Nicolai Maduro is in a US prison. But there are now strong indications that the US has embarked on a course that could turn the US into Venezuela. Under Hugo Chávez, it took two decades for the country to be reduced from one of the world’s richest nations to a place where people were eating dogs. A quarter of the population had fled.
If you manage to convince the population that they can have their cake and eat it: that you can provide cheap housing, free healthcare and education, price controls, free public transport, and do all this whilst keeping the borders open – it is only a matter of time.
Socialists have always peddled this dream, and in today’s USA it is catching on.
A poll this autumn showed that 43 per cent of Americans have a positive view of socialism.
They see socialism as the solution to society’s problems and their own. But no economy can survive by providing free solutions. Several states have already set out on this path. The cautionary tale is California, which once had the world’s ninth-largest GDP. Millions have fled California. Some of the major tech companies are still holding out, but Governor Gavin Newsom has proposed a millionaire’s tax that will prompt many of them to move.
Who is going to foot the bill?
Similar sentiments are being voiced in Norway. The wealth tax penalises those who create value. The exit tax fleeces those who wish to flee this paradise. Many managed to leave before it was introduced and are now living as tax exiles in Switzerland.
But their exile has a grim backdrop: it doesn’t pay to create anything in Norway. Everything is in the hands of the state, the major oil companies and international corporations.
One can talk about productivity, but the truth is that Norway is being reduced to a producer of raw materials: fish, gas and oil. And the state lives off the interest from the returns on the Petroleum Fund.
The Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV) paid out 676 billion kroner in benefits and old-age pensions last year, which is 42 billion kroner more than the previous year. Half the population received money from NAV.
More than half the population received a payment from NAV at least once during 2025. In addition, 115,000 people living abroad received money from NAV.
Money is flowing out, and the state is increasing the tax and social security burden on the productive section of the population.
A recent report from NAV shows that around 700,000 people of working age are outside the labour market in Norway. The figures include the unemployed, those on disability benefits and people receiving various health-related benefits.
People are paying their way out of their problems. This week, Dagsrevyen reported that an adult is being employed to provide one-to-one support for young people with behavioural problems. This involved 143 young people in Oslo. For the time being. The good becomes the enemy of the best.
In the Soviet Union, they had five-year plans. It is difficult to know what to call the grandiose plans that allow the Third World to flood into the First – Europe – and the Second – the USA. The nation state has been dismantled and people are dabbling in utopias.
Historically, this has not ended well. Many of these cultures are incompatible with Western cultures and highly violent. We see the result every day.
Male nurse charged with the rape of a dying patient
A male nurse has been charged with aggravated rape of a very ill elderly woman who was admitted to hospital in Jönköping, Sweden.
The man is accused of raping the woman at Ryhov County Hospital in August this year. She was in her 70s and was receiving end-of-life care. She died shortly after the alleged assault, according to the prosecution.
“I consider that the nurse has shown particular callousness or brutality, given that the offence was committed whilst the woman was receiving end-of-life care and was unable to defend herself, and that the man exploited his position as a nurse,” says prosecutor Frida Noldin in a press release. (NTB)
When Columbus arrived in America, it is said that the Native Americans did not understand what the ships were, as they had no concept of what they might be. When Cortez rode ashore, they thought the horse and the rider were a single being.
The same is true of the violence afflicting the West. We have no words to describe what is happening, and our mass media ensure that we learn nothing about Islam’s conquests.
This is where socialism comes in. Socialists sell a dream. They solve the squaring of the circle: prosperity built on promises. It is presented as justice when one goes after those who make a profit. In social democracy, this is called redistribution. But they redistribute to people who have contributed nothing. This is glossed over.
Added to this are the genocides of communism, and here there is much to draw upon that is akin to Islam.
Once those who are productive have gone under, one can carry on like another swarm of locusts. The bigger the honey pot, the more locusts.
Norway is therefore particularly attractive, and compared to those who come in, very few are sent out.
The pattern is the same in all rich Western countries. The thickness of the layer of fat varies. Norwegians live under the illusion that wealth makes us invulnerable.
But the illusion of prosperity makes one mentally complacent, and ordinary people see less and less of that wealth. It is used to prove that utopia is possible.
The Democrats are now ready to take on the US.
For the time being, the goose is laying golden eggs. But to fulfil the historical promises, it must be slaughtered.
People do not learn from history, but must relive those painful experiences over and over again.
Socialists have an inherent solidarity that prevents them from criticising one another.
That is what solidarity means these days. It applies to specific people – those who are on their side.
Not the right wing. It must be crushed.
We have seen the return of class struggle rhetoric, which is not about classes, but groups. If you belong to the wrong group, there is no mercy.
Some of the richest people in the US belong to the Democratic Party.
For the Democrats, there is no logical contradiction.
Slogans about ‘eating’ the rich do not apply to their own.
This sort of self-contradiction is reminiscent of the National Socialists, who were opposed to both top-hatted capitalists and Bolsheviks.
They saw Jews behind both. Or as they say today: ‘From the river to the sea’.
The same phenomenon.
