The point of global warming is to limit American growth, and . . .

Another Climate Alarmist Admits Real Motive Behind Warming Scare

. . .  redistribute wealth.

"Have doubts? Then listen to the words of former United Nations climate official Ottmar Edenhofer:

“One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole,” said Edenhofer, who co-chaired the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015.

So what is the goal of environmental policy?

“We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy,” said Edenhofer.

For those who want to believe that maybe Edenhofer just misspoke and doesn’t really mean that, consