 0.3% of GDP; America’s is 7%.
On public services the Nordics have been similarly pragmatic. So long as public services work, they do not mind who provides them. Denmark and Norway allow private firms to run public hospitals. Sweden has a universal system of school vouchers, with private for-profit schools competing with public schools. Denmark also has vouchers—but ones that you can top up. When it comes to choice, Milton Friedman would be more at home in Stockholm than in Washington, DC.
All Western politicians claim to promote transparency and technology. The Nordics can do so with more justification than most. The performance of all schools and hospitals is measured. Governments are forced to operate in the harsh light of day: Sweden gives everyone access to official records. Politicians are vilified if they get off their bicycles and into official limousines. The home of Skype and Spotify is also a leader in e-government: you can pay your taxes with an SMS message.
This may sound like enhanced Thatcherism, but the Nordics also offer something for the progressive left by proving that it is possible to combine competitive capitalism with a large state: they employ 30% of their workforce in the public sector, compared with an OECD average of 15%. They are stout free-traders who resist the temptation to intervene even to protect iconic companies: Sweden let Saab go bankrupt and Volvo is now owned by China’s Geely. But they also focus on the long term—most obviously through Norway’s $600 billion sovereign-wealth fund—and they look for ways to temper capitalism’s harsher effects. Denmark, for instance, has a system of “flexicurity” that makes it easier for employers to sack people but provides support and training for the unemployed, and Finland organises venture-capital networks.
The sour part of the smorgasbord
The new Nordic model is not perfect. Public spending as a proportion of GDP in these countries is still higher than this newspaper would like, or indeed than will be sustainable. Their levels of taxation still encourage entrepreneurs to move abroad: London is full of clever young Swedes. Too many people—especially immigrants—live off benefits. The pressures that have forced their governments to cut spending, such as growing global competition, will force more change. The Nordics are bloated compared with Singapore, and they have not focused enough on means-testing benefits.
All the same, ever more countries should look to the Nordics. Western countries will hit the limits of big government, as Sweden did. When Angela Merkel worries that the European Union has 7% of the world’s population but half of its social spending, the Nordics are part of the answer. They also show that EU countries can be genuine economic successes. And as the Asians introduce welfare states they too will look to the Nordics: Norway is a particular focus of the Chinese.
The main lesson to learn from the Nordics is not ideological but practical. The state is popular not because it is big but because it works. A Swede pays tax more willingly than a Californian because he gets decent schools and free health care. The Nordics have pushed far-reaching reforms past unions and business lobbies. The proof is there. You can inject market mechanisms into the welfare state to sharpen its performance. You can put entitlement programmes on sound foundations to avoid beggaring future generations. But you need to be willing to root out corruption and vested interests. And you must be ready to abandon tired orthodoxies of the left and right and forage for good ideas across the political spectrum. The world will be studying the Nordic model for years to come.
You bad mouth multiculturalism. You should be bad mouthing Islam, Middle easterners.
The East Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Phillipinos, Koreans, etc.) have shown very little inclination to rape, murder, theft, or any other crime. All they show is hard work, a dedication to education and family, and a desire not to rock the boat.
Can you own rifles and pistols in Norway?
The worm will turn, natural law will out in the end.
“According to Egypt Today: “Tara Ahmed, a 25-year-old Kurdish woman, came with her husband to Finland seven years ago to work. ‘There are a lot of services offered to us here,’ she says. ‘Plus, during my seven years I haven’t had one single harassment, assault or discrimination case in any form.’ Like most immigrants, Ahmed and her husband took advantage of the free Finnish language lessons offered by the government, which pays immigrants €8 per day to attend. The government also provides immigrants with a free home, health care for their family and education for their children. In addition, they get a monthly stipend of €367 per adult to cover expenses until they start earning their own living. The government is able to pay for these services due to a progressive tax rate that can exceed fifty percent of a person’s income. Even so, officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed that Finland needs immigrants and that, in the long run, they are not a burden on society.”
Coming soon to a country near you!
Norway has a large population of hunters.[3] Semi-automatic and bolt action rifles, as well as shotguns, make up the better part of the guns in civilian homes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Norway
I know many Swedes. In private they are infact very racist - way more so than any Dane or Norwegian I have encountered.
Which just goes to show that the more government supresses the truth, they are creating a growing hatred.
Sweden is a pressure cooker, more so than the other Scandinavian countries.
Will the cooker explode?
I always thought Absolut was considered cheap stuff rebranded and exported for Yanks college students to be the "cool" drink.
“These people are demonic ...” The ‘soros disease is run anok in the Euro elitists.
“These people are demonic ...” The ‘soros disease’ is run amok in the Euro elitists.
It might be smart marketing, but Absolut is some of the most expensive vodka you can buy in the Nordic countries.
My preferred brand, Vikingfjord is slightly more expensive, but, hey vodka is vodka.
I am just buying “Norwegian” :P
You made me look up “fimbul winter.”
In my day, it was $20 a bottle. Probably more now, but it was in the mid range. Popov was the real cheap stuff and it tasted like it. I’m not a big Vodka drinker. I’m more of an Irish Whiskey guy (Jameson) myself, but that taste runs through the bloodlines.
Then you probably didn’t know that Norwegians troops are acting like death squads in Afghanistan under the warcry of “Valhalla”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5uQcU92x2o
Thanks for pointing that out. Made me look it up too. :)
Learn something every day.
I’d never heard of the Sami. Catching up via Wikipedia.
Thanks!
Ditto.
I guess that is what we all need to learn.
“Nuance” as John Kerry thought us :P
Not all Norwegians are bed wetting liberals...
We truly are divided.
So is America.
The world is not black or white.
It is “nuanced”
Very true ET. I was just talking about this very subject with the SIL over the weekend. How you might read about something tragic in the newspaper and form some terrible opinion about the person/people involved without knowing the back story. What happened before? What are the personalities involved? It’s so easy to judge other’s lives with a tiny sliver of information. And just reading your back and forths with other FReepers, it has reinforced in me that it’s impossible to know some of the truth unless you’ve seen these things up close and personal. You just can’t get all you need to know about anything from one news account or opinion. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed your posts and insight tonight. It’s fascinating to get inside information from a different part of the world. Feel free to ping me to anything in the future about this general subject or whatever. Great stuff.
Love your tagline BTW.
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