How to pay our debts? Tax the rich ofcourse.We have a society of homeless and families who are poor and millionaires who don't care about the poor!

@ImperialAerosolKidFromEP Sadly you are correct. Tax money goes into general revenue and is not tagged for one purpose or another. You could pay 100% of you income in taxes and have none of that money go to help the poor.

@ImperialAerosolKidFromEP rich should be taxed more and have that money go into public services

@Guitarman123 Public Services is socialist speak for "More Power for the State".

@hippyjoe1955 public services is speak for services that benefit all members of society

@Guitarman123 Yes that can pay the debt, and also make this country more equal. We should never cut services for the disabled who can't work! And we have to have mass transit everywhere for the blind and young adults who can't drive or can't afford a car. The young people need to work but if there isn't mass transit then many can't work. Many people in the USA feel despair and we see the result.

@Carazaa Nice ideals but completely unworkable. You likely live in an artificial environment (city) and have no idea what life is truly all about. Mass transit doesn't work where there is no mass. I had an elderly neighbor on the farm. His MS was bad and he had trouble driving the 10 miles into town to get his groceries. His neighbors would phone him up and say they were going to town, did he need anything. They would get the few things he needed and take them back to his farm where he would pay for them. If he needed a ride to town his neighbors would pick him up on their way and take him to his doctors appointment or what ever. He did like his beer so a trip to his farm often included a box of beer in the truck for him. I live in a big city now. There is a very elderly couple that live on their own across the street. The neighbors take turns stopping by to see if they are alright and if they need anything. Sadly with his advancing dementia he doesn't get out much anymore and with her failing eyesight she can't drive. It would be too long a walk to the nearest bus stop for either of them and taxis are very expensive. It doesn't cost me much to swing by with some groceries and the neighbor beside me has a low car that they both can get in if they need a ride to the doctor. Personal charity trumps government policy and helps people live.

@hippyjoe1955 All scandinavian towns have good mass transits for the blind and people who can't afford a car. In some ways the USA is like an unindustrialized country for people with a poor government with no services for the very young, the old, and the disabled. Please realize that most industrialized modern countries pay for services of the disabled, single parents, the old, for good roads, schools, mental hospitals for the mentally ill, and have strict gun laws. I can tell you are very uninformed about the world.

@Carazaa And here in Canada with huge distances between cities is is impractical for mass transit outside the major urban centers. there used to be train service which was replaced by bus service to many small towns but that has since stopped. In all reality you simply can't run a bus for 4 hours in one direction to pick up one passenger. It simply doesn't work. Ever tried to pay for a taxi ride 4 hours long? Yeah that isn't practical either. How much simpler it is to live with you neighbors as friends with individual acts of charity taking place. Kind of like the time we were fixing our driveway. We had it all torn up and were about to remove the concrete when my wife was diagnosed with cancer. Before she had her first treatment the neighbors came and asked if they could remove the concrete for us and fill in the hole with black dirt and redo the sidewalk. So much blessings.

@hippyjoe1955 Here is an Overview and some aspects of very happy countries


The Nordic model has been characterized as follows:[15]

