Socialist Sweden, Norway vs the rest...

Capitalisim properly regulated is excellent, unregulated capitalisim is not capitalisim. Ireland or greece for example had unregualted capitalisim.

zero_hope wrote: »

The notion that you can't have a thriving economy in high tax countries with proper employment regulation is absurd.
Ireland is a low tax country with very lax employment laws compared to Sweden.

We're not a low tax country anymore, and Sweden has always been noteworthy in Ireland for it's efficiency/excellent provision of services. It's frequently the benchmark.

In Sweden they have Volvo, Abb, Ikea, SKF, also Swedish banks didn't go belly up as they did in Ireland.
What does Ireland have to show for it's low tax economy, basically Ryan Air and Bono.

That's only part of the puzzle tho.
You must also ask - what did Ireland have to show for it's high tax economy?
The results were even worse - look back to the 80s.

Not dismissing your points, I do think your arguments have some merit.
I don't think you're being that realistic in the application of the theory tho............You can't walk into Saudi Arabia and make Christianity the state religion & You can't walk into the Republic of Ireland and make people trust the state.

In Ireland, we are raised from day one with the understanding that the country is run by gombeens and incompetents. It's part of the Irish character.

We learn from a young adulthood to expect dismal performance in the provision of services. One of the few notably efficient services are the people who collect the money (revenue).

Let me give you an example.

In 2003, I applied for my first driving test.
I sat it in 2004. I failed it. I reapplied immediately.
It took 14 months to get another appointment, so it was early 2006 and I had already move house in the intervening 14 months. I contacted them to update my address, they still sent it to the wrong address - missed that obviously.
Had to reapply.
Waited another 13 months.
Summer of 2007 - after 3 years waiting from my first test- I resat the test.
Passed the test, took 4 years total, an average of 1 test per 2 years.

By about now - Irish people will be queuing up to tell me I'm some feckin eejit - why didn't I try to jump the queue?
"sher everybody does it! How else are you supposed to get on like? do you know anyone inside? I think I've an uncle who might be able to sort you out!"

And that's the way it works in Ireland.
When it comes to any state service - You have to use pull. You have to pull strokes. If you try to do it by the book in this country, you'll probably be waiting a long, long time.

During the passport crisis in 2010, my girlfriend's mother died and I had to urgently get a passport to travel. In that case, I was able to use some pull and they delivered, and rapidly so.

When my girlfriend lost her job in 2008, I was paying out €1000 per month in various taxes, while the government were busy inventing new laws which prevented her from being able to claim social welfare and me from being able to claim her tax credits.
When she tried to get a Fas course, they signed her up to a course on the wrong side of the country (took them 6 months to do it).
When she eventually got a Fas course - she did it, but since was refused JSA, they also refused to pay her for the Fas course. LOL!
(I can laugh now because we're no longer at the mercy of the Irish state)

Despite the notions of grandeur that some people may have developed during the Celtic Pyramid years, when it comes to the provision of services by the state - not only are they incompetent but they grossly overcharge.

So - armed with this knowledge of how it works in Ireland - you have to ask yourself - how could you possibly hope to apply the Swedish system to this country?
It would require total reform of our state services <- that's simply not going to happen.



In a country like Sweden, I would like to hand over whatever money necessary and just let the state look after all these provisions for me.

In a country like Ireland, you simply cannot take that risk.....the safe thing to do is to try keep as much money back from the state as you can, because they will not provide for you, regardless of how much they take.