Read a lot of people saying things they have obviously never had any experience of in this thread.
1. Sweden and Norway take in more immigrants than most countries in the world-Sweden has more Iraqi refugees than the entire US. This is actually a relatively big political issue-a lot of people think we're taking in too many.
2. Education might be slipping a bit by Swedish standards, but it is higher than US...don't know what that person is talking about. You can go to any so called "slum" here and find plenty of people perfectly capable of putting together grammatically correct sentences(unlike US), who have graduacted highschool and some in college/Uni. In addition to that, if people aren't going to Uni, we have trade schools here that cater to people whom have a particular interest in something that doesn't require a college degree but still an education. This is one of Sweden strongest links and is getting even stronger by people now opening up private schools to compliment public.
3. The reason we have made it through the economic crisis so well and the standard of living is further and further increasing is because we have realized that socialism doesn't work and have become more and more foucsed on the whole instead of the "weak." We haven't had what we define as a socialist party at the head of government for 8 years now. Now, I still think it is socialist but it is , much more focused on getting people jobs and getting people to start their own businesses than it ever has been. The amount of help given to people wanting to start their own business is pretty damn great, imo. What needs to happen here is that we need to protect the business owner more and relieve him/her from unrealistic responsibilites that he/she doesn't have any control over-like sick leave, and parental leave. There should never be a law stating that you have to a pay a person for work they haven't done.
4. I don't know where anyone got the opinion that Sweden or Norway is being supported by the US-especially in Pharmaceuticals...AstraZ eneca(one of the world's largest pharma companies) is Swedish. And in regards to Norway, I don't think they need any economic support-anyone who says this has obviously never been there or even read about it: Norway is always ranked as the second or third richest country in the world, due to its oil reserves. In regards to militaristic help...don't know why a country that hasn't been in a war in over 150yrs would military help and Norway again needs essentially nothing it can't buy for itself. Can't speak for Denmark, don't know what they have going on.
Now, what Sweden has a problem with is exactly what the US is going to have a problem with-and that is people abusing their "rights" in regards to sick leave, vacation time, and medical care..etc. The ability to do this has made a lot of people here helpless and essentially worthless to society. But this got cracked down on a LOT this year by reducing the total amount of sick leave time from indefinite to one year. In my opinion, the US would benefit much more from state paid education all the way up to the university level than it is going to benefit from universal health care. Sweden would benefit greatly from getting rid of a lot of their universal health care(maybe not all but the majority), while keeping its state supported education while allowing even more private schools to open up. Most people aren't cheating/aren't going to cheat the system...they have simply become more and more helpless until every stupid little thing is a problem that needs medical attention. The motivation to work is not great when the motivation to not work is still as good as it is.
