Bernie Sanders: 'What's Wrong With America Looking More Like Scandinavia?'

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Obviously Scandinavia isn't perfect. Their VAT is too high, and we should more towards having a minimum wage more like Australia's.

[Hydera]

Obviously Scandinavia isn't perfect. Their VAT is too high, and we should more towards having a minimum wage more like Australia's.

That depends.... Do we have enough rocks natural resources to ship to asia for $$$$?

[SWE]

So why does he identify as a socialist?

[Matty]

Does Bernie Sanders support raising middle class income tax rates to above 50%?

[Mechaman]

My response:  Hell no!

I don't support Sanders, but if I did, I'd hope he ran on a 1950's style economic platform talking about the "good old days" in the US.

You'd support him if he was a Republican?

Military spending was raised really big when Ike came into office so im not sure if a 50's platform is a great thing...

Do you know what the Korean War was?

And Ike took office in 1953, BTW... notice the drop throughout his Presidency...

And then notice it go down further during the early sixties, with the sharpest decline in 1963 right before the Vietnam conflict went into full throttle under Johnson.

I do agree though that outright ignoring the existence of the Korean War is tantamount to intellectual dishonesty at his finest.

[Vega]

If it did, you'd be President.

[RFayette]

My point was Sanders could garner far more support by appealing to some of the social democrat policies of 1950's America than some foreign area like Scandanavia. 

I personally don't believe in either, but if I was a Sanders supporter, that would be my preferred strategy.

[Mr. Illini]

So why does he identify as a socialist?

He identifies as a Social Democrat, which is what Scandanavian countries tend toward

[Ronnie]

Actually, he aligns himself with democratic socialism, which is to the left of social democracy.  If I recall correctly, he responded favorably to topics important to socialists, such as workers' cooperatives, in an interview once.

[Likely Voter]

Let's face it, when most people hear "socialist" they think...


Bernie was just pointing out that it is actually this...

[eric82oslo]

As Likely Voter said. The Scandinavian countries have the highest living standards in the world. They must have done something right.

[Tender Branson]

Bernie's right.

The whole world would be better off if it were more Scandinavian.

[SWE]

Let's face it, when most people hear "socialist" they think...


Bernie was just pointing out that it is actually this...

But the first image actually is socialism, not the second one...

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

The idea that Scandinavia of today is more Socialist than most of Western Europe is both laughable and ignorant. Social Democracy hasn't been a dominating political forece here for three decades.

Let's face it, when most people hear "socialist" they think...


Bernie was just pointing out that it is actually this...

 

Actually it's more like this:

[BlueSwan]

There is a de facto minimum wage in Scandinavian countries. Don't think that just because there isn't a law dictating a minimum wage, that there isn't one in practice. However, it is decided through collective bargaining.

The average minimum wage for unskilled labor in Denmark is around 110 dkr, which going by current currency rates is about 16.50 USD. This is actually much lower that what it has been, but that is due to the currently very weak Euro that the danish krone is pegged to. Just a year or two ago, the de facto minimum wage was 20-21 USD.

The ideology that founded present day Scandinavia is a very moderate form of democratic socialism, which highly stresses individual freedoms - as such, this form of democratic socialism is almost indistinguisable from Rawlsian social liberalism. Scandinavia is probably the single most liberal part of the western world.

As for the idea that Scandinavian countries are unable to compete due to high prices and high taxation, that is a narrative that is pushed by big business and right wing thinktanks and politicians. The actual reality is that while we may be struggling in certain areas of production, all three Scandinavian countries have HUGE TRADE SURPLUSSES. Something that big business consistently ignores when pushing this agenda.

Personally, as a Scandinavian, I won't hide the fact that I think our system is pretty damn awesome, but I wouldn't want to impose our model on other countries.

[Hydera]

There is a de facto minimum wage in Scandinavian countries. Don't think that just because there isn't a law dictating a minimum wage, that there isn't one in practice. However, it is decided through collective bargaining.

The average minimum wage for unskilled labor in Denmark is around 110 dkr, which going by current currency rates is about 16.50 USD. This is actually much lower that what it has been, but that is due to the currently very weak Euro that the danish krone is pegged to. Just a year or two ago, the de facto minimum wage was 20-21 USD.

The ideology that founded present day Scandinavia is a very moderate form of democratic socialism, which highly stresses individual freedoms - as such, this form of democratic socialism is almost indistinguisable from Rawlsian social liberalism. Scandinavia is probably the single most liberal part of the western world.