An elaborate social safety net, in addition to public services such as free education and universal healthcare[15] in a largely tax-funded system.[16]
Strong property rights, contract enforcement and overall ease of doing business.[17]
Public pension plans.[15]
High levels of democracy as seen in the Freedom in the World survey and Democracy Index.[18][19]
Free trade combined with collective risk sharing (welfare social programmes and labour market institutions) which has provided a form of protection against the risks associated with economic openness.[15]
Little product market regulation. Nordic countries rank very high in product market freedom according to OECD rankings.[15]
Low levels of corruption.[18][15] In Transparency International's 2019 Corruption Perceptions Index, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden were ranked among the top 10 least corrupt of the 179 countries evaluated.[20]
A partnership between employers, trade unions and the government, whereby these social partners negotiate the terms to regulating the workplace amongst themselves, rather than the terms being imposed by law.[21][22] Sweden has decentralised wage co-ordination while Finland is ranked the least flexible.[15] The changing economic conditions have given rise to fear among workers as well as resistance by trade unions in regards to reforms.[15]
High trade union density and collective bargaining coverage.[23] In 2019, trade union density was 90.7% in Iceland, 67.0% in Denmark, 65.2% in Sweden, 58.8% in Finland, and 50.4% in Norway; in comparison, trade union density was 16.3% in Germany and 9.9% in the United States.[24] Additionally, in 2018, collective bargaining coverage was 90% in Iceland, 88.8% in Finland (2017), 88% in Sweden, 82% in Denmark, and 69% in Norway; in comparison collective bargaining coverage was 54% in Germany and 11.7% in the United States.[25] The lower union density in Norway is mainly explained by the absence of a Ghent system since 1938. In contrast, Denmark, Finland and Sweden all have union-run unemployment funds.[26]
The Nordic countries received the highest ranking for protecting workers rights on the International Trade Union Confederation 2014 Global Rights Index, with Denmark being the only nation to receive a perfect score.[27]
Sweden at 56.6% of GDP, Denmark at 51.7%, and Finland at 48.6% reflect very high public spending.[28] Public expenditure for health and education is significantly higher in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden in comparison to the OECD average.[29]
Overall tax burdens as a percentage of GDP are high, with Denmark at 45.9% and both Finland and Sweden at 44.1%.[30] The Nordic countries have relatively flat tax rates, meaning that even those with medium and low incomes are taxed at relatively high levels.[31][32]
The United Nations World Happiness Reports show that the happiest nations are concentrated in Northern Europe. The Nordics ranked highest on the metrics of real GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on, perceived freedom to make life choices, generosity and freedom from corruption.[33] The Nordic countries place in the top 10 of the World Happiness Report 2018, with Finland and Norway taking the top spots.[34]
Economic system
The Nordic model is underpinned by a mixed-market capitalist economic system that features high degrees of private ownership,[35][36] with the exception of Norway which includes a large number of state-owned enterprises and state ownership in publicly listed firms.[6]

The Nordic model is described as a system of competitive capitalism combined with a large percentage of the population employed by the public sector, which amounts to roughly 30% of the work force, in areas such as healthcare and higher education. In Norway, Finland, and Sweden, many companies and/or industries are state-run or state-owned[37][38][39][40] like utilities, mail, rail transport, airlines, electrical power industry, fossil fuels, chemical industry, steel mill, electronics industry, machine industry, aerospace manufacturer, shipbuilding, and the arms industry.[41] In 2013, The Economist described its countries as "stout free-traders who resist the temptation to intervene even to protect iconic companies", while also looking for ways to temper capitalism's harsher effects and declared that the Nordic countries "are probably the best-governed in the world."[8][42] Some economists have referred to the Nordic economic model as a form of "cuddly capitalism", with low levels of inequality, generous welfare states, and reduced concentration of top incomes, contrasting it with the more "cut-throat capitalism" of the United States, which has high levels of inequality and a larger concentration of top incomes, among others social inequalities.[15][43][44]

As a result of the Sweden financial crisis of 1990–1994, Sweden implemented economic reforms that were focused on deregulation, decentralization of wage bargaining, and the strengthening of competition laws.[45] Despite being one of the most equal OECD nations, from 1985 to the 2010s Sweden saw the largest growth in income inequality among OECD economies.[46][47] Other effects of the 1990s reforms was the substantial growth of mutual fund savings, which largely began with the government subsidizing mutual fund savings through the so-called Allemansfonder program in the 1980s;[48] today 4 out of 5 people aged 18–74 have fund savings.[49]

Norway's particularities
The state of Norway has ownership stakes in many of the country's largest publicly listed companies, owning 37% of the Oslo stock market[50] and operating the country's largest non-listed companies, including Equinor and Statkraft. In January 2013, The Economist reported that "after the second world war the government nationalised all German business interests in Norway and ended up owning 44% of Norsk Hydro's shares. The formula of controlling business through shares rather than regulation seemed to work well, so the government used it wherever possible. 'We invented the Chinese way of doing things before the Chinese', says Torger Reve of the Norwegian Business School."[50] The government also operates a sovereign wealth fund, the Government Pension Fund of Norway, whose partial objective is to prepare Norway for a post-oil future but "unusually among oil-producing nations, it is also a big advocate of human rights—and a powerful one, thanks to its control of the Nobel peace prize."[51]

Norway is the only major economy in the West where younger generations are getting richer, with a 13% increase in disposable income for 2018, bucking the trend seen in other Western nations of Millennials becoming poorer than the generations which came before.[52]

