Most European countries (including Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Belgium) if they joined the US, would rank among the poorest one-third of US states on a per-capita GDP basis, and the UK, France, Japan and New Zealand would all rank among America’s very poorest states, below No. 47 West Virginia, and not too far above No. 50 Mississippi. Countries like Italy, S. Korea, Spain, Portugal and Greece would each rank below Mississippi as the poorest states in the country.
And by other measures, we excel, too.
As for following the path of the Scandinavian countries that the American left dreams about?
To begin with, explains Swedish scholar Nima Sanandaji, the affluence and cultural norms upon which Scandinavia’s social-democratic policies rest are not the product of socialism. In “Scandinavian Unexceptionalism,” a penetrating new book published by the Institute of Economic Affairs, Sanandaji shows that the Nordic nations’ prosperity “developed during periods characterized by free-market policies, low or moderate taxes, and limited state involvement in the economy.”
Once they were wealthy, they could afford to be more socialistic. Now other people's money is running out.
Oh, and the Panama Papers are not a condemnation of capitalism no matter how badly leftists want to portray them that way.
Count this as a lesson that work.never really seems to be learned here in certain circles drawn to Bernie Sanders despite the ample evidence that socialism just doesn't work.
