I am not in Finland, but there are a lot of Finns on fedi, and I have heard (I'd like to stress that this is second-hand) that the view is that resisting the Soviet occupation was a Pyrrhic victory in the sense that their current foreign and economic policy are largely driven by whether the US or Russia is applying more pressure.
> The US nuclear umbrella is globally important big government.
The globe doesn't fund it, though; the globe protests it, incessantly carries out online activism about American elections on American platforms, etc. The umbrella is one of the tendrils of US hegemony, and most of the people in charge have been interested in wielding this hegemony to run the world. Nuland said that her goal with Ukraine was to "give Russia its own Afghanistan"; hardly in the interest of the Ukrainian people to be used as a quagmire. It's not in the interest of Americans, either.
> AMERICAN MAKERS of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. [...] THIS CONJUNCTION of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. [...] IN THE COUNCILS of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
The feeling here is a very American non-interventionist sentiment, but in government, it's split between that and globalist hard-liners. Most regular people don't want to continue the sugar cane war that Teddy Roosevelt started with Brazil a century ago and the only thing keeping it going is that most people don't know about it. You ask almost any South American how they feel about US intervention, they've got different opinions.
> Whatever free riding is in that hadn't translated to Nordic levels of well-being in Greece or the UK.
The UK maintains its own nuclear arsenal.
> The Nordics are obviously doing some things right.
Libertas inaestimabilis res est. I'm glad to have what prosperity we do have, but cattle have a very high standard of living: I'd rather be free than a rich serf.
You know, if you wanna talk about standard of living, Liechtenstein has a very high one and has the legal right to abolish their government, cities have the right to secede. 07--the_3rd_world.mp3
@p@Phil Yes, but Finland, Denmark, Sweden do not have oil.
The US nuclear umbrella is globally important big government. Whatever free riding is in that hadn't translated to Nordic levels of well-being in Greece or the UK. The Nordics are obviously doing some things right.
@dcc@Phil@p The New Deal is the main thing that ever made America great. Our letting it, and the spirit behind it, wither has been our national catastrophe.
@interfluidity@Phil@p Also if you think for a second, America has spent more money than every anther nation combined on socialist policy and it never working should be a clue.
@interfluidity@Phil@p >The US spends as much More* also no Universal health care is terrible. The reason why alphabetical sucks in America is because there is no "private sector" healthcare. Insurance companies, hospitals, and the us government. I don't care to explain the full scam to you since its at least 3 paragraph's complicated
@dcc@Phil@p spending money badly is not "socialist policy".
The US spends as much public money as most social democracies do on healthcare, and spends as much again privately. That's not the fault of "socialist policy". Universal health care works great many places. It's the fault of private sector incumbents blocking any sane arrangement of the health care system so they can continue to suck at the teat.
I don't see a problem with this; do you want to talk about vote dilution?
> and it’s a tax haven.
I don't see a problem with this.
> I don’t think Liechtenstein can serve as a persuasive governance model for anywhere else.
I don't think Norway can, either. I think if you use another country as a model, you get--in the *best* case--what that country gets. In the worst case, you get a system that doesn't fit the sensibilities of the people that have to live inside it and you get King Leopold II trying to turn the country into a rubber manufacturing hub and you have an economic collapse and a bunch of people in the third world missing their right hands.
> Whether Finns are grateful or not for the nuke umbrella, free-riding off it doesn’t explain their success.
I'm saying they have complaints with their government. Their gold mines (the largest in Europe) probably have more to do with their success.
> Finns are not cattle.
They have a population of 5.6 million. It's not comparable to the US any more than Liechtenstein is. LA County has 9.6m.
@p@Phil Liechtenstein’s full population is 40K and it’s a tax haven. If you think Norway is a special case… I guess by most standards it’d be villages that in practice have the right to secede. I don’t think Liechtenstein can serve as a persuasive governance model for anywhere else.
Good point that the UK has its own nukes.
Whether Finns are grateful or not for the nuke umbrella, free-riding off it doesn’t explain their success.
> The New Deal is the main thing that ever made America great.
The farm lobby has been a disaster. Infrastructure investment, sure, but the massive subsidies, the creation of the CIA, IMF, World Bank? Seriously? Both Roosevelts were catastrophic, but Teddy was only a foreign policy catastrophe (unless you count his cover-up of the sinking of the Maine before his presidency a domestic catastrophe), FDR was a domestic and foreign policy catastrophe.
@interfluidity@dcc@Phil FDR was good friends with Bernays and Dulles; it doesn't take much digging to find the border between the sales pitch for the New Deal and the actual game. martin-bernays-debate.pdf
In spite of several market crashes, I have saved money for retirement my whole life. I've put away less than, the cost of SS in 401ks. Nonetheless, those 401k will provide 3x the income in retirement than SS will.