Lutheran influence
Some academics have theorized that Lutheranism, the dominant traditional religion of the Nordic countries, had an effect on the development of social democracy there. Schröder posits that Lutheranism promoted the idea of a nationwide community of believers and led to increased state involvement in economic and social life, allowing for nationwide welfare solidarity and economic co-ordination.[53][54][55] Esa Mangeloja says that the revival movements helped to pave the way for the modern Finnish welfare state. During that process, the church lost some of its most important social responsibilities (health care, education, and social work) as these tasks were assumed by the secular Finnish state.[56] Pauli Kettunen presents the Nordic model as the outcome of a sort of mythical "Lutheran peasant enlightenment", portraying the Nordic model as the result of a sort of "secularized Lutheranism";[55][57] however, mainstream academic discourse on the subject focuses on "historical specificity", with the centralized structure of the Lutheran church being but one aspect of the cultural values and state structures that led to the development of the welfare state in Scandinavia.[58]

Labour market policy
The Nordic countries share active labour market policies as part of a social corporatist economic model intended to reduce conflict between labour and the interests of capital. This corporatist system is most extensive in Norway and Sweden, where employer federations and labour representatives bargain at the national level mediated by the government. Labour market interventions are aimed at providing job retraining and relocation.[59]

The Nordic labour market is flexible, with laws making it easy for employers to hire and shed workers or introduce labour-saving technology. To mitigate the negative effect on workers, the government labour market policies are designed to provide generous social welfare, job retraining and relocation services to limit any conflicts between capital and labour that might arise from this process.[60]

Nordic welfare model
The Nordic welfare model refers to the welfare policies of the Nordic countries, which also tie into their labour market policies. The Nordic model of welfare is distinguished from other types of welfare states by its emphasis on maximising labour force participation, promoting gender equality, egalitarian, and extensive benefit levels, the large magnitude of income redistribution and liberal use of expansionary fiscal policy.[61]

While there are differences among the Nordic countries, they all share a broad commitment to social cohesion, a universal nature of welfare provision in order to safeguard individualism by providing protection for vulnerable individuals and groups in society, and maximising public participation in social decision-making. It is characterized by flexibility and openness to innovation in the provision of welfare. The Nordic welfare systems are mainly funded through taxation.[62]

Despite the common values, the Nordic countries take different approaches to the practical administration of the welfare state. Denmark features a high degree of private sector provision of public services and welfare, alongside an assimilation immigration policy. Iceland's welfare model is based on a "welfare-to-work" (see workfare) model while part of Finland's welfare state includes the voluntary sector playing a significant role in providing care for the elderly. Norway relies most extensively on public provision of welfare.[62]

Gender equality
When it comes to gender equality, the Nordic countries hold one of the smallest gaps in gender employment inequality of all OECD countries,[63] with less than 8 points in all Nordic countries according to International Labour Organization standards.[64] They have been at the front of the implementation of policies that promote gender equality; the Scandinavian governments were some of the first to make it unlawful for companies to dismiss women on grounds of marriage or motherhood. Mothers in Nordic countries are more likely to be working mothers than in any other region and families enjoy pioneering legislation on parental leave policies that compensate parents for moving from work to home to care for their child, including fathers.[65] Although the specifics of gender equality policies in regards to the work place vary from country to country, there is a widespread focus in Nordic countries to highlight "continuous full-time employment" for both men and women as well as single parents as they fully recognize that some of the most salient gender gaps arise from parenthood. Aside from receiving incentives to take shareable parental leave, Nordic families benefit from subsidized early childhood education and care and activities for out-of-school hours for those children that have enrolled in full-time education.[63]

The Nordic countries have been at the forefront of championing gender equality and this has been historically shown by substantial increases in women's employment. Between 1965 and 1990, Sweden's employment rate for women in working-age (15–64) went from 52.8% to 81.0%.[64] In 2016, nearly three out of every four women in working-age in the Nordic countries were taking part in paid work. Nevertheless, women are still the main users of the shareable parental leave (fathers use less than 30% of their paid parental-leave-days), foreign women are being subjected to under-representation,[63] and Finland still holds a notable gender pay-gap; the average woman's salary is 83% of that of a man, not accounting for confounding factors such as career choice.[66]

