[911]

(05-06-2019 10:14 PM)Tail Gunner Wrote:  

(05-06-2019 08:49 PM)911 Wrote:  

Compare with Norway, where the state provides nearly every social service you can think of (free college, free healthcare, free daycare, maternity leave etc). In that socialistic country the state has squirreled away over $100,000 for each man, woman and child citizen in their $5 trillion fund.

The difference between Norway and the US is that in the former, socialism works for its citizens, whereas in the US, a hidden, bigger form of crony socialism fleeces taxpayers with very little to show for.

The Norway system is not socialism (i.e., the redistribution of wealth). It is a social welfare system that operates a gigantic sovereign wealth fund, officially known as The Government Pension Fund Global, which was established in 1990 to invest the surplus revenues of the Norwegian petroleum sector. It has over US$1 trillion in assets, which averages to about $200,000 per person.

The fund was not built by confiscating wealth through socialism, but simply by placing excess reserves from the nation's natural resources into a fund to reduce taxes and pay for public services. That is a huge difference.

In other words, Norway nationalizes its natural resources, meaning, their big bad socialist gubmint monopolizes all the oil, and takes all the profits.

In the US, it's the multinational corporations that get all the oil, and on top of that, they don't get taxed much, because they usually run public policy and own/control the media and academia (Rockefellers). And on top of that, they get massive taxpayer subsidies...



US taxpayers have paid $170 billion in subsidies for big oil since 1968.

https://www.taxpayer.net/energy-natural-...overview1/

Once again, no contest here, the socialists come ahead. Norway's model should be implemented in Canada for sure.

Some of that socialism would be good for the US too, the difference though is that American oil is too fragmented (shale). The US should however tax its resources and do away with subsidies in times when oil prices aren't too low.