Discussion Why aren't people from Norway immigrating to the US in mass numbers like Trump wants?

[Greenman]

Sweden has a higher standard of living than the US and doesn't have massive oil reserves so clearly that is not necessary. Several other European countries also achieve this without significant mineral wealth.

Sweden is also ten million people. Just a touch larger than the San Francisco Bay Area. It's also not all that diverse, a quick google search says 80% white, and those ten million folks are just short of a trillion dollars in debt. They're living high on the hog now, but shit's going to get serious when the bills come due.

 

[ecogen]

Sweden is also ten million people. Just a touch larger than the San Francisco Bay Area. It's also not all that diverse, a quick google search says 80% white, and those ten million folks are just short of a trillion dollars in debt. They're living high on the hog now, but shit's going to get serious when the bills come due.

Keep your ignorance on economic issues to yourself, thanks.

 

[fskimospy]

Sweden is also ten million people. Just a touch larger than the San Francisco Bay Area. It's also not all that diverse, a quick google search says 80% white, and those ten million folks are just short of a trillion dollars in debt. They're living high on the hog now, but shit's going to get serious when the bills come due.

Why does size matter? Is a high standard of living somehow no longer attainable if a country reaches a certain population?

Also, where did you get this trillion dollar debt figure from? It seems badly wrong. Sweden’s household debt to GDP is slightly higher than the US, but not a ton and their government debt to GDP is considerably lower than ours.

 

[fskimospy]

In fact Sweden’s debt is so low they are looking to purposefully increase it.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...sweden-feeds-urgent-calls-for-a-spending-boom

 

[Muse]

Why would someone living in a progressive country like Norway want to move to a madhouse like the USA? Our healthcare system is relatively insane, porous too. If you have a shit ton of money, it's a different story, but for most people, it would be a giant step in the wrong direction. Besides, given how things have been going here, what guarantee do you have that things will work out? This country is stupidly unstable, actually has been since JFK was shot dead. Reagan was shot too, but the mofo didn't die.

 

[Greenman]

Why does size matter? Is a high standard of living somehow no longer attainable if a country reaches a certain population?

Also, where did you get this trillion dollar debt figure from? It seems badly wrong. Sweden’s household debt to GDP is slightly higher than the US, but not a ton and their government debt to GDP is considerably lower than ours.

Couldn't find the original site where I got the information, duckduckgo doesn't appear to have a history file. Found another link with the same number.
https://moneyinc.com/20-countries-currently-debt/

 

[Victorian Gray]

Sweden is also ten million people. Just a touch larger than the San Francisco Bay Area. It's also not all that diverse, a quick google search says 80% white, and those ten million folks are just short of a trillion dollars in debt. They're living high on the hog now, but shit's going to get serious when the bills come due.

Yep, shit's gonna get serious for sure.

Sweden’s Vanishing Debt Feeds Urgent Calls for a Spending Boom

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...sweden-feeds-urgent-calls-for-a-spending-boom

and a couple more for good measure

https://commodity.com/debt-clock/sweden/

https://www.riksgalden.se/en/aboutsndo/

 

[PingviN]

Yep, shit's gonna get serious for sure.

Sweden’s Vanishing Debt Feeds Urgent Calls for a Spending Boom

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...sweden-feeds-urgent-calls-for-a-spending-boom

and a couple more for good measure

https://commodity.com/debt-clock/sweden/

https://www.riksgalden.se/en/aboutsndo/

Public debt is not an issue and hasn't been for at least a decade. The issue is private debt which has gone up as a result of low interest rates and a housing market that has been mismanaged for decades. When the interest rates eventually start going up, a lot of people are going to have to tighten their belt significantly and that will have serious impact on the economy as a whole.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Public debt is not an issue and hasn't been for at least a decade. The issue is private debt which has gone up as a result of low interest rates and a housing market that has been mismanaged for decades. When the interest rates eventually start going up, a lot of people are going to have to tighten their belt significantly and that will have serious impact on the economy as a whole.

As I understood the original reference it was to govt. debt and that's what my info relates to.

 

[PingviN]

Maybe because Norwegians dislike immigrants and have long been the least welcoming European country to refugees? If your government is fine with admitting in a year only as many asylum seekers as the U.S. sends back to Mexico every week or two under it's "Remain in Mexico" policy then as a Norwegian you're probably not going to go looking to emigrate either.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/11/norway-is-hard-on-migrants-but-tough-love-works/

https://www.dw.com/en/world-in-prog...orways-restrictive-refugee-policy/av-44314302

https://www.newsinenglish.no/2018/06/18/refugees-struggle-to-afford-food/

Norway grants asylum to far more people than the US does if you look at per capita numbers. Of course a nation of 350 000 0000 are going to have more of anything compared to a nation of 5 000 000 in absolute numbers.

Also using asylum seekers or number of people granted refugee status as a basis for determining whether a nation is racist or not is pretty damn stupid. For a welfare state, you need a large part of the population to remain highly productive. Refugees that are less productive cost money, there is no question about that. You can't have an extensive welfare state and an open border policy. That's not racist, that's arithmetics.

 

[PingviN]

As I understood the original reference it was to govt. debt and that's what my info relates to.

Debt is debt, doesn't really matter if it's public or private. The trillion refers to public and private debt.

 

[fskimospy]

Couldn't find the original site where I got the information, duckduckgo doesn't appear to have a history file. Found another link with the same number.
https://moneyinc.com/20-countries-currently-debt/

As best as I can tell that website is just making numbers up out of thin air. Alternatively they may have forgotten to convert SEK to USD or whatever but even that doesn’t make much sense. (About 10/1 conversion rate)

As per Eurostat Sweden’s debt/GDP ratio is much lower than ours at about 40%. With a $540 billion economy that means about $215 billion in debt. A small fraction of what your website claims.

 

[PingviN]

As best as I can tell that website is just making numbers up out of thin air. Alternatively they may have forgotten to convert SEK to USD or whatever but even that doesn’t make much sense. (About 10/1 conversion rate)

As per Eurostat Sweden’s debt/GDP ratio is much lower than ours at about 40%. With a $540 billion economy that means about $215 billion in debt. A small fraction of what your website claims.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance...merging-market-maelstrom-as-Fed-tightens.html

300% of GDP is roughly $1.5 trillion.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Debt is debt, doesn't really matter if it's public or private. The trillion refers to public and private debt.

last I checked I couldn't print my own money to pay back debts

 

[fskimospy]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance...merging-market-maelstrom-as-Fed-tightens.html

300% of GDP is roughly $1.5 trillion.

First, the idea that all debt is equal is nonsense.

Second, total debt was very clearly not what his link was about. (The US would have debt of around $50 trillion by this metric)

Third, once you start including household, corporate, and government debt all together you’re effectively double counting. If I owe you $100 and you owe me $100 are we collectively $200 in debt? Not in any way that matters.

 

[obidamnkenobi]

Let's have government healthcare like Norway! No, they have oil, the US can't be compared.
Sweden! No they have, uh, debt. They're too white (just a little bit racist there ey? "black people are moochers"? Classy!)
Denmark! Uhm, too flat?
UK? No, eh, they have tea? Brexit?
Germany? eh, no they're too frugal.
France?
Italy?
Spain?
Australia?
Japan?
Cuba?
etcetc

They all have government provided healthcare for it's citizen. But somehow there's alwyas an excuse why it's totally, fully, impossible in the USA. "We're special"!

 

[glenn1]

They all have government provided healthcare for it's citizen. But somehow there's alwyas an excuse why it's totally, fully, impossible in the USA. "We're special"!

It's not "impossible" however our situation is somewhat unique that for generations, healthcare has been linked to health insurance plans that were considered a "fringe employment benefit" and were heavily tax subsidized. Now since the majority of folks are covered by employer plans and most are happy with them, you need to not only overcome their natural inertia of switching from an employer subsidized plan to something new, but also convince them that going to "government provided healthcare" is a better deal for them. They literally do not give a fuck about whether your plan "expands coverage" or whatever other stupid shit you care about. They care first, foremost, and nearly only about "will your plan make me worse off" and they're highly skeptical of folks who say "of course it will be cheaper, just trust us!"

Especially when they see the other impacts from most "government provided healthcare systems" like long wait times, questionable quality of care provided, and VAT taxes that likely exceed what they're paying in federal income taxes now, and then their interest in your "amazing plan" melts away quicker than Mel Gibson's career after his anti-semitic rant.

 

[obidamnkenobi]

It's not "impossible" however our situation is somewhat unique that for generations, healthcare has been linked to health insurance plans that were considered a "fringe employment benefit" and were heavily tax subsidized. Now since the majority of folks are covered by employer plans and most are happy with them, you need to not only overcome their natural inertia of switching from an employer subsidized plan to something new, but also convince them that going to "government provided healthcare" is a better deal for them. They literally do not give a fuck about whether your plan "expands coverage" or whatever other stupid shit you care about. They care first, foremost, and nearly only about "will your plan make me worse off" and they're highly skeptical of folks who say "of course it will be cheaper, just trust us!"