Poverty reduction
The Nordic model has been successful at significantly reducing poverty.[67] In 2011, poverty rates before taking into account the effects of taxes and transfers stood at 24.7% in Denmark, 31.9% in Finland, 21.6% in Iceland, 25.6% in Norway, and 26.5% in Sweden. After accounting for taxes and transfers, the poverty rates for the same year became 6%, 7.5%, 5.7%, 7.7% and 9.7% respectively, for an average reduction of 18.7 p.p.[68] Compared to the United States, which has a poverty level pre-tax of 28.3% and post-tax of 17.4% for a reduction of 10.9 p.p., the effects of tax and transfers on poverty in all the Nordic countries are substantially bigger.[68] In comparison to France (27 p.p. reduction) and Germany (24.2 p.p. reduction), the taxes and transfers in the Nordic countries are smaller on average.[68]

Social democracy

Vote percentage over time of the main social democratic parties in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Norway[69]
Labour Party (Norway)
Swedish Social Democratic Party
Social Democrats (Denmark)
Social Democratic Party of Finland
Social democrats have played a pivotal role in shaping the Nordic model, with policies enacted by social democrats being pivotal in fostering the social cohesion in the Nordic countries.[70] Among political scientists and sociologists, the term social democracy has become widespread to describe the Nordic model due to the influence of social democratic party governance in Sweden and Norway, in contrast to other classifications such as Christian democratic, liberal, Mediterranean, radical, and hybrid, based on consistency levels ("pure", "medium-high consistency" and "medium consistency").[71] According to sociologist Lane Kenworthy, the meaning of social democracy in this context refers to a variant of capitalism based on the predominance of private property and market allocation mechanisms alongside a set of policies for promoting economic security and opportunity within the framework of a capitalist economy as opposed to a political ideology that aims to replace capitalism.[72][73]

While countries such as Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom have been categorized as social democratic at least once, the Nordic countries have been the only ones to be constantly categorized as such. In a review by Emanuele Ferragina and Martin Seeleib-Kaiser of works about the different models of welfare states, apart from Belgium and the Netherlands, categorized as "medium-high socialism", the Scandinavian countries analyzed (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) were the only ones to be categorized by sociologist Gøsta Esping-Andersen as "high socialism", which is defined as socialist attributes and values (equality and universalism) and the social democratic model, which is characterized by "a high level of decommodification and a low degree of stratification. Social policies are perceived as 'politics against the market.'" They summarized the social democratic model as being based on "the principle of universalism, granting access to benefits and services based on citizenship. Such a welfare state is said to provide a relatively high degree of autonomy, limiting the reliance on family and market."[71]

As of the 1990s, the Nordic identity has been explained with cultural, not political factors; by the 2010s, politics has been re-entering the conversation on the Nordic identity. According to Johan Strang, cultural explanation benefits neoliberalism, during whose rise the cultural phenomenon coincided. Strang states that "[t]he Social Democratic model, which was still very much alive during the Cold War, has now been abandoned, and other explanations for Nordic success have been sought to replace it."[11]

History
The Nordic model traces its foundation to the "grand compromise" between workers and employers spearheaded by farmer and worker parties in the 1930s. Following a long period of economic crisis and class struggle, the "grand compromise" served as the foundation for the post-World War II Nordic model of welfare and labour market organization. The key characteristics of the Nordic model were the centralized coordination of wage negotiation between employers and labour organizations, termed a social partnership, as well as providing a peaceful means to address class conflict between capital and labour.[4]

Magnus Bergli Rasmussen has challenged that farmers played an important role in ushering Nordic welfare states. A 2022 study by him found that farmers had strong incentives to resist welfare state expansion and farmer MPs consistently opposed generous welfare policies.[74]

Although often linked to social democratic governance, the Nordic model's parentage also stems from a mixture of mainly social democratic, centrist, and right-wing political parties, especially in Finland and Iceland, along with the social trust that emerged from the "great compromise" between capital and labour. The influence of each of these factors on each Nordic country varied as social democratic parties played a larger role in the formation of the Nordic model in Sweden and Norway, whereas in Iceland and Finland right-wing political parties played a much more significant role in shaping their countries' social models.[75]

