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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (1122498)	3/4/2019 8:00:03 AM
From: sylvester80	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1572778

OOPS! Democratic Socialist Norway OBLITERATES Crony Capitalist SHITHOLE U.S. If democratic socialism is so bad, why is Norway so great? Ryan Cooper theweek.com July 20, 2018 Illustrated \| AndyEmel/iStock, Tatiana Mezhenina/iStock July 10, 2018 The spectacular upset victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her recent New York congressional primary election has catapulted the topic of democratic socialism to the top of America's political discussion. Conservatives have argued that the leftist politics of Ocasio-Cortez represent a policy program guaranteed to fail, and a sure electoral loser for Democrats. (Plenty of moderate liberals, including my colleague Damon Linker, have cosigned the latter part of that argument, too.) Let's set aside electoral politics for now and focus solely on democratic socialist policies. Helpfully, we have a country that very closely approximates the democratic socialist ideal. It's a place that is not only very far from a hellish dystopia, but also considerably more successful than the United States on virtually every social metric one can name. I'm talking about Norway. As I explain here, democratic socialism is a political tradition aiming broadly at democratic control of the economy, achieved through electoral processes. In concrete terms, that generally means a completed cradle-to-grave welfare state plus democratic ownership of big swathes of the economy through mechanisms like a social wealth fund or state-owned enterprises. Importantly, this definition rules out authoritarian systems like the state socialism seen in the Soviet Union. Democracy means at a minimum regular, free, and fair elections, where a conservative party has a real chance of victory. On the policy side, American conservatives have one international example in their case against democratic socialism: Venezuela. That country is ostensibly socialist and undergoing a severe economic crisis — so bad they're running out of toilet paper, says Tucker Carlson — and therefore leftism always causes economic disaster. The initial problem with this argument is that Venezuela is not a real democracy, as President Nicolas Maduro has been blatantly rigging constitutional and electoral processes to cling to power. Venezuela may embrace socialism, but it definitely doesn't embrace democratic socialism. A more important rejoinder to this argument is Norway (and the other Nordic countries to a lesser extent). Norwegian workers are heavily protected, with 70 percent of workers covered by union contracts, and over a third directly employed by the government. The Norwegian state operates a gigantic sovereign wealth fund, and its financial assets total 331 percent of its GDP (as compared to an American figure of 25 percent). Meanwhile, its state-owned enterprises are worth 87 percent of GDP. Of all the domestic wealth in Norway, the government owns 59 percent, and fully three-quarters of the non-home wealth (as most Norwegians own their home). Reliable statistics on the Venezuelan economy are hard to come by, but Norway is unquestionably more socialist than Venezuela according to the above definition. Indeed, it is considerably more socialist than supposedly-communist China, where only 31 percent of national wealth is owned by the state. Norway is not some destitute hellscape. Indeed, not only are Norwegian stores well-stocked with toilet paper, it is actually considerably more wealthy than the U.S., with a GDP of over $70,000 per person. Even when you correct for the moderately large oil sector (which accounts for a bit less than a quarter of its exports), it still has a cutting-edge, ultra-productive economy — far from some petro-state living off oil rents like Dubai. Socially, it routinely ranks as the happiest ( 2017) or second-happiest ( 2018) country in the world. The rest of the Nordics are also usually among the top five as well — even more remarkable when you factor in the phenomenon of seasonal affective disorder and the extreme northerly position of the Scandinavian peninsula. On a snapshot of other quality-of-life measures, Norway boasts: A life expectancy of 81.7 years.An infant mortality rate of two per 1,000 live births.A murder rate of 0.51 per 100,000.An incarceration rate of 74 per 100,000.How does all that compare to the United States? Well, our economy is somewhat less wealthy, with per capita GDP of $59,500 — but to be fair, that is about the highest outside of oil-rich or tax haven countries. Socially, however, the picture is much worse: America ranks in the mid-teens for happiest countries, while its life expectancy is two years behind Norway, and actually fell in 2016 and 2017. America's infant mortality rate is three times higher. Its murder rate is over 10 times higher, as is its incarceration rate.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (1122498)	3/4/2019 8:05:46 AM
From: sylvester80	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572778

