Norway what a country!!!!!!!!!! (unemployment rate, Congress, wages, Israeli)

[SoCalCroozer]

Why can't America be run more like Norway? Everyone says it's because Norway has so many natural resources compared to it's population. From what I've read that's hardly it. It's again a mixed economy of capitalism and socialism. I.e. government owns and runs major sectors of the economy i.e oil, gas, hydroelectric, agriculture, aluminum production etc. Norwegians enjoy 46 weeks of paid paternity leave etc.

The biggest difference I see in a country like Norway and a country like America is that we have allowed our country to be pillaged and plundered by the corporation who don't give two craps about the people. Wealth is constantly being concentrated into the hands of the few while your average American is brainwashed and indoctrinated into believing the rich pay all the taxes, provide all the jobs, and are otherwise the cornerstone of the US economy. LMAO! We have plenty of oil in the USA like Norway........but the difference is the oil companies in the US are all privately owned and suck off the population. Hell they can't even clean up our beaches and the environment after a major spill..........and we dumb Americans keep paying lips service to these greedy, monopolistic companies that enslave us. Who would have thought a country would actually believe the wage gap between CEO and worker should be smaller not bigger.......... DOH!

The Norwegian economy is an example of a mixed economy, a prosperous capitalist welfare state featuring a combination of free market activity and large state ownership in certain key sectors. The Norwegian welfare state makes public health care free (above a certain level), and parents have 46 weeks paid[66] parental leave. The income that the state receives from natural resources includes a significant contribution from petroleum production and the substantial and carefully managed income related to this sector. Norway has a very low unemployment rate, currently 3.1%.[67] 30% of the labour force are employed by the government, the highest in the OECD.[68] 22% are on welfare and 13% are too disabled to work, the highest proportions in the world.[69] The hourly productivity levels, as well as average hourly wages in Norway are among the highest in the world.citation needed The egalitarian values of the Norwegian society ensure that the wage difference between the lowest paid worker and the CEO of most companies is much smaller than in comparable western economies.citation needed This is also evident in Norway's low Gini coefficient. The state has large ownership positions in key industrial sectors, such as the strategic petroleum sector (Statoil and Aker Solutions), hydroelectric energy production (Statkraft), aluminium production (Norsk Hydro), the largest Norwegian bank (DnB NOR), and telecommunication provider (Telenor). Through these big companies, the government controls approximately 30% of the stock values at the Oslo Stock Exchange. When non-listed companies are included, the state has even higher share in ownership (mainly from direct oil license ownership). Norway is a major shipping nation and has the world's 6th largest merchant fleet, with 1,412 Norwegian-owned merchant vessels.

[SoCalCroozer]

America – The Grim Truth by Lance Freeman

Americans, I have some bad news for you: You have the worst quality of life in the developed world – by a wide margin.If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you’d be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.

Consider this, you are the only people in the developed world without a single-payer health system. Everyone in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand has a single-payer system. If they get sick, they can devote all their energies to getting well. If you get sick, you have to battle two things at once, your illness and the fear of financial ruin. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and tens of thousands die each year because they have no insurance or insufficient insurance. And don’t believe for a second that rot about America having the world’s best medical care or the shortest waiting lists: I’ve been to hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Singapore, and Thailand, and every one was better than the “good” hospital I used to go to back home. The waits were shorter, the facilities more comfortable, and the doctors just as good.This is ironic, because you need a good health system more than anyone else in the world. Why? Because your lifestyle is almost designed to make you sick.

Let’s start with your diet: Much of the beef you eat has been exposed to fecal matter in processing. Your chicken is contaminated with salmonella. Your stock animals and poultry are pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics. In most other countries, the government would act to protect consumers from this sort of thing; in the United States, the government is bought off by industry to prevent any effective regulations or inspections. In a few years, the majority of all the produce for sale in the United States will be from genetically modified crops, thanks to the cozy relationship between Monsanto Corporation and the United States government. Worse still, due to the vast quantities of high-fructose corn syrup Americans consume, fully one-third of children born in the United States today will be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives.

Of course, it’s not just the food that’s killing you, it’s the drugs. If you show any sign of life when you’re young, they’ll put you on Ritalin. Then, when you get old enough to take a good look around, you’ll get depressed, so they’ll give you Prozac. If you’re a man, this will render you chemically impotent, so you’ll need Viagra to get it up. Meanwhile, your steady diet of trans-fat-laden food is guaranteed to give you high cholesterol, so you’ll get a prescription for Lipitor. Finally, at the end of the day, you’ll lay awake at night worrying about losing your health plan, so you’ll need Lunesta to go to sleep.

With a diet guaranteed to make you sick and a health system designed to make sure you stay that way, what you really need is a long vacation somewhere. Unfortunately, you probably can’t take one. I’ll let you in on little secret: if you go to the beaches of Thailand, the mountains of Nepal, or the coral reefs of Australia, you’ll probably be the only American in sight. And you’ll be surrounded crowds of happy Germans, French, Italians, Israelis, Scandinavians and wealthy Asians. Why? Because they’re paid well enough to afford to visit these places AND they can take vacations long enough to do so. Even if you could scrape together enough money to go to one of these incredible places, by the time you recovered from your jetlag, it would time to get on a plane and rush back to your job.If you think I’m making this up, check the stats on average annual vacation days by country:
Finland: 44
Italy: 42
France: 39
Germany: 35
UK: 25
Japan: 18
USA: 12

The fact is, they work you like dogs in the United States. This should come as no surprise: the United States never got away from the plantation/sweat shop labor model and any real labor movement was brutally suppressed. Unless you happen to be a member of the ownership class, your options are pretty much limited to barely surviving on service-sector wages or playing musical chairs for a spot in a cubicle (a spot that will be outsourced to India next week anyway). The very best you can hope for is to get a professional degree and then milk the system for a slice of the middle-class pie. And even those who claw their way into the middle class are but one illness or job loss away from poverty. Your jobs aren’t secure. Your company has no loyalty to you. They’ll play you off against your coworkers for as long as it suits them, then they’ll get rid of you.

