It's not about oil, it's about realizing that a healthy, well educated and happy population is an investment that pays itself over time.

I'm not making a judgment for or against high marginal taxes, I'm just saying "the US could do it too" ignores, well... the very core of economic and tax policy in the US.

Isn't that a little too simple?

"No, we can't do that because we don't want to."

Yes, in the US, the taxation of the Nordic countries won't work and the socialist approach to services is also not accepted by half of the country.

Two key ideas, however, could be implemented:

--- IDEA 1 - REALLY EDUCATE people on WHY they need to get new vocational training.

Currently too many people are being given false promises of the return of working class jobs that are not coming back. It's not just globalization that has caused the loss of these jobs, but also technology advances that have made many of these jobs obsolete.

Your blue collar worker today isn't going to get a job moving metal equipment from one place to another because a machine can do it much more efficiently 24/7. Our capitalistic society means that a corporation will seek to create maximum efficiency to generate maximum profit. Corporations aren't in the business of maximizing the number of employees, but rather maximizing the return per resources invested in the organization. And that means, excuse my somewhat callous statement, that people are viewed as resources to the organizations, a means to generating profit. If a machine is able to perform a function faster, longer, for less overall money than an employee, a corporation will seek for that alternative.

So when many politicians make promises of bringing back good jobs. They AREN'T telling people WHAT JOBS are coming back. In fact, when you look at manufacturing jobs in the US, we currently CAN'T FILL THEM.

The problem is that your blue collar worker still expects a manual, low skill manufacturing job. But the job the US corporation wants is a manufacturing person who has a math or CS degree who can program or operate a high-end automation machine. Who can manage the CNC process or who can input the specifications for highly detailed technical operations. This requires specific training, math, engineering, or certifications.

This is the truth that more politicians need to hammer home to the people, then government follows up making sure that there is an incentive for educational institutions to allocate resources to teach these people.

But today, we're still stuck in: politicians claim that it's federal government's fault that they don't have a job, and that electing them instead will magically bring these low skill jobs back.

--- IDEA 2 - DECENTRALIZE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES (Move them out of Washington D.C.

A CNN op-ed suggested this as a way to bring the Federal government closer to the people in the country. (http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/06/opinions/government-department...)

The capital, Whitehouse, and some executive services would remain in D.C., but many of the key departments would be moved to different regions of the country.

For example:

-The Veterans Administration in Phoenix -The IRS in Dallas -Treasury Department in NYC -FBI in SLC -The EPA in Portland or Seattle -Department of Agriculture in Iowa

and so forth. Federal government jobs move to other places around the country bringing it closer to the people so they get a more personal connection with the government since it actually supplies jobs to the people they know. It also moves these departments into locations that cost less than the high prices of the D.C. beltway.

Is there some loss of more interpersonal meetings between departments and cabinets? Sure, but high speed Internet access is readily available in ALL metropolitan areas around the country. We have video conferencing technology which eliminates the need for us to have the requirement of so many in-person meetings. It's a trade-off, but one that is greatly benefiting the people of the country.

And as the Federal government this is a big win because today, much of the sentiment is that the Federal government DOESN'T DO anything for me. It's a bunch of "elites" who waste time and money and the people don't see anything direct benefit.

Decentralizing the location of government agencies begins to eliminate this. Just like the US National Guard has a training camp just north of the city where I live, I can't say that the national guard doesn't do anything and isn't needed. They offer a great service and employ a lot of the people in my community, the surrounding communities. The national guard members, employees, and their families all buy homes in our communities raising home values (since these are stable jobs, homes aren't sold left and right, people stay, pay taxes, leading to general growth for our communities). These people also buy goods in our stores, contributing to the local economy. All because the Army put one of their national guard training camps here instead of concentrating them at West Point in New York.

I can't say those agencies are specifically "in touch" with citizens. I'd rather say, they might be more hellish if they were all centralized in Berlin.

For instance, the coastal administration moved from the capital Oslo to Ålesund which is smack in the middle of a world-renowned maritime cluster; fisheries agency. moved to our #2 city (or #1 if you ask the locals) Bergen, historically the major export hub for the coastal fisheries, etc.

The key benefit is that it ensures there is a need for highly skilled labour also outside the capital; also, as you mention, it provides for more closeness to government - the sectors affected by the whims of a government agency has said agency within spitting distance, which helps.

The only thing I would point out (see my comment a little further down about US budget) is that our current level of taxation supports comparable levels of spending to Nordic countries. I would guess, not doing an in depth analysis, that this is partly or even mostly due to the much larger relative size of the US GDP.

And in the case of healthcare, we are flat out spending more, both in real dollars and per capita measurements, and getting less. So I view tax arguments as more or less red herrings: We already spend as much or more, instead we should ask what is wrong with our system? Changes to our systems should not require increases in our taxation (necessarily).

But it's also why I really like your ideas since they are systemic in nature.

Public healthcare allows us to have a huge single buyer for our pharmaceuticals - Pharmac[2] - which brings a lot of power to negotiate good deals.

It might not be reasonable for the US to become like the Nordic countries, but things could certainly be better.

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/2014_New...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmac

GHWB and Bill Clinton sold this country into servitude for the elite by allowing them to freely export their labor overseas where it costs less than a dollar per hour. GWB and Obama continued that. That's 28 years of policy that have seriously exacerbated the economic condition of the average American while the fat cats at the top have gotten ever-richer.

Trump wants to make sure American money is used to help and employ Americans. That's good! There's no reason that all the money has to go overseas.

That's only true if you count Federal Income Taxes alone. By the time you're done with Social Security, Medicare, state and city taxes (esp in NY, CA), the top marginal tax rate here approaches 50%.

I would have saved more than that in health care related expenses, so it was more or less a wash with that included.

People that say the US is low taxed are simply not paying attention. I pay comparable "all in" taxes as my Canadian co-workers.

Nordic countries pay significantly more in taxes any way you look at it. You'd get laughed out of the room if you talked to someone like Donald Trump about paying a 40% marginal tax rate.

USA Citizens pay more overall. Just not through "taxes." per -say.

Hardly. It was the core of the tax policy for a very long time.[1]

1: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Historical_Marginal_...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_law#/media/File:U.S...

Total tax revenue in the US is 27% of GDP. In Sweden, it's 46%:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_reven...

That may be true, but since the sources you listed contradict each other, I'm left confused. I can find supporting evidence of the graph[1], but not of the wikipedia entry. The world bank apparently thinks they are all wrong[2]. Then there's a report that Norway is actually doing it with much less taxes than Denmark and Sweden[3], but that might be likely due to oil revenue. I'm left to conlcude that without a lot of research to look into the specifics, there's quite a few ways to measure this, and I'm not sure which are most relevant to the discussion at hand.

1: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/source-revenue-sha...

2: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GC.TAX.TOTL.GD.ZS

3: http://www.thelocal.no/20151204/norway-leading-the-field-for...

But it was, not not too long ago. 35 years ago it was 50%. 40 years ago it was 70%. Just saying it ignores the core of economic and tax policy in the US ignores, well... the the recent history of the economic and tax policy of the US. Rather than a rank dismissal of the idea, why not explain what's so different than now from then that makes it impossible?

> you can't just throw out a link to graph about tax rates 50+ years ago and think that settles it and the US can be just like Norway.

I didn't. I just meant to show that your reason for dismissing it seems poorly founded, or at least poorly explained.

Now it's different. I'll be laughing with my other billionaire buddies about your tax rate plans while snorting coke of a hooker's tits on my private yacht and watching the Monaco F1 GP from the harbor. I've got all the luxuries I need over there, and in fact, everywhere, that I previously could only enjoy in the US. I can talk with who I need to talk to over Skype, I can do my business, banking, everything, remotely.

It's not like other countries don't have equal or better infrastructure. It's not like I can get clean water and food only in the US that would somehow make this a magical place I'd never leave.

So why would I just sit quietly and let you tax me at 90%, exactly?

> So why would I just sit quietly and let you tax me at 90%, exactly?

Extradition treaties and/or freezing of your bank accounts, businesses and resources within the US.

Nobody expects the Spa.. I mean IRS.

That's something you can opt out of. In fact, some do: http://fortune.com/2016/08/11/us-citizens-renounce/

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud...

The largest portion of our budget is mandatory spending (~65%). Of our mandatory spending, the largest portion of that is spent on Social Services (Social security, medicare and health, etc) and yet we still have worse services than almost any other western country (IMO).

You start looking at percentages and an even more sinister picture starts to take shape:

https://visualeconomics.creditloan.com/how-countries-spend-t...

> "Canada spends 6.3 percent of its total yearly budget on military spending. The United States spends 19.3 percent of its budget on military expenses. Mexico uses 3.3 percent of its budget for military spending."

> "Canada spends 17.9 percent of its total yearly budget on health care. The United States spends 19.3 percent of its budget on health care expenses. Mexico uses 11.8 percent of its budget for health care."

> "Norway spends 17.9 percent of its budget on health care spending, while its neighbor Sweden spends 13.8 percent of its budget on health care."

> "In France, health care spending is 16.7 percent of France’s yearly budget."

