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Originally posted by occrider Nearly every successful economy belongs in the group of free market economies, Scandanavia included. I'm not saying Scandanavia is Marxist, I'm saying Scandanavia is relatively socialist compared to other western economies. If you're paying high taxes, I would hope you're spending that excess tax money on social programs.

I try to avoid gross generalisations, especially in economics but I guess social programs is a pretty broad area as well. Most of the northern euro countries I found had a similar pattern because of a few things, small populations, small countries and comparatively high incomes with comparatively high living costs.
Overall though the maintainence of things like public housing, utilities, roads, hospitals and so on is very well looked after. Your things like social security tend to be much like other european countries and unemployment is typically below 5% for most of them.

Military spending and national debt are where as a US citizen would notice, are where they differ the most. Tiny armed forces which are almost 'token' in size and while they do have very lively and active import-export markets it seems to at least be running into the low red-debt to black profits, lot of money goes through these places.
Big advantage seems is that they can literally drive it up to the front door by a boat and most of them have large port industries or good, fast road and rail to the rest of europe to support this. Distances are smaller and that leads to lower overheads. It's not like the US or Australia where we have to contend with huge distances overland and maintain a massive infrastructure which is at best 'does the job'.

Personally I wouldnt call them socialist at all, theyre very fiercely competitive and cunning on the international markets and have long, well entrenched and very efficient industry which is only equalled by the Japanese. What I did notice though, was that they where very selective about who they outsource anything too in other countries, especially when it comes to labour. Industrial outsourcing, well, thats something they keep an extremely tight rein on- they make damn sure that it will be long term profitable and make sure that profit is coming back into the country and not a continous source of loss.

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Originally posted by Capitalizt True, pure socialism has never existed. AND IT NEVER WILL!

Pure capitalism has never existed...

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Originally posted by ali92 What do you mean?

Well thanks to the government of Margaret Thatcher, the UK has the most right wing economy in Europe. We pay lower taxes and hence get shit public services (due to them all being privatised). Natural monopolies (like certain utilities and public transport) simply do not apply to the laws of competition, and to subject them to "competition" (well, not competition at all, but just giving private companies the right to rake in loads of money for taking it off the governments hands) means there is no incentive to improve services.

Hence, I go to Europe I jump on the 8:20 at 8:20, whereas in the UK I'll be jumping on the 8:20 round about 9, if it's not cancelled...

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Originally posted by George Smiley Capitalizt, tell ya what mate, you come over to England and try catch a train somewhere, then go to Europe where it's mainly publicly funded and tell me whether free markets are better than central markets! (You might wanna start saving your pennies tho for the UK leg of your trip!)

Well perhaps trains run like crap in free market countries because most people there are rich enough to buy cars

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Originally posted by Capitalizt Well perhaps trains run like crap in free market countries because most people there are rich enough to buy cars

Yea but then you get congestion, plus trains are quicker (well, usually) and better for the environment...

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Originally posted by George Smiley Well thanks to the government of Margaret Thatcher, the UK has the most right wing economy in Europe. We pay lower taxes and hence get shit public services (due to them all being privatised). Natural monopolies (like certain utilities and public transport) simply do not apply to the laws of competition, and to subject them to "competition" (well, not competition at all, but just giving private companies the right to rake in loads of money for taking it off the governments hands) means there is no incentive to improve services. Hence, I go to Europe I jump on the 8:20 at 8:20, whereas in the UK I'll be jumping on the 8:20 round about 9, if it's not cancelled...

Ahh. That sucks. Sounds kinda like SEPTA here in Philadelphia and Amtrak (for trains)/Greyhound (buses) for the rest of the US.

www.septasucks.com

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Originally posted by occrider Nearly every successful economy belongs in the group of free market economies, Scandanavia included. I'm not saying Scandanavia is Marxist, I'm saying Scandanavia is relatively socialist compared to other western economies. If you're paying high taxes, I would hope you're spending that excess tax money on social programs.

Again, Scanandianvia do have high taxes (which sucks, btw), but that doesn't mean they have less free markets than other western countries, I would say they have more free markets than any other western country except the anglo saxian ones (and in some cases more free markets than those)!

