Yep, hard to believe I know but those laid back, nanny state socialists in Sweden have surpassed the Greediest Capitalists Greatest Country in the Universe in the rankings on economic competitiveness according to the World Economic Forum:
Sweden is the world’s second most competitive country, the World Economic Forum said in its annual ranking, hailing the Scandinavian country for its transparent institutions, efficient financial markets and the world’s strongest technological adoption.
Switzerland topped the overall ranking in The Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011. Sweden overtook the US and Singapore this year to be placed 2nd overall.
Sweden benefits from the world’s most transparent and efficient public institutions, with very low levels of corruption and undue influence and a government that is considered to be one of the most efficient in the world, the report stated.
Read that bolded sentence carefully. Most transparent and efficient public institutions. Low levels of corruption and outside influence from, oh, I don’t know, Big Oil, for example. And oh, my god Sweden has they have socialist health care for everyone!
The country of Sweden has a long tradition of delivering high quality, economically viable health care. And for many years Sweden’s health care system has regularly ranked at or near the top of most comparative analyses of various international health care systems. […]
Health policy in Sweden is a national-level responsibility. Over the past 20 years Sweden has an average reinvestment of some 9.2% of its GDP annually on healthcare. However, around 70 percent of healthcare services are funded through local government taxes. In fact, Sweden’s health care system is highly decentralized. Its 21 county councils are responsible for hospitals and GPs, while its 290 municipalities provide municipal care. In Sweden, the county councils and municipalities are also the main providers of healthcare, with only about 10% of all health services delivered by private providers.
Blasphemy! But it gets worse. Sweden also provides a raft of socialist programs. to help real people (not Corporations masquerading as “persons” in the minds of right wing justices on the US Supreme Court). Here’s a brief rundown at what Sweden provides its citizens:
Sweden’s welfare policy is based on an economic policy geared to full employment for both women and men and a universal social insurance system. The main aim of the Government’s labour market policy is a well-functioning labour market, full employment and satisfactory economic growth. The policy is based on the principle of providing incentives to work and improve skills. If there is a shortage of work, the unemployed are offered suitable training or other measures to help them find a job. […]
The social insurance system provides income-related compensation for loss of income. The following are examples of income-related benefits: compensation for parents who are at home from work to look after small children (parental benefit), compensation for persons who cannot work on account of sickness (sickness benefit), an allowance for persons with permanently reduced work capacity (sickness/activity allowance), compensation for persons who are injured or become sick at work (work injury compensation) and old-age pensions. In several cases there is a guaranteed benefit level that is paid to insured persons with a low income or no income. The social insurance system also includes allowances for various situations, e.g. child benefit and housing allowances. […]
A universal welfare system is not only less costly to administer than a system with means-tested benefits, it also ensures long-term distributive effects and high legitimacy.[…]
About one-fifth of the population of Sweden consists of people who were born, or have at least one parent who was born, in another country. Everyone who lives in Sweden has the same rights, obligations and opportunities regardless of ethnic origin. This is to be taken into account in the design and formulation of government policy in general.
Oh the humanity! But seriously, who wouldn’t want to live in Sweden. It treats all its people decently, with the same rights to economic security that we in the US of A reserve for the top 1% of our population.
Plus its beating us at our own supposed game: economic efficiency and the ability to out-compete other nations economically.
Private institutions also receive excellent marks, with firms that demonstrate the utmost ethical behavior (ranked 1st), strong auditing and reporting standards, and well-functioning corporate boards. Goods and financial markets are also very efficient.
“Combined with a strong focus on education over the years (ranked 2nd for higher education and training) and the world’s strongest technological adoption (ranked 1st in the technological readiness pillar), Sweden has developed a very sophisticated business culture (2nd) and is one of the world’s leading innovators (ranked 5th)”, the the World Economic Forum said in the report.
“These characteristics come together to make Sweden one of the most productive and competitive economies in the world”.
Sometimes it isn’t an issue of Big Government vs. Small Government or Government Drowned in a Bathtub. It’s an issue of Government at all levels that is open, transparent, and isn’t beholden to wealthy greedy Disaster Capitalists and the wealthiest among us. Governments dedicated to providing a decent lifestyle to all their citizens. Maybe Sweden doesn’t insure universal happiness for all its people, but by God it sure helps more people pursue happiness.
Why do I say that?
Because when human beings don’t have to worry about their next meal or losing their house or losing their job or whether their health care coverage will, you know, actually cover them when they get sick (provided they have health coverage at all) it makes a huge difference in their lives.
Greed is not good. Its a curse, that Republicans and conservatives (many of them so-called Christians) in America have made into our highest social value since Ronald Reagan was first elected president. We discriminate against people that are poor or lower middle class every day by denying them their basic human needs for health care and economic security. As one American Hedge Fund manager recently admitted (in private, of course):
The U.S.-based CEO of one of the world’s largest hedge funds told me that his firm’s investment committee often discusses the question of who wins and who loses in today’s economy. In a recent internal debate, he said, one of his senior colleagues had argued that the hollowing-out of the American middle class didn’t really matter. “His point was that if the transformation of the world economy lifts four people in China and India out of poverty and into the middle class, and meanwhile means one American drops out of the middle class, that’s not such a bad trade,” the CEO recalled.
Got that? These bastards who nearly destroyed the global economy and than stole our tax money to bail themselves out, don’t give a crap about their fellow Americans unless they make a salary roughly equal to their own. Middle class people and poor people are just a commodity to squeeze money from until we have lost everything at which point they will discard our economic carcasses to feed on the growing middle classes of the Chinese. About says it all, doesn’t it?
Republicans in Congress are planning to cut social benefits and the EPA and anything that protects individuals from the vicissitudes of a corrupt, capricious and rigged “free market” so that Wall Street and Big Oil and Big Health Care and Big Pharma and Big Ag and all those other Big multinational companies (and the wealthy people who control them) can suck us dry. They want to amass ever increasing wads of money, money that never seems to get reinvested in American enterprises and American jobs, but gets shipped overseas to grow the net worth of the investing class. In short they are bent on ruining the lives of the vast majority of American people because (and lets be truthful here) they are evil, selfish people.
They benefit from wars. They profit from speculating on food shortages and oil shortages and in the near future, water shortages. They want to privatize everything so that they can steal what little we have left. And we, the people of the United States of America, are letting these robber barons get away with it.
Unlike Sweden. That socialist hell hole that is a more economically viable and provides a hospitable, humane lifestyle to all its people. A county with governments big and small that puts its people first. Now that’s change I’d like to see come to America. And unless you’re one of the 400 richest families in America or a Multinational company earning BILLIONS of DOLLARS of profits each year while avoiding paying its fair share of taxes, wouldn’t you?