This article needs citation, but see this report that seems to at least tangentially support some of the trends voiced:

http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/Briefing-Note-NORWAY-...

> "The United States is, by far, the country that spends the most on health as a share of its economy (with 16.9% of its GDP allocated to health in 2012)"

So at this point we can conclude that the US spends roughly the same share, or more, of it's GDP on Health care as other countries...even those "socialist" ones...yet we have a much worse standard/level/cost of care.

Even at our "lower" tax rates our GDP is by far and away the largest:

https://www.google.com/search?q=list+of+countries+by+GDP&oq=...

But moreover, our PER CAPITA GDP is one of the highest in the world (higher than Norway and Sweden).

So at the end of the day, America:

* Spends more on healthcare in flat dollar terms than almost any other nation

* Spends more on healthcare PER CAPITA than almost any other nation

and yet we still have far worse levels of care.

So this problem has nothing to do with economic or tax policy in the US. The question is: Where is the enormous sums of money we are ALREADY pouring into the system going?

Our private health care system, however, has a cycle of perverse incentives -- employers, insurers, patients, and doctors -- that leads to spiraling costs with no increased benefits. The populations with the highest health risks (i.e. costs) are shoved onto the public rolls, in the form of Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA. Meanwhile, the lowest-risk populations are forced to pay into private, for-profit insurance schemes. Specialists have outsized bargaining power, which leads to grossly outsized salaries. Equipment and drug manufacturers can play hospitals and systems off of each other to bid up prices. And, of course, shareholders want a return on their investment.

This problem has everything to do with economic and tax policy in the US.

> "Your tax rate is so high America would never vote for a similar tax."

> "Percentage wise those countries spend a lot more on health care than the US."

I would agree that our private health care system has perverse incentives. Combined with the degree of separation between cost and consumer due to our insurance system, this has resulted in general market failure.

Neither of these are directly economic or tax policy related (IMO). We already are being taxed and paying for health care...the issue is where is our health system failing to deliver value-per-dollar spent. Which generally might involve some economic policy overlap as far as market regulation, but I don't think it is the whole (or even the majority) of the story.

It's doubtful they can/will fix any of this. America is a country controlled by lobbyists.

The politicians don't matter at the end of the day, look at Obama, had the right idea, could only implement a relatively mediocre system because anything good was politically untenable. The fact that politics can trump (lol) the health of the nation is enough for me to never want to live there.

Still kind of ridiculous that the amount we spend still amounts to most of the population getting shafted.

> ...industry supplies the bulk of the funds devoted to research and development, the public sector—primarily the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—supports most of the nation’s basic biomedical research.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/30/2/332.full

This quote seems to indicate the majority of R&D is coming out of the private sector.

Moreover, this overhead of medical R&D from the public sector doesn't explain price differences in drugs between US and other developed nations:

http://usuncut.com/news/us-drug-prices-in-the-us-are-literal...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-the-u-s-pays-more-than-other...

There are deeper, systemic issues IMO.

On top of that, you're not forcing anybody to do anything.

The negotiation process is just different than when other countries are negotiating with US pharmaceutical companies.

The pockets of the oligarchy represented by Clinton and Trump.

Not to say Scandinavia has the best of everything, but regardless... Jag skulle vilja bo i skandinavien istället USA

Take the other example of Belgium whose tax level is more or less equivalent but is scaling down on basically everything. People there complain that they pay a lot now, but are almost certain that when their turn come, they will not get anything.

We are in a context where you can't predict the outcome of the next election a single day before, who will trust to current generation of politician with policies in 30 years ?

Also, that's not just a question of egoism. I don't mind paying today so that people get unemployment benefit and a good pension. The problem is that if it goes the other way when I reach retirement age, I will neither receive the pension nor the year of tax cut to make up for it.

Dismissing solutions as too hard or those won't for us.

Smaller, more homogenic countries compare badly to more populated heterogenic ones.

Also: norway's oil example holds up since the once poorer than Swedes Norse outperformed the Swedes because of this. 1-2 generations earlier, "nordicly blessed" Norse were the house maids and guest workers for the Swedes. Nowadays it's Swedish students doing Norway's dishes.

Also Sweden maybe high rated in terms of social mobility, but only until the highest income percentiles are reached. Above that it's way way harder to reach compared to other first world countries. So while you can climb up more easily than normal the social latter, it's steps mean less than normal and you'll almost never make it into Sweden's 1%. A category that is the most open in the US of A.

It's like saying that you should buy people lottery tickets instead of healthcare.

I once heard that the US citizens most vehemently against raising taxes for the rich were the homeless, because they didn't want THEIR taxes raised once THEY became rich.