Let me give you a few examples so you understand my thinking! Energy, telecom, etc - Scandinavia were waaaay before rest of Europe privatizing that! And although all healthcare, and education is paid for by the government (high taxes), more and more are run by companies or other non-governmental organizations (which for example wasn't the case in Canada, a supposedly more liberal country...). And even Sweden's previously socialist government was WAAAY more pro-free trade than any of the North American countries. The beuraucracy/regulation burden for companies are less, certainly than Europe and maybe even less so than North America.

So that taxes are high doesn't mean that our markets are less free, it means labour is more expensive and that you have to pay for others' welfare. Really, the only reason why Scandinavia is fairly successive today is because of our great free-trade stance and de-regulations made 10-15 years ago.

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Originally posted by St_Andrew Again, Scanandianvia do have high taxes (which sucks, btw), but that doesn't mean they have less free markets than other western countries, I would say they have more free markets than any other western country except the anglo saxian ones (and in some cases more free markets than those)! Let me give you a few examples so you understand my thinking! Energy, telecom, etc - Scandinavia were waaaay before rest of Europe privatizing that! And although all healthcare, and education is paid for by the government (high taxes), more and more are run by companies or other non-governmental organizations (which for example wasn't the case in Canada, a supposedly more liberal country...). And even Sweden's previously socialist government was WAAAY more pro-free trade than any of the North American countries. The beuraucracy/regulation burden for companies are less, certainly than Europe and maybe even less so than North America. So that taxes are high doesn't mean that our markets are less free, it means labour is more expensive and that you have to pay for others' welfare. Really, the only reason why Scandinavia is fairly successive today is because of our great free-trade stance and de-regulations made 10-15 years ago.

i agree with that that's why we are lookin at u guys and the whole scandinavia to see how we can cope with our current situation

but yeah in my books erik sweden is very liberal ...wait maybe too much?

___________________
2/09/07 Zabiela @ Pacha..... -confirmed-

erik + andy + marie = united in nerdyness <3

ps :wick sucks dicks !

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Originally posted by George Smiley Well thanks to the government of Margaret Thatcher, the UK has the most right wing economy in Europe. We pay lower taxes and hence get shit public services (due to them all being privatised). Natural monopolies (like certain utilities and public transport) simply do not apply to the laws of competition, and to subject them to "competition" (well, not competition at all, but just giving private companies the right to rake in loads of money for taking it off the governments hands) means there is no incentive to improve services.

Thats why you should put those on contract, for whatever company runs it best instead of just giving it away. But just keeping it in government hands usually means it's even more expensive than "giving the money to the companies", just that you are rather giving the money to an ineffective organisation.

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Hence, I go to Europe I jump on the 8:20 at 8:20, whereas in the UK I'll be jumping on the 8:20 round about 9, if it's not cancelled...

In Sweden its exactly like what you describe it is like in England - except that that is only by our state run train company, the private ones are A LOT better at keeping the time and having a higher level of service.

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Originally posted by CranberryJuice i agree with that that's why we are lookin at u guys and the whole scandinavia to see how we can cope with our current situation

Scrapping CAP is part of that you know?

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Originally posted by St_Andrew Thats why you should put those on contract, for whatever company runs it best instead of just giving it away. But just keeping it in government hands usually means it's even more expensive than "giving the money to the companies", just that you are rather giving the money to an ineffective organisation.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against competition but I just don't think competition can apply to certain industries (eg natural monopolies). For example, when I used to catch a train from Liverpool to Sheffield, there was only one train to catch. It was always rammed and I'd often spend 2 hours stood up. But there is no insentive for the train company to improve services as they get the same amount of money from tickets sales either way (due to the way I think revenue is distrinuted). Another example - water - if I think my water is well over priced and I'm not happy with the service, what exactly do I do? Ring Yorkshire water up and tell em I'm switching to Kent water?! Also there is no other water company in Yorkshire waiting for the government to take the franchise off Yorkshire water. Monoploies are illegal for a reason, and where private companies are not bound by the laws of competition it should be state run (not to mention the ethical debate over whether a private company can be trusted to provide us with vital services such as fuel etc)

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In Sweden its exactly like what you describe it is like in England - except that that is only by our state run train company, the private ones are A LOT better at keeping the time and having a higher level of service.

Shows what I know then! (To be fair I think what helps continental Europe is the fact it got bombed to shit in WW2 so they got to build all their infrastructures again, with all that American money! Whereas we won, so we got to keep our antique railways!!)