I have also saved in taxable funds, without which, 4x ss would be a pretty modest retirement.
2 the feds have spent 22 trllion on the war on poverty, about 3 trillion actually went to the poor, and it has been a complete failure.
Over-regulation and safety nets are. "Too big to fail" is.
> Universal health care works great many places.
The Dutch have been trying to figure out how to make killing yourself more appealing for years ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarco_pod ) and have a de facto legalization of infant euthanasia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_Protocol ). People don't jump the Canadian border to avail themselves of the doctors there, and the NHS has been complicit
Like the FDA, the SEC's largely become a shakedown racket. Glass-Steagall's repeal (look up the year if you want to see whose fault that was and why the responsible parties have had cushy gigs doing speaking engagements for Goldman-Sachs and the rest of them) has been a disaster that made the psychopaths in a position to take advantage of it rich, and the "war on cash" has been propagated by the same people.
> you'd have no social security to fall back on.
Don't make me laugh. My grandfather got his $300 per month, sure. Name a city where that covers food, let alone rent.
> millions of others also trying to save for retirement who might not be.
Speaking of Glass-Steagall's repeal, 2008 was a direct consequence that cost people their houses, jobs, retirements. (Don't worry: some of them had $300 per month to fall back on.) The dollar's a memecoin, and the rug gets pulled on a regular basis, because the regulations exist to benefit people that can afford lobbyists. The least the government could do is stay the fuck in its lane, but it can't even manage that since the 1930s.
@Phil@dcc@p as i've said before, i think you wouldn't like what you think you're asking for. you're investments might flee as fast as a memecoin dump without an SEC, or you'd have to guard your gold at home. and you'd have no social security to fall back on. if you think you are too clever for this, what about the millions of others also trying to save for retirement who might not be.
@Phil@dcc@p i've saved money for retirement as well, relying upon the government to regulate brokers and fund sponsors to ensure the bankruptcy remoteness of my assets from dangerous financial institutions. if you invest in the stock market, you've benefited from extraordinary stabilization and acceleration of those assets by policy, from a Fed that drops rates to stimulate the economy to a Trump that drops tariffs at first hint of a fall.
@Phil@dcc@p the cheapest part of the innovation, which even every pharma person will concede is essential, is grant funded basic research. the government buys at least half of the innovation. the commercializers get rich reducing that state-financed research to practice.
@p@Phil@interfluidity >their current foreign and economic policy are largely driven by whether the US or Russia is applying more pressure Diplomatic resources have been applied towards ruskies since ww2 until the latest developments because they happen to be the big guy next door. When they started to traffic third worlders to our border, we closed it and it's still closed as of today with no plans to reopen in the foreseeable future.
As for the US, I don't see how they have applied any pressure towards us. Having a team seems like a no-brainer for a small nation.
In many circles "Go sign up for Canadian Healthcare" is = to "Kill yourself faggot."
They're good at keeping you healthy when you're young and don't need healthcare. Our small town in Montana - just a few miles from Medicine Hat Alberta - has the sort of hospital you only seen in huge cities. Lots of specialists.
It's packed full year around with Canadian Snowbirds who don't want to die of cancer waiting for an operable tumor to be removed.
> They're good at keeping you healthy when you're young and don't need healthcare.
Yeah, that's what I hear.
> It's packed full year around with Canadian Snowbirds who don't want to die of cancer waiting for an operable tumor to be removed.
I hear a lot of people go up to buy their meds in Canada but nobody sneaks up there to sit in a hospital lobby under a sign that says "Suicide booth: no waiting!"
@dsm@Phil@dcc@interfluidity Sure, but talking is talking; I don't mind talking to them, and you can't tell who's a player and who's a piece if you don't.
@Cyrillic@dcc@Phil@p@interfluidity To me, ideally it would be more like selectively subsidized healthcare, the same way Russia currently subsidizes the building of families.
If you're providing value and get in a car wreck or something, there's no reason your country shouldn't help.
Maybe if we're being nice, it can be free or cheap to disabled people if they get a vasectomy or something.
But obviously we're just getting into fantasy land shit at that point. I don't really care. I have the money to cover my medical bills so Idrc.
I have never found value in the ideas of spoiled dysgenic freaks. Maybe I'm missing out, but the leeway of consideration has too high a cost, the abuse of being handed a flyer, but with the benefits of starving for free.
They keep asking for big pharma gulag, give em what they want. State mandated booster shot. A million years of Jeff Cliff's literotica menses.
Or buried in lye in an unmarked grave out in the badlands. 6 of 1...
@p@Phil@interfluidity Yeah no worries. I didn't mean to sound argumentative, rather I just wanted to add my two cents. If anything, the diplomatic initiative is in our hands.