Social security and collective wage bargaining policies were rolled back following economic imbalances in the 1980s and the financial crises of the 1990s which led to more restrictive budgetary policies that were most pronounced in Sweden and Iceland. Nonetheless, welfare expenditure remained high in these countries, compared to the European average.[76]

Denmark
Social welfare reforms emerged from the Kanslergade Agreement of 1933 as part of a compromise package to save the Danish economy.[4] Denmark was the first Nordic country to join the European Union in the 1970s, reflecting the different political approaches to it among the Nordic countries.[11]

Finland
The early 1990s recession affected the Nordic countries and caused a deep crisis in Finland, and came amid the context of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and collapse of trade from the Eastern Bloc. Like in Sweden, Finland's universalistic welfare state based on the Nordic model was weakened and no longer based on the social-democratic middle ground, as several social welfare policies were often permanently dismantled; however, Finland was hit even harder than Sweden. During the crisis, Finland looked to the European Union, which they were more committed and open to joining than Sweden and especially Norway, while Denmark had already joined the EU by the 1970s.[11]

Iceland
According to analyst Harpa Njálsdóttir, Iceland in the late 2010s moved away from the Nordic model towards the economic liberal model of workfare. She also noted that with the large changes having been made to the social security system, "70% of elderly people now live well below national subsistence criteria, while about 70% of those who live alone and in bad conditions are women."[77]

Norway
Norway's "grand compromise" emerged as a response to the crisis of the early 1930s between the trade union confederation and Norwegian Employers' Association, agreeing on national standards in labour–capital relations and creating the foundation for social harmony throughout the period of compromises. For a per

@hippyjoe1955 Sorry about your wife. How is she now?

@Carazaa Except for the lingering effects of the chemo and radiation she is 100%. Both treatments are very hard on a person. Neuropathy being her hardest to recover from.

@Carazaa Yeah I live in Canada. its public education system is a joke. its public health care is worse than a joke. We just had a provincial election between a classic liberal party and a socialist party. The socialists lost again. They are demonic. Nobody but the inner city demons wants them anywhere near power.

@hippyjoe1955 So do you want any services for the mentally ill, blind, education, police, post office, hospitals, recreation, transportation, etc?

@Carazaa It would be far more effective if the churches ran those services and not the state if that is what you mean. Here in Alberta we used to have the hospitals run by the churches. It worked very well. Since the government took over the service has plummeted and the cost has sky rocketed. Kind of sad. The government throws another billion at 'healthcare' and the service level goes down. Does anyone still use the post office? There are so many delivery services now.... I get all my bills on line and I pay them on line so about the only thing I get in the mail is advertisements. Education must be stripped from the government. It has taken leave of its senses. It is now putting litterboxes in the bathrooms in the schools because some kid might want to identify as a cat or some such other nonsense. When I was a kid living in a small town the people decided they wanted an indoor skating rink. The agriculture society spearheaded a fund raising and very soon we had both an indoor skating rink and an indoor curling rink both with artificial ice. The ag society went on to build a new community hall without government aid or interference. No one was forced to pay if they didn't want to. I think almost everyone contributed to the funds but no one was compelled through taxes to do so.

@hippyjoe1955 We should not be too selfish and say "because I don't like to pay for the post office, busses or other services then I don't want to pay taxes for those services. Maybe some like to receive birthday cards, letters, and christmas cards from friends overseas. I am blessed to have a car, but some people are blind and can't drive. I think we should care more about others than ourselves otherwise life is too difficult for some. If a church wants to take on the responsibility to care for the sick, great. But someone has to pay the doctors. Or should doctors work for free?

@Carazaa nothing about selfish. All about improvement. You can't improve government

@hippyjoe1955 I don't agree that we can't improve government. That is a fatalistic point of view. I believe we can improve anything we put our minds to!.

@Carazaa fatalistic it realistic? The price of airfare is very high in Canada. Why? Because the government used to own the big airline and limited the completion. Heath care has gone down in Canada since the government took over and eliminated private medicine.

@hippyjoe1955 Canadian Airlines started just a couple of years before Air Canada was privatized. Air fares are sky high everywhere because the industry just isn't lucrative

@ImperialAerosolKidFromEP Not according to the guy who started Pacific Western Airlines. They couldn't access the lucrative routes which they could have used to subsidize the higher cost routes. Maybe you could find the Grant McConachie biio. Interesting reading.