Especially when they see the other impacts from most "government provided healthcare systems" like long wait times, questionable quality of care provided, and VAT taxes that likely exceed what they're paying in federal income taxes now, and then their interest in your "amazing plan" melts away quicker than Mel Gibson's career after his anti-semitic rant.

Who are these people that are actually happy with their current plan? Dealing with insurance companies is one of the most painful experiences you can have. We have massive out of pocket expenses before they cover anything $4k+, then there is a absurdly confusing system of what is covered and not, and hours of phone calls to figure out what's going on. Then we get multiple bills from the hospital, saying it's not covered, when really it is (this seems like a scam! Hoping we'd just pay!), more hrs of phone calls etc. And for all this my employer pays over $10,000 per year! Which of course comes out of my salary. No it's not "subsidized" by the employer, it just increases the cost the the employers so lowers your salary.

So that premium alone is more than a 10% income tax right there! Including the deductible it's over 15% in "tax"! And every study says the US pays the most, with the worst outcomes. So by any measure I'd have to get a lower "tax" with a government system, yes please! There is no way a government system wouldn't be cheaper for at least 90-95% of the population, every employer (especially small ones), encourage startups, reduce waste, simplify healthcare, etc etc. The only loosers would be insurers, and maybe the top 2% richest. This really isn't debatable, it's just facts.

 

[zinfamous]

Sure, we just discover (and actually extract) enough oil to make us rich as them, what with the oil and gas sector constituting around 22% of Norwegian GDP in a nation of 5.2 million people. Which in quantified terms means we just need to find a source that represents 20 times our current extraction levels, and we can have Norway level standards of living. That's easy peasy, right?

why would we need to create more wealth than the more-than-enough that we already have to take care of our own people?

You know this, glenn, but you just think paying the lazy, born, entitled wealthy even more from your own pocket is the proper way to do things. This is why you and people like you are a threat to the country.

 

[DarthKyrie]

Well sure, but nobody's trying to make Wyoming and New York identical. There are certain things we want to apply to everyone though, like access to health care, and states like Wyoming just aren't rich enough to do it for their citizens themselves so New York will help them out.

Wyoming would like that but then that would mean that the people of New York would receive the same and the people of Wyoming can't allow that so they will go without.

Heh. Nearly 1/4 of the jobs in Wyoming are gubmint jobs. Go figure.

Don't you know they deserve those jobs and not the people in other states.

In fact Sweden’s debt is so low they are looking to purposefully increase it.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...sweden-feeds-urgent-calls-for-a-spending-boom

If it goes much lower their currency will be worth even less than it is now.

Who are these people that are actually happy with their current plan? Dealing with insurance companies is one of the most painful experiences you can have. We have massive out of pocket expenses before they cover anything $4k+, then there is a absurdly confusing system of what is covered and not, and hours of phone calls to figure out what's going on. Then we get multiple bills from the hospital, saying it's not covered, when really it is (this seems like a scam! Hoping we'd just pay!), more hrs of phone calls etc. And for all this my employer pays over $10,000 per year! Which of course comes out of my salary. No it's not "subsidized" by the employer, it just increases the cost the the employers so lowers your salary.

So that premium alone is more than a 10% income tax right there! Including the deductible it's over 15% in "tax"! And every study says the US pays the most, with the worst outcomes. So by any measure I'd have to get a lower "tax" with a government system, yes please! There is no way a government system wouldn't be cheaper for at least 90-95% of the population, every employer (especially small ones), encourage startups, reduce waste, simplify healthcare, etc etc. The only loosers would be insurers, and maybe the top 2% richest. This really isn't debatable, it's just facts.

Now, this is the way that the healthcare debate should go. It would make it easier for a lot of people to understand it better.

 

[thilanliyan]

so New York will help them out.

That's SOCIALISM!!! Wyoming will turn into Venezuela!!

 

[IronWing]

The whole point of brexit was to stop giving money to Europe and fund their own socialist health care..

View attachment 8504

Not really wanting to bump the thread but this bus ad didn't age too good.

 

[Indus]

Not really wanting to bump the thread but this bus ad didn't age too good.

Yep they've been had by scammers and liars.

 

[zinfamous]

Yep they've been had by scammers and liars.

Russians. They are called Russians, Indus.