If Sweden and Germany Became US States, They Would be Among the Poorest States

[josephpalazzo]

I never thought of Sweden as socialist until it was mentioned a few years ago, in the context of the Islamic influx. The problem with the continual "defining" by political pundits is that it amounts to so much finger pointing- Social Security is socialism because its not privatized, and so on. The current state of the Republicans wanting to do away with that and other things like killing the Affordable Care Act is that they have nothing to replace it with. I'm not strictly speaking either a capitalist or socialist- I simply think that what works, works- labels or otherwise. If the Republicans have something better, bring it. But so far they don't.

The political spectrum in the US is skewed to the right, so a guy like Sanders appears on the extreme left, and practically unelectable. But in other countries, Sanders would be a moderate, center or center-left. From the US POV, Germany and Sweden looks like very much on the left. Even Canada is taken by some on the US right as a communist country, when in reality it is center or center-left.