OOPS! WORLD'S HAPPIEST & HEALTHIEST COUNTRIES R ALL DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST...while SHITHOLE Crony Capitalist U.S. is the MOST OBESE, UNHEALTHY, SADDEST POS IN THE WORD... Finland is the happiest country in the world, says UN report Nordic nations take top four places in happiness rankings, with annual study also charting the decline of the US theguardian.com Patrick Collinson Wed 14 Mar 2018 13.54 EDTLast modified on Thu 15 Mar 2018 06.15 EDT Shares 199,339 Comments1,745 Lake Vuohijärvi in Finland. The country has topped the UN’s happiness rankings. Photograph: Alamy Finland has overtaken Norway to become the happiest nation on earth, according to a UN report. The 2018 World Happiness Report also charts the steady decline of the US as the world’s largest economy grapples with a crisis of obesity, substance abuse and depression. The study reveals the US has slipped to 18th place, five places down on 2016. The top four places are taken by Nordic nations, with Finland followed by Norway, Denmark and Iceland. Safe, happy and free: does Finland have all the answers? Read more Burundi in east Africa, scarred by bouts of ethnic cleansing, civil wars and coup attempts, is the unhappiest place in the world. Strikingly, there are five other nations – Rwanda, Yemen, Tanzania, South Sudan and the Central African Republic – which report happiness levels below that of even Syria. For the first time the UN also examined the happiness levels of immigrants in each country, and found Finland also scored highest. “Finland has vaulted from fifth place to the top of the rankings this year,” said the report’s authors, although they noted that the other three Nordic countries (plus Switzerland) have almost interchangeable scores. The report, an annual publication from the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, said all the Nordic countries scored highly on income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust and generosity. The rankings are based on Gallup polls of self-reported wellbeing, as well as perceptions of corruption, generosity and freedom. Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDeskThe UN placing is the latest accolade for Finland, a country of 5.5 million people that only 150 years ago suffered Europe’s last naturally caused famine. The country has been ranked the most stable, the safest and best governed country in the world. It is also among the least corrupt and the most socially progressive. Its police are the world’s most trusted and its banks the soundest. “That Finland is the top scorer is remarkable,” said Meik Wiking of the Happiness Research Institute in Denmark. “GDP per capita in Finland is lower than its neighbouring Nordic countries and is much lower than that of the US. The Finns are good at converting wealth into wellbeing. Guardian Today: the headlines, the analysis, the debate - sent direct to you Read more “In the Nordic countries in general, we pay some of the highest taxes in the world, but there is wide public support for that because people see them as investments in quality of life for all. Free healthcare and university education goes a long way when it comes to happiness. In the Nordic countries, Bernie Sanders is not viewed as progressive – he is just common sense,” added Wiking, referring to the leftwing US politician who galvanised the Democrat primaries in the 2016 presidential election. In Britain, figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest people have become happier in recent years. But the UN ranking places the UK in a lowly 19th place, the same as last year but behind Germany, Canada and Australia, although ahead of France and Spain. The UN report devotes a special chapter to why the US, once towards the top of happiness table, has slipped down the league despite having among the highest income per capita. “America’s subjective wellbeing is being systematically undermined by three interrelated epidemic diseases, notably obesity, substance abuse (especially opioid addiction) and depression,” said Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University in New York, and one of the report’s authors. Despite African countries getting the worst happiness scores, one west African nation has bucked the trend. Togo came bottom in 2015 but was the biggest improver in the 2018 report, rising 18 places. Latvians and Bulgarians are also reporting higher levels of happiness. Venezuela recorded the biggest fall in happiness, outstripping even Syria, although in absolute terms it remains a mid-ranking country. The report notes that Latin American countries generally scored more highly than their GDP per capita suggests, especially in contrast to fast-growing east Asian countries. Latin America is renowned for corruption, high violence and crime rates, unequal distribution of income and widespread poverty, yet has consistently scored relatively highly in the happiness report. The authors attributed this to “the abundance of family warmth and other supportive social relationships frequently sidelined in favour of an emphasis on income measures in the development discourse”. Meanwhile, the greatest human migration in history – the hundreds of millions of people who have moved from the Chinese countryside into cities – has not advanced happiness at all, the report found. “Even seven-and-a-half years after migrating to urban areas, migrants from rural areas are on average less happy than they might have been had they stayed at home,” according to John Knight of the Oxford Chinese Economy Programme at the University of Oxford and one of the contributors to the UN report. Top 10 happiest countries, 2018(2017 ranking in brackets) 1. Finland (5) 2. Norway (1) 3. Denmark (2) 4. Iceland (3) 5. Switzerland (4) 6. Netherlands (6) 7. Canada (7) 8. New Zealand (8) 9. Sweden (10) 10. Australia (9) The 10 unhappiest countries, 2018(2017 ranking in brackets) 147. Malawi (136) 148. Haiti (145) 149. Liberia (148) 150. Syria (152) 151. Rwanda (151) 152. Yemen (146) 153. Tanzania (153) 154. South Sudan (147) 155. Central African Republic (155) 156. Burundi (154)