Tag Archives: John Fund

There Is No Nordic Nirvana

17 Wednesday Sep 2014

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'Remember, what goes on in Valhalla stays in Valhalla.'

Perhaps the Nordic utopia is not all it’s cracked up to be! Here’s a glimpse behind the facade from Michael Booth in The Guardian, with some blistering (and humorous) country-by-country commentary on a few of the cultural and economic failings of these darlings of the American Left. Here is The Conversation‘s rather cautious response. And here’s a comment from McLean‘s.

Apparently, the meme-niks of the Left are unaware that the more recent trend in Nordic countries has been away from government domination of the economy and high taxes. In fact, to his likely demerit, Booth even bemoans the widespread privatization of services that has taken place. This week’s Swedish election results were expected to herald a shift in direction, however, back toward the kind of welfare statism from which the country has turned away. Here’s The Economist‘s pre-election take on the situation. It includes some detail on the dismantling of the vaunted Swedish welfare state. But the outcome was not quite what The Economist expected. John Fund discusses the results, which included the advance of hard-line nationalists. Support for the welfare state seems to have eroded in tandem with the influx of immigrants. The hard-liners aside, this shift could simply indicate that support for the state from taxpayers is contingent upon the expectation of a return in the form of services, which may be diminished by redistribution to newcomers. However, some of the articles linked above imply a rising degree of racism toward non-Nordic immigrant populations.

As a further indication of the extent to which the Nordic countries have evolved, take a peak at the rank given to Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Iceland in this survey of international tax competitiveness. They are all ahead of the U.S. (which ranks 32nd out of 34 OECD countries) on the overall score and on most individual categories of tax competitiveness and neutrality.

Obama’s Fog Machine Politics

12 Tuesday Aug 2014

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Corruption

President Obama and his aides have raised the ire of his own inspectors general, who are charged with oversight duties within each federal agency. A letter signed by 47 IGs to the Congressional Oversight and Homeland Security Committees claims that the administration has obstructed efforts to perform their investigative tasks. The “most transparent administration in history” has generated a series of controversies (Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS Targeting, and the Healthcare.gov rollout are just the most prominent) and has managed to shield them from effective investigation using delay tactics, apparent destruction of evidence and pure obstinance.

Sharyl Attkisson weighs in on the subject with “Six Serious Questions Regarding Elusive Federal Documents.” In “Stonewaller-in-Chief,” John Fund documents the blatant hypocrisy displayed by Obama last week when he told African leaders of “the positive role inspectors general can play in fighting corruption in government agencies.” More from Fund:

President Obama appointed most of the IGs in office today, and all those who were appointed by him have been confirmed by a Democratic Senate. 

That makes the complaints raised in the IGs’ letter all the more serious. More and more agencies are setting documents off-limits by declaring them “privileged.” The Peace Corps is said to have refused to provide documents for a probe into whether its administrators were properly handling charges of sexual abuse. The Environmental Protection Agency withheld documents by claiming they might fall under an attorney-client privilege, though the IGs’ letter makes clear that such privilege shouldn’t prevent another executive-branch official from reviewing them. Eric Holder’s Department of Justice withheld FBI records that had been previously produced to investigators in past administrations. FBI Director James Comey told Congress in June that the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel was still reviewing what “was a difference of view as to what the law permitted here.”

As Glenn Reynolds has mentioned in the past (though I can’t find a link), the administration seems to be engaged in an unending campaign to “gaslight” the public, rather than any effort at transparency.