> "The choices Nordic countries have made have little to do with altruism or kinship," Partanen wrote for The Atlantic in 2016. "This is what Americans fail to understand: My taxes in Finland were used to pay for top-notch services for me." This is an odd statement to me. Any wealth redistribution system has both "givers" and "receivers". What do the "givers" in Nordic countries actually think? Do the the "givers" sh…
The point was that a lot of the redistribution is in principle just moving money from the the working age self to the young and older self. I pay taxes which funds students today but I get that back later when other fund my kids to go to university. The point is that the bulk of the money is paid by the middle class for services used by the middle class. You pay more in some stages of your life than you receive but y…
Re: Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life
#71That makes a lot of sense now, thanks. I think the point about people being givers and receivers at different periods in life is a good one. Americans who are fortunate do this at the family level, but obviously many cannot.