I want to swing something at you, hard and accurately.

Blaming the Fed doesn't really get you anywhere politically, even though its the real reason we are in this situation.

I guess if Obama wins and the system collapses (fiat money/huge gov't) then maybe, just maybe someone like RP would get some credit for being right and we will give free markets a chance.

This thread is unintentionally great.

The OP thanks you but it was not unintentional. History has shown that my threads are always great (of course I have not posted in the Politics Cesspool (ie forum) for a couple of years, so you may not be aware of that.

And of course OP's OP is intentionally great as well.

-- for the libertarians and republicans who have difficulty understanding simple things == in my second sentence above OP's OP translates to "Original Poster's Original Position"

Yeah, it has nothing to do with you.

Same difference.

At least the airplanes will land on time.

Oh you mean economic prosperity like in Scandinavia (apart from Iceland) with more government control/regulations than any other Western countries? Well ok then!

Yeah, that's the only variable that matters.

Hint: How many non-white people live in Scandinavia? How many live in America?

ban for being racist, ldo

80% of the sub prime mortgages were made by institutions that were not subject to the CRA. The CRA was pretty much irrelevant in creating the housing crisis.

You can't be serious using this as a counter-argument.

Yes actually, I am.

In America we have relatively open immigration policies, allowing poor, unskilled, and uneducated people (primarily from Mexico) to move here and live tax free for many years while they attend school, have kids, and work.

In affulent European countries, immigration is severely restricted against unskilled laborers (Albanians and Muslims of all types) and the population is largely homogenous.

To compare these two countries without adjusting for the population is silly. Do you see why?

Markets are made at the margin.

Ah, the Scandinavian Myth.

Where's my pvn signal?

Misleading and incorrect. First, the fact that the government made CRA loans "risk free" by purchasing them skewed the entire market's perception. I mean if a crack addict's loan is low risk, then this hard working middle class man's loan for cookie cutter McMansion has got to be even lower, right? I mean if you have treat unemployment compensation as income, paper profits on stocks are even better, right?

This is also misleading because the subprime crisis would have never occurred if Freddie and Fannie weren't fueled and protected by the government. They bought 1/2 of the mortgages, and the magnitude of their purchases kept the market burning.

THE MYTH OF NORDIC AFFLUENCE


Oh and LOL at the "execpt Iceland". Give it some more time, then it will be "except Iceland and Norway." Etc.

Platitudes aren't a substitute for an argument.

The government didn't make CRA loans risk free. In fact, institutions regulated by the CRA were half as likely to sell off their loans as institutions not regulated.

How does that make my argument misleading? The actions of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are a separate question from whether or not the CRA was a contributing factor.

Prosperity: An economic state of growth with rising profits and full employment.

The above is of course not the situation in Sweden and lets ignore the Norwegians since they are swimming in oil.

But the general development that this country has had, you want to attribute that to government control and regulation?
It is of course entirely the other way around.

I don't get it, why would anyone think that governments can create prosperity?

I know a couple of things:

1. It is possible to manipulate economic numbers any way you like to make any point you like. Would not be hard to write a convincing piece that the USofA is deep in debt, has trouble repaying it, and will shortly be totally bankrupt by social security, that a motor vehicle accident will bankrupt a vast number of Americans in a split second, ...... Wait -- pretty much all that is actually true!!
2. I spent a day in Helsinki this year and my poor dollar hardly bought anything. Wait -- that was a hard fact, not an opinion. And my hosts did not worry about motor vehicle accidents bankrupting them -- another fact!

Bring on a governmental model that functions primarily for the people and then for corporate bodies.

LOL, what!?

Sure, I agree that comparing two countries/regions 1:1 without taking into account a host of factors is a little silly.

I assume you forgot to include an 'e.g.' in front of 'Albanians and Muslims'. Also total lol @ 'Muslims' being one group and that they're all unskilled.

Wow, that was such a huge, garbage article.

Oh hai there, allow me to set the objective tone of this article!

Cool, the writer's a psychic and knows why "the establishment" peddles the above view.

Yes, not everything is right in Norway. Shocking, I know. The writer continues to exaggerate of course. Drug use is a big problem in the right-wing controlled city, true true.

Man, those Norwegians suck pretty hard for not buying new stuff all the time. How on Earth would the economy keep growing without boundless consumation? It's just downright rude!

Cars are sales taxed pretty heavily. I agree that this is stupid, I'd rather see a double in gas prices and a huge cut in sales taxes, to renew the car fleet and reduce emitions. This would have a double effect, since you'd stimulate people to buy newer cars (which in themselves are more fuel efficient) and people will drive less due to increased fuel prices (finding alternative modes of transportation that are more environmentally friendly). Anyway, I digress.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NY TIMES

When my mother-in-law went to an emergency room [in Oslo] recently, the hospital was out of cough medicine.

I'm at a loss for words for why anecdotes like this are included. It just makes the article seem not very serious at all.

Surprisingly, the writer has this wrong. The "matpakke" IS definitely based partly in tradition. Compare Norway to Sweden or Denmark, and you'll see the "matpakke" being way more common here than in those countries.

This Norwegian article (only in Norwegian, sorry) shows that Oslo citizens are among those spending the least amount of their income on food, 1 hour 55 mins for a week's supply, compared to e.g. 3 hours and 11 mins for New Yorkers. I've seen numerous other similiar studies, also from quick googles.


Indeed not, at least not through horribly misguided articles like this.


More like "except Iceland" because their economy is very different from the rest of Scandinavia. And also, a massive deregulation of the economy after the conservative/libertarian* party gained power allowed the banking system to run wild with risk taking, putting Iceland in the troubled spot they're in today. Wanna lol some more?



Timbro is a right-wing think tank in Sweden, started by the Swedish Employers' Association. Forgive me if I'm fairly skeptical of their findings. Also, GDP is pretty widely criticized as a measurement. Personally, I think lack of accounting for Wealth distribution is a the biggest strike against it. Also, note the Austrian criticism on the Wiki page of GPD (almost at the bottom).

That's how affulent European countries look at them, anyway.

The World Bank's wealth estimates, an alternative to GDP. Sweden, Denmark and Norway all in the top 10.