Debunking Socialism for fun and sport...

From the NY Times no less. Vodkapundit paid for the link to the NYT Sunday edition. And being a cheap bastard myself I'll copy and paste most of his stuff.

The article in question is by Bruce Bawer, a freelancing Yank who lives in Oslo, Norway. He does a great job picking apart the argument that Scandanavians have it so great in their socialist wonderland. Hell, even Mrs. Gandalf was taken in by that stupid on-location report done by the "Today" show several years ago.

There's lots to share but here are the money quotes:

Dining out is just too pricey in a country where teachers, for example, make about $50,000 a year before taxes. Even the humblest of meals - a large pizza delivered from Oslo's most popular pizza joint - will run from $34 to $48, including delivery fee and a 25 percent value added tax.

and

[G]asoline (in this oil-exporting nation) costs more than $6 a gallon.

Euro-smuro:

After adjusting the figures for the different purchasing powers of the dollar and euro, the only European country whose economic output per person was greater than the United States average was the tiny tax haven of Luxembourg, which ranked third, just behind Delaware and slightly ahead of Connecticut.

standard of living? Yeah, right.

if the E.U. was treated as a single American state, it would rank fifth from the bottom, topping only Arkansas, Montana, West Virginia and Mississippi.

but wait, there's more

Contrasting "the American dream" with "the European daydream," Mr. Norberg described the difference: "Economic growth in the last 25 years has been 3 percent per annum in the U.S., compared to 2.2 percent in the E.U. That means that the American economy has almost doubled, whereas the E.U. economy has grown by slightly more than half. The purchasing power in the U.S. is $36,100 per capita, and in the E.U. $26,000 - and the gap is constantly widening."

Imagine if they had to spend dollar one on their military. Sheesh!

Posted by: Gary at 10:20 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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