The latest episode of the Yaron Brook Show has been hosted by Amanda Maxham, a speaker which I happen to know already from her speeches on GMO and past hosting of the same show, during the frequent travels of Yaron Brook.
Amanda was also a guest of Alex Epstein’s “Power Hour” podcast when Alex Epstein slightly changes course from energy to cover GMOs, one of Amanda’s topic of research, which she covered also in this paper, also referred to in the podcast object of this post.
Today’s show topic was the myth of socialist scandinavian countries such as Sweden and Denmark, which are mistakenly used by the left as proof that socialism works, and that it brings wealth and good lifestyles in the countries where socialism is applied by the ruling coalition.
The discussion is quite interesting, and focuses on the many memes which circulate on social media, falsely portraying a mythical socialist society where things work well.
Except that neither Sweden nor Denmark are socialist countries.
They are very much mixed economies, with a high social cost due to fairly high taxation, which has rendered being an entrepreneur in such countries almost a nightmare.
This is confirmed in many different ways by the guest of the show, Carl Svanberg, who is a Swede, so he knows a thing or five about his country, and about the many companies which have fled or shut down since the country turned more toward socialism in the 1980s.
IKEA was mentioned a number of times during the show, but I should add something which was probably not known to Amanda not Carl.
Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, has lived here in Switzerland from 1976 until 2014, and at age 88 he decided to return back to Sweden. And IKEA’s holding company, Inter IKEA Holding SA, is based in Luxembourg, a famous tax haven in the center of Europe.
This is yet another proof of the fact that rich people “vote with their feet” and are able to have a better life in freer countries such as Switzerland, and can move the center of their assets in other countries where the fiscal burden is lower.
The final part of the show is also very much worth listening to, as it’s focused on Amanda’s strongest topic, genetic engineering.
If you like flowers, you have to listen to it. And if you like research on plant genetics and some history, you’re in for a treat.
Sometimes it’s not too bad to be missing Yaron during his travels!