A Lesson About European Socialism

A Lesson About European Socialism
In pursuit of the truth- cinops be gone - Friday, Jan. 4, 2013

By a Danish bank executive on LI-organized speaking tour
Newsletter of the Leadership Institute, Vol. XIX - No. 19 - Winter/13 - www.leadershipinstitute.org

Saxo Bank CEO Lars Seier Christensen speaks to students at Liberty University about the dangers of socialism. As Shakespeare wrote, something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

“Many who are fighting socialism in the United States, very frankly, don’t have a clear or systematic understanding of what socialism actually does to a country.” With these words, Morton Blackwell, president of the Leadership Institute, launched a week-long speaking tour and introduced Lars Seier Christensen to an audAb to hear vivid, first-hand illustration of socialist policies and their effects in Denmark.

Dane warns Americans about socialist danger: Christensen, founder and co-CEO of Saxo Bank in Denmark, embarked on a five-day speaking and media tour October 15-19 organized by the Leadership Institute across three states and Washington, D.C. The tour included lectures at the University of North Carolina, Liberty University, and the Heritage Foundation, and several interviews, including the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business News, and Glenn Beck TV.

…“America stands at a crossroads between capitalism and prosperity or European-style socialism and economic decline. Mr. Christensen’s message could neither be more timely nor more important.”

Denmark: people addicted to handouts: Christensen used his homeland of Denmark to teach what America will become if its current course is not changed. Since Denmark is so far down the road of socialism, it is almost impossible to change the hearts and minds of its citizens who are addicted to government handouts and entitlements.

To pay for these handouts, the government levies a tax burden on each middle-class citizen of 80-85%. This rate is higher than in Cuba or other dictatorships. With a political spectrum further to the left than the US, only one party in Denmark can be considered opposed to socialism, and its push for lower taxes, limited government, and reduced public sector expenditures now garners only 5% of the vote. The conservative message is marginalized and distrusted because of its association with capitalism. Most Danes believe private sector financial success can only be achieved at the expense of others or by bending or breaking the law. Socialist create the illusion of tax reform by shifting the money from one pocket to the other.

Socialism destroys the will to work, and the state sponsors it: Christensen shared with his audience an example of the outrageous state-sponsored abuse of entitlements. In Denmark, a dispute arose between two politician. The socialist argued for more entitlements to help the “poor.” The conservative challenged the socialist to find a poor person in Denmark. The best example the socialist could find was a woman, late called “Carina the Pauper” by the media. Carina, a 36-year old able-bodied woman who never worked a day in her life, receives a $2,600-a-month government stipend. After expenses of housing, utilities, internet, big-screen cable TV, pet food, cigarettes, and her son’s soccer lessons, she is still left with $1,000 per month. Many Danish citizens were shocked to learn about Carina, who appeared ungrateful even after receiving more income from tax-derived handouts than the working class earns.

Snoopers for the nanny state: To maintain this welfare state, the government has set up telephone hotlines for citizens to report neighbors who many be cheating the social welfare programs or not paying their taxes properly. The Danish tax authorities can walk into a person’s home on suspicion, whereas permission to search for a suspected terrorist is much more difficult.

Lars Christensen’s lectures opened the eyes of many thousands of students and citizens. Americans would do well to heed Christensen as a prophet who has seen the future of socialism and how a country is dragged down when the incentives to work and produce are destroyed.

George H. Kubeck- Obama’s policies will become today’s Denmark in America.