The US causes terrorism by steam rolling third world countries, but more or less has to do it now since these third world countries already hate the US enough to require this kind of policing.

So it's in his/their best interest to keep them uneducated.

I find this hard to believe. The US generates what looks to be close to 5x the barrels of oil per year as Norway, and since oil is globally prices, that should lead to approximately 5x the revenue. It will obviously be less per-capita, but that's not what you said.

> and is third worldwide exporter for Natural Gas just behind Qatar and Russia

Your facts are also slanted here. The US is the worlds largest natural gas producer[2], at over 6x the production of Norway, and 25% more than the second place, which is Russia.

That said, it's not like the US is a poor country, or doesn't have credit available to finance anything it wants. Training jobless workers would be a net benefit to the economy after a few years, and would pay itself off. We could easily finance that if we decided to. It's a matter of will, not capability.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_produ...

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_g...

> Oil : http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?t=10&v=95&l=en

> Natural Gas : http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?t=10&v=138&l=en

Because for this argument they are irrelevant. Domestic consumption is money you aren't spending to buy gas on the market, at market prices. If Norway had a use for 100% of it's oil, it would be saving the equivalent amount from the global market as it would be gaining in revenue.

The bigger difference is that one is state owned, and the other is mostly privatized. Then again, for the larger picture, this is only relevant if the countries in question are constrained to the income available from this system. Neither are. If the US wanted to issue a few hundred billion in bonds, they could do so with little trouble if it was politically feasible. Or they could literally just make the money out of thin air, if they weren't concerned with or were willing to accept the possible inflation.

It's hard to overstate just how much economic and monetary power the US can bring to bear.

For now, the US are exporting more natural gas than Norway. However, with the completion of Cheniere's project at Sabine pass, this will be the opposite [1]. Actually, this November, the US are going to export more than twice the volume of Norway.

[1]: http://imgur.com/a/uyBiZ

Disclosure: I work in an intelligence company, but I'm not a market expert.

Edit:

> USA does not have an oil fund that amounts do $150k per capita to pay for "free everything"

No, but they certainly have other ways of funding a "free everything" that don't rely on fossil fuel. Let's call that "taxes".

The US federal government pays more per capita for health care than Norway, for one! The fact the US manages to pay so much per capita for healthcare and not have universal health care is actually quite an achievement.

To the extent Norway pays less for the same drugs/treatments, they are funding a smaller share of the profits of biotech & pharmaceutical companies.

The US pays a significantly higher share of pharma/biotech profits than any other country (citation needed). We therefore contribute the most to the new research, new drugs and treatments developed by those same firms. I actually think this is one of the greatest things we do as a country.

Some people call this "overpaying" but I think of it differently.

$3000 or more a year in healthcare costs is not felt the same by someone that makes $50k a year as someone who makes $150k a year. And that's for an individual. Many people are trying to cover a whole family at these rates.

On the supply side, the price of care is set roughly in the market's ability to compete, but the price is absolutely back stopped by government policies like patents and Medicare reimbursement rates.

Take an inside look at how these firms bring new treatments to market and you know it's intensely competitive. The level of investment is commensurate to the potential payoff.

Isn't it more accurate to say discounts to these are all set based on household income? At a certain point, you're paying regular plan costs. All this amounts to is a separate way to tax people for the costs, which means it can use a different schedule than the regular tax code. If the US is funding these companies, there should be a better way to do so that the craziness that is this.

> Take an inside look at how these firms bring new treatments to market and you know it's intensely competitive. The level of investment is commensurate to the potential payoff.

I've yet to be convinced that the massive cost of R&D due to trials and marketing which needs to be recouped by massive prices isn't at least in part the result of a runaway feedback loop. We require lots of testing to protect the populace which necessitates a lot of money to develop the drugs which means that if it's a dud or has negative effects it's in the interest of the company to occasionally cover that up because it cost so much which leads to drugs on the market that cause problems which leads to more stringent testing which leads to increased cost which leads to increased need for success which leads to....

We need to drastically decrease the cost of trials while making the cost of taking a bad drug to the general market more. That's a tall order, but it's what's needed.

Or a corollary, the amount of money the market would pay for cheaper methods of safe drug development is immense. Market, meet unsolved problem.

Unfortunately, since it has to do with people being hurt, or the possibility of people being hurt, I think it's unlikely we'll get legislation or a majority of politicians that are willing to look at it rationally. It's too easy to drum up emotional support for some aspect or another for personal gain.

www.thepublicinterest.com/archives/2001winter/article1.html

socialized health care may not be required.

It doesn't fully protect us from effects of globalization and we have similar situation with the population in rural areas and small old industrial towns not doing that well and turning against immigrants because of that.