As for the idea that Scandinavian countries are unable to compete due to high prices and high taxation, that is a narrative that is pushed by big business and right wing thinktanks and politicians. The actual reality is that while we may be struggling in certain areas of production, all three Scandinavian countries have HUGE TRADE SURPLUSSES. Something that big business consistently ignores when pushing this agenda.

Personally, as a Scandinavian, I won't hide the fact that I think our system is pretty damn awesome, but I wouldn't want to impose our model on other countries.

Which is due to high VAT taxes compared to even mainland europe.




This discourages buying foreign goods which allows for a trade surplus. But i doubt anybody will be willing to establish a national VAT since their bound to be slaughtered politically for raising the price of all goods and services by 25%.

[bobloblaw]

I like the media's double standard here. "Is it REALLY possible for someone like YOU to be president?" because he's out of the mainstream on the left.

Meanwhile, they take nuts like Bachmann and Cruz seriously.

Yeah, boy Bachman sure went far and was the media frontrunner

[Maxwell]

Scandanavian policies may work for them, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some nasty side effects of what seems on the outset of a nice system - what it seems like is that they absolutely would not work here, politically and otherwise. It simply doesn't add up in conjunction in what we can do.

[BlueSwan]

There is a de facto minimum wage in Scandinavian countries. Don't think that just because there isn't a law dictating a minimum wage, that there isn't one in practice. However, it is decided through collective bargaining.

The average minimum wage for unskilled labor in Denmark is around 110 dkr, which going by current currency rates is about 16.50 USD. This is actually much lower that what it has been, but that is due to the currently very weak Euro that the danish krone is pegged to. Just a year or two ago, the de facto minimum wage was 20-21 USD.

The ideology that founded present day Scandinavia is a very moderate form of democratic socialism, which highly stresses individual freedoms - as such, this form of democratic socialism is almost indistinguisable from Rawlsian social liberalism. Scandinavia is probably the single most liberal part of the western world.

As for the idea that Scandinavian countries are unable to compete due to high prices and high taxation, that is a narrative that is pushed by big business and right wing thinktanks and politicians. The actual reality is that while we may be struggling in certain areas of production, all three Scandinavian countries have HUGE TRADE SURPLUSSES. Something that big business consistently ignores when pushing this agenda.

Personally, as a Scandinavian, I won't hide the fact that I think our system is pretty damn awesome, but I wouldn't want to impose our model on other countries.

Which is due to high VAT taxes compared to even mainland europe.




This discourages buying foreign goods which allows for a trade surplus. But i doubt anybody will be willing to establish a national VAT since their bound to be slaughtered politically for raising the price of all goods and services by 25%.

If that was true - that the high VAT rate reduces individual spending, then that would affect danish produced goods as well, resulting in high unemployment, which just isn't the case. Our unmployment rate is very low compared to most western countries. Also, if the VAT made us more price sensitive, then you would expect danish produced goods to be outcompeted by cheaper foreign produced goods, which again isn't the case.

[IceSpear]

I like the media's double standard here. "Is it REALLY possible for someone like YOU to be president?" because he's out of the mainstream on the left.

Meanwhile, they take nuts like Bachmann and Cruz seriously.

Yeah, boy Bachman sure went far and was the media frontrunner

I didn't say she went far or was a frontrunner. But I don't recall anyone ever asking her: "so is it really possible for a far right extremist like you to be president?"

[RINO Tom]

My response:  Hell no!

I don't support Sanders, but if I did, I'd hope he ran on a 1950's style economic platform talking about the "good old days" in the US.

You'd support him if he was a Republican?

Military spending was raised really big when Ike came into office so im not sure if a 50's platform is a great thing...

Do you know what the Korean War was?

And Ike took office in 1953, BTW... notice the drop throughout his Presidency...

And then notice it go down further during the early sixties, with the sharpest decline in 1963 right before the Vietnam conflict went into full throttle under Johnson.

I do agree though that outright ignoring the existence of the Korean War is tantamount to intellectual dishonesty at his finest.

It's also worth noting, though, that Ike's federal highway initiative - a darling example for the "GOP has turned crazy, Ike would be a Democrat today!" crowd - was pitched as "defense spending," the argument being that we needed to have a more sophisticated method of evacuating people out of major cities in the event of nuclear war.  I found that very interesting when reading the book "Republicans and Race."