The Non-American Politics Thread

TheLittleKnyaz said:
Has the collapse in the price of oil affected life at all? Here the currency lost half its value...
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I have only heard the price drop mentioned, it's not affecting society. Truth is - (and this is part of my point) - oil gives us a certain buffer, a security, but it's not what we spend from. That would be the hefty taxes that we are used to, and often even proud of, that contribute to the big public pool. I say "hefty taxes" without implying a negative tone, we really can afford it, and it's the very solidarity we are often so smug about.

Personally I wish we'd get a bit more innovative. We're plenty modern, we have top notch research facilities, but we don't produce anything. Sweden, right next to us, completely puts us to shame there. They produce everything
 
Yay resource curse! Kazakhstan doesn't make anything either, unless you include crappy bread. Unlike Norway though, all of the government's budget came from oil and gas contracts that are now drying up, so people are really starting to feel the bite.

Besides cars, what else do they produce in Sweden?
 
TheLittleKnyaz said:
Yay resource curse! Kazakhstan doesn't make anything either, unless you include crappy bread. Unlike Norway though, all of the government's budget came from oil and gas contracts that are now drying up, so people are really starting to feel the bite.

Besides cars, what else do they produce in Sweden?
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Well, jetfighters for one (their motor industry is quite varied), then furniture, you surely have heard of IKEA, they also have very successful clothing brands
 
I thought all their funiture was made in other countries. I bought some stuff from IKEA once that said "Made in Latvia" on the side.
 
TheLittleKnyaz said:
I thought all their funiture was made in other countries. I bought some stuff from IKEA once that said "Made in Latvia" on the side.
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Oh, sure, but that's just business innovation, the point is Sweden earns the money.

I recently saw a documentary detailing how Nokia, the world-renown phone producer in Finland, still uses "dirty" minerals from Congolese mines. But... of course they do, it's like in the Schindler's List scene , where he exclaims "Poles cost more, why should I hire Poles?" before settling on slavery.
Australian or Canadian coltan costs more. Why should anybody buy from them, in favor of Congo?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan (interestingly, the article also mention the "resource curse", I hadn't herd that term before)

Why should Swedes toil in the forest, and chop lumber like they were Latvians? :V
 
Oh shit I totally forgot that Swedes have such soft and supple hands; of course they can't go and work in the furniture plantations! They probably just get fat and watch poor, starving Baltic types pick sofas off the trees.

Tropico 6: Swedish Edition.

On a more serious note though, it's interesting to hear that countries like Sweden and Finland are outsourcing their industries (like the US and the UK) rather than taking a more protectionist, home-grown approach to industry (like Germany). I had always thought that they would take after the dirty Teutons.
 
TheLittleKnyaz said:
Oh shit I totally forgot that Swedes have such soft and supple hands; of course they can't go and work in the furniture plantations! They probably just get fat and watch poor, starving Baltic types pick sofas off the trees.

Tropico 6: Swedish Edition.

On a more serious note though, it's interesting to hear that countries like Sweden and Finland are outsourcing their industries (like the US and the UK) rather than taking a more protectionist, home-grown approach to industry (like Germany). I had always thought that they would take after the dirty Teutons.
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I wouldn't call Nokia's procedures outsorcing, they piece the phones together in Finland afaik, and buy cheap materials from abroad, but at the same time I would assume that most a business will seek out the cheapest ways of doing things, cheapest materials, etc, it's business after all. And then, developing nations are typically the first place to look up cheap stuff

This is of course not something a company will brag about, and rather keep it a bit discrete. For example, to most Norwegians our gvt controlled oil company Statoil makes its earnings through the North Sea - which it indeed does - however, what it's much more discrete about, is all the other investments Statoil has, in a whole bunch of poor, exploitable countries. During the Libyan civil war, an oil plant was attacked, and several Norwegian Statoil employees were held hostages. Norwegians were like "Huh? Statoil, in Libya? Well, never mind, are they okay at least!?"
Personally I've no clue what exactly they're doing in Libya, but at the top off my head, I'd guess they're investing in oil and/or gas! At a cheap cost!
 