But it seems that the situation is much worse in the US.

The U.S. has had to deal with this problem on a greater scale compared to countries that grew over millennia because of a liberal immigration policy and economic freedoms afforded to immigrants, and the aftermath of slavery. It's remarkable that this experiment has worked as well as it has (thank you, geography). But the ruling class dropped the ball over the last 20 years and ignored the rapid increase of those marginalized by immigration & trade side-effects, even though there still is a widely-held regard for the "melting pot", so now we got Trump.

In the long run, we'll likely look back at all this fuss as another chapter in our history books, but I'm sure there'll be some other ethnic group immigrating in droves. The melting pot is a continual process. Slow and frustrating sometimes, but it works for the better in the long-term.

It's probably not the only variable at play here (economic development and education levels could be additional factors), but it might be influencing those variables in subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways.

It's not about oil, it's about realizing that a healthy, well educated and happy population is an investment that pays itself over time.

Please stop astro-turfing.

Does my being physically present at some point on this planet make the original argument any more or less valid?

Sure, we have many problems but actually getting good benefits and seeing our taxes put to use at our isn't one of them.

So, we're effectively pulling your weight in that.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/99680a04-92a...

That's very different from the people that (some in) the west are afraid of having come over.

Norwegian GNP per capita was among the top in Europe from the early 20th century and on.

The wealth was unevenly distributed, wages were low and there was poverty, but the country wasn't poor.

You know what goes a long way to eliminating blue collar angst? Healthcare. There's a policy that the US would have no issue implementing if the will existed. Hell it would be cheaper than what you currently spend.

You know another policy that would help? Subsidized maternity leaves.

Do you want a third? A government run pension program.

A forth? Controlled college tuition.

All of these are well within the US's power to implement, provided the will is there. But the will not being there has nothing to do with the ability of a nation to implement these things.

ON and QC can each double that amount.

I hate to say it, but what people in Manitoba and Sask. think is entirely irrelevant to the country.

(Also, let's just put aside for a second that SK is a traditional NDP stronghold)

Early 20th century European history is looking at you in disbelief.

I agree with the rest.

That comment however wasn't that someone like Trump could never be elected here, it's that the current environment, along with that of the foreseeable future, would have to change dramatically for it to be the case.

You're right, but not for the reasons you think. What's keeping xenophobia at bay is not multiculturalism but a reasonably strong economy and social safety net. If these start to fail you will see the xenophobia ramp up as people look for someone to blame for their misery.

I recently visited my family in Alberta where many are struggling due to the crash in oil prices and xenophobia is definitely on the rise. Pretending that "it can't happen" is exactly what allows it to happen.

Do you think that most Germans are, at their core, antisemitic? I don't think they are, but the economic conditions of a 1933 Germany made it easy for many people to blame a specific "other" for their situation with devastating results.

The rise of the demagogues is a known core bug of the system called democracy, and what triggers it is fear and anger without a clear, objective, immediately identifiable cause.

If the cause is clear and straightforward (invasion by a foreign army), then fear strengthens society, and the whole system responds effectively with unity and determination.

If fear and anger exist, but the cause is complex and remote (globalization, automation, progress), and seems beyond the grasp of the everyman, then the masses turn to demagogues for "help", and are invariably wrong. That's what happened in the '30s. This is what is happening now - hopefully not with the same end result.

Which was exactly what I said in my first comment.

You're correct, but then again we have some built in safeguards that mitigate these events. One of them being FPTP, which is why I'm personally in no great rush to get rid of it.

It's harder to find groups to rally against when many of those groups are part of the general populace. The more diverse the culture, the less likely it is to be xenophobic when times get tough. That's why major population centres in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal voted Trudeau last time around - the Conservative message that leaned towards "dealing with" Muslims was utterly rejected.

I mean, I'm not saying we are as multicultural as Canada, just that political environment can change breathtakingly fast.

Who could imagine that they would freak out somewhere in Wisconsin? Who could imagine that they would freak out in Michigan? Who could imagine that they would freak out in Washington DC? Who could imagine?..."

- Frank Zappa (mutatis mutandis)

Not only is all of that possible to imagine, it should be almost expected. Canada is a completely different beast, with a completely different governmental structure.

That's what we thought...

Wouldn't a social safety net to prevent destroyed families, to prevent crimes driven by desperation and/or drug abuse, and to fund the enrichment of workers in to higher skill cogs in the machine that is society be a wiser investment than in more police, prosecutors and jails?

Also a lot of the larger bases like those in Japan and South Korea are partially paid for by the countries there as part of getting US troops for defense.