Eva Durant wrote:
>
> However, without North-Sea oil, Denmark and
> Sweden run into a lot of economic difficulties
> in the last decades and the first "solution" was
> to attempt to cut back social benefits.
That is not correct.
Denmark has been in seriuos trouble, but that is several years ago. The
economy of Denmark is today among the best in Europe, and today Denmark
has one of the lowest uneployment rates in the World.
The Danish econmy was in deep trouble twenty years ago.
Denmark has one of the most generous welfare states in the World, and
with those very large expenses Denmark ran into trouble already at the
oil crises in 1973, with large deficits and large unemployment.
This was before the time of Margaret Thatcher and the "TINA" policy.
This was before it was an alternative to cut social benefits, and
Denmark made it without those cuts, and today Danish economy is much
more healthy I would guess than British economy.
With Sweden it is different. It is only about ten years since Sweden ran
into its trouble, and it was in large parts created by the ruling
politicians.
I remember ten years ago unemployemt in Norway was growing, and Swedish
economy was booming. The economy of Sweden was so "hot" that all kinds
of workers were lacking, and lots of Norwegians went to Sweden to work,
and inflation began to grow in Sweden because investments there were so
large that it was not possible to back them up with manpower.
Then Swedish authorities put a tax on all kinds of investments, and in
the "hottest" regions that investment tax was more than 30%. And at the
same time all taxation of investments done by Swedes abroad were not at
all being taxed. Swedish companies stopped investing in Sweden and went
abroad so massivly that for two succesive years Sweden was the second
largest exporter of capital in the World. And Sweden is a very small
country with a population less than nine million persons. And those
investments were usually done in the way that the Swedish companies
brought with them 20% of their investment and borrowed 80% in the
country where the investments were done. Debts ran high.
It was a socialdemocratic government that put the brakes on so very hard
to cool the economy. And it became unpopular and Sweden got a
conservative government.
The Conservatives had promised to cut taxes, which they did, but without
cutting expenses, and few years later the debs of the Swedish government
was skyhigh.
I will say that the trouble of Sweden is created by stupid Swedish
politicians. But today Sweden is paying its debts, and swedish companues
are doing very well!
Tor Forde
> The Suiss are a special case, but I
> think they also rely on
> the world money market ultimately.
> I doubt if the capitalist structure could
> gradually change into something else,
> any rate, even looking at Norway,
> we haven't got that timeframe left (unfortunately),
> the environmental damage/wars and poverty will
> force on us rapid change one way or the other.
>
> Eva
>
> .....
> I regard the agreement that has been reached about making education a
> part of work a natural contination of the development that has been
> going on here for more than a century.
>
> It is known that 150 years ago when the common man began to become
> more interested in politics and to work for the rights of larger
> groups to get the right to vote, among the founding groups were lots
> of "reading clubs", peasants who joined together to buy books which
> they shared and discussed, and these "reading clubs/societies" became
> an important part of their education. Education and democracy have
> always been closely connected, and education was always regarded as
> valuable among all groups.
>
> But more important is the tradition of investments. Recently was a
> quite large Norwegian history published in twelve volumes by a
> publishing company called Aschehoug. I have read most of it.
> It is written there about the years 1890-1900 that if one was to look
> for something like the "Asian tigers" at that time, Norway would have
> been among them, because at that time was Norway investing a larger
> part of ite GNP than any other European country, although it was
> among the poorest countries in Europe per capita/person.
> Since then Norway has always been, and is still, among the countries
> in the World that have the largest investments as part of GNP.
> I would call it a part of the "Norwegian credo". We believe in
> investments, and are only comfortable when a large part of GNP is
> being invested.
> And to put a larger part of GNP into education will fit very well in
> with our Credo.
>
> I looked recently into an old textbook from school, from about 1970,
> and in 1967, before any North Sea oil at all was developed, did only
> three other European countries have a larger GNP per person than
> Norway. Those were Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark. Investments done
> during a long time were already paying off before the oil came
> on stage. Big investments and strong unions are the solution!
>
> Tor Forde
>
> > >Ed,
> > >You make a good point which reminded me of our own example of the same
> > >phenomenon: Alberta. What often passes for good management in that province is
> > >actually a whole lot of oil and natural gas in the ground.
> > >
> > >In the case of Norway, it seems to me that they are on the right track. It is
> > >often said that the best use of non-renewable resources is for the development
> > >of renewable resources. Norway's most important renewable resource is its its
> > >people and investment in that resource is the very best use that could be made
> > >of its revenues from the North Sea. Compare that with Canada's 10 year
> > record of
> > >what I would call disinvesting in people.
> > >As always, it is mentally challenging to talk to you.
> > >Rudy Rogalsky
> > >
> >
> > Rudy,
> >
> > Good to hear from you. I agree with you. I don't what much about the
> > Norwegian political system. Perhaps Tor can help us out. It may be more
> > centralized than ours. We have a terrible time doing anything positive
> > because of jurisdictional splits between the federal and provincial
> > governments, and because we have become deeply mired in the belief that
> > governments should behave like businesses, always watching the "bottom line"
> > and balancing budgets year to year. (Eva: it is not only Marx who is dead,
> > Keynes is too.)
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Ed Weick
> >
> >
>
> ----- End of forwarded message from Tor Forde -----
--
Hilsen
Tor F�rde
email:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