The same thing Western oil companies do in Kazakhstan I would expect; drilling for oil. Western companies get licenses from these countries to drill, extract and sell oil and gas. The companies get to take another countries oil and gas cheap, local politicians get bribes and kickbacks, and the treasuries in these countries get very little in return (just license fees for drilling). They don't even get to keep a part of the oil that comes out of the ground!

21st century banana republic
 
Nokia sold it's cellular phone business to Microsoft some time ago, they are now doing other stuff. I think Microsoft is continuing some of the old Nokia cell phone stuff in Finland but not as much as before. Nokia got an American CEO, Stephen Elop, who pretty much brought down the value of Nokia and then managed the sale of the cell phone business to MS for a pretty small sum. And then went to work for MS. Nice little scam there.

But anyway, personally I haven't made any money from the cell phone industry, my cell phones have all been Nokias though.
 
Well the older ones were pretty tough, the first generation of smart phones have had quite a bit of quirks, especially in relation to water tightness and durability issues and battery life. Read once about a case where someone had an early smart phone, went to answer it direct from the shower with wet hair, the moisture from the hair went into the smart phone and broke it. Warranty didn't cover the repair. Haven't yet gotten an expensive smart phone myself, still looking for one.
 
I don't have a smartphone either. People are nagging me about it. Mom's been sending me incompatible texts for like 3 years... :D animations or images or something, idunno

I can get a bit luddistic when it comes to phones, just a few years ago, I remember it well, I was going to meet a friend, and we "instinctively" went into the "you text me, i text you" routine, "when you get near the city - " "call me when you cross the bridge - " "if not, then - " and I just stopped us and went, look, we meet in the city. If either one of us isn't there, he's an assole, and the day's off. Like 80's nostalgia. We give each others 10 minutes of flexibility - and no more fucking texts! :D
 
Juza The Cloud said:
I'm worried about La Pen using the Paris attacks to sweep the regional elections. The Far Right in France worries me.
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The FN is neither as influential or as extreme as the media would have us believe, as far as I understand it. And they wouldn't be half as influential as they are today if the media didn't give them free publicity in order to scare people with "muh nazis".

Also, am I seeing shit wrong or is it every time that something terrible happens as a result of leftist policies, everyone's main concern seems to be the prospect of the right gaining support because of it? Even when they do have a legitimate point.

As far as FN goes, I intend to visit France one day, and when I do, I want it to actually be France. So whoever is intent on stopping this multi-culti nonsense that western Europe is keen on shooting itself in the foot with is alright in my book.
 
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What happened to the board? Oh well.

zegh, yes I understand what you mean. Interestingly these smart phones and even older phones can be hacked making the situation even more strange. Naturally illegal if you get caught doing something like that but evidently some folks don't care about breaking the law and stuff like that. I remember back when you had rotary phones and stuff like that, not sure if those could be hacked, possibly but it was a more simpler world.

To get back to politics, because of the unrest in Cologne it seems like there's a lot of turmoil on the Internet. Not condoning what happened but still what's happening in Syria and other war zones is much worse and the media seems pretty quiet about all that.
 
Akratus said:
What the fuck is going on in Poland?
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From what I can gather certain members of the Polish govt are fans of Orbán and decided to take a page from him and buy up the media. If that's what you were referring to, that is. Then again, in Hungary, there's still plenty leftist and far right publications, news sites and TV channels that are naturally anti-Fidesz, so free speech is still very much alive.
 
So the dutch government arrested an ex-military who went to Syria and fought with the kurds against IS. Purely because he killed people? It seems to have been done on shaky grounds. I'm absolutely ignorant on our legislation regarding such situations, but no such legislation was mentioned in the news report I saw and the person interviewed on behalf of the government. But I do agree with the interviewed member of the Public Prosecution Servic that we should not encourage people to leave the country to wage war, when not or no longer affiliated with any army. But then again, I feel that it is overreaching to stop people from doing something completely outside of the borders of this nation.
 
Akratus said:
What the fuck is going on in Poland?
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I think people in Poland have always been fairly conservative and right-wing. The only thing that stops them being more alligned with Russians is history, I think.

As for this guy who joined the Kurds, I guess it could be argued that it's a slippery slope if you allow your citizens to fight for foreign powers. Or, if you're feeling more in a conspiracy theory mood, it could be Turkey pulling it's strings in Europe. Who knows?
 
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