Of course, you don’t have any choice in the matter: the system is designed this way. In most countries in the developed world, higher education is either free or heavily subsidized; in the United States, a university degree can set you back over US$100,000. Thus, you enter the working world with a crushing debt. Forget about taking a year off to travel the world and find yourself – you’ve got to start working or watch your credit rating plummet.

If you’re “lucky,” you might even land a job good enough to qualify you for a home loan. And then you’ll spend half your working life just paying the interest on the loan – welcome to the world of American debt slavery. America has the illusion of great wealth because there’s a lot of “stuff” around, but who really owns it? In real terms, the average American is poorer than the poorest ghetto dweller in Manila, because at least they have no debts. If they want to pack up and leave, they can; if you want to leave, you can’t, because you’ve got debts to pay.

All this begs the question: Why would anyone put up with this? Ask any American and you’ll get the same answer: because America is the freest country on earth. If you believe this, I’ve got some more bad news for you: America is actually among the least free countries on earth. Your **** is tested, your emails and phone calls are monitored, your medical records are gathered, and you are never more than one stray comment away from writhing on the ground with two Taser prongs in your ass.

And that’s just physical freedom. Mentally, you are truly imprisoned. You don’t even know the degree to which you are tormented by fears of medical bankruptcy, job loss, homelessness and violent crime because you’ve never lived in a country where there is no need to worry about such things.

[SoCalCroozer]

This has nothing to do with hating my country or being anti-American so all you "if you don't like it leavers" can shove it. It's about realizing how fricking brainwashed we are, how enslaved we are, and how we are lied to on a daily basis by the people that really run this country and profit off the backs of hard working Americans..........and who control our government. Why can't America be a Norway? When are we going to wake up and realize the America we all want and believe in and the America we are getting are two polar opposites........while we fight about what went wrong and when...........we are continually being assaulted on both fronts by a greedy hegemonic corporate America i.e. global corporations that use us like a cheap hookers and a corrupt and tryannical government who's strings are being pulled and puppeted by these elite corporatists.

[summers73]

Whiteyville always sounds nicer to some.

[WestCobb]

I have heard similar things to what SoCal is saying from virtually everyone who has travelled outside of the U.S. So, most developed nations have realized that nations don't exist to enrich a handful, but instead exist to be enjoyed by the many. Therefore, the quality of life for the average citizens of those nations is high, and life is enjoyable. America, the supposed land of opportunity, is a place where EVERYTHING is designed to be for profit. Squeeze a buck wherever you can, nevermind if the for profit model is the best for this particular good or service. The richest Americans need to get richer, at any cost.

I'm tired of living in a place where you work hard in school to be lucky enough to qualify for a crushing college debt, only to graduate from college in the hopes of being lucky enough to qualify for a crushing home mortgage, only to work through your adult life praying that you can last long enough on the meat market without getting sick -- because if you do, medical bills will wipe you out. And then toward the end of your working life, you fear that your pension won't be gone or that your 401K won't be reduced to zero because the market mauraders did a number on the economy.

Yes, sign me up for a mixed economy where there is a strong, serious social safety net so that I don't have to slave away for the rest of my life to pay off debt.

[rd2007]

Nothing like referencing wikipedia to alert everyone else that you're clueless... and what's this America country you speak of? Last I heard The America's were a region that stretches from near the South Pole all the way up to near the North Pole. Please go back to school and educate yourself instead of letting the world know you cheated your way through school.

Thanks

[summers73]

Originally Posted by rd2007

Nothing like referencing wikipedia to alert everyone else that you're clueless... and what's this America country you speak of? Last I heard The America's were a region that stretches from near the South Pole all the way up to near the North Pole. Please go back to school and educate yourself instead of letting the world know you cheated your way through school.

Thanks

[SoCalCroozer]

Originally Posted by rd2007

Nothing like referencing wikipedia to alert everyone else that you're clueless... and what's this America country you speak of? Last I heard The America's were a region that stretches from near the South Pole all the way up to near the North Pole. Please go back to school and educate yourself instead of letting the world know you cheated your way through school.

Thanks

Oops U S A !!!!!!!!! LMAO! Happy now? Haha many people refer to the USA as "AMERIKA"! You sound like you should under stand such "geographcentrism".

Try arguing the facts.. America F'k Yeah!

[pvande55]

Norway probably doesn't have the idiot politicians that we do, or the wealth of corporate lobbyists. We still have the best Congress money can buy.

[SoCalCroozer]

Nation & World | Oil-rich Norway guards its wealth | Seattle Times Newspaper

"It's a lot easier when you have transparent institutions, an educated population and a long history of democracy with very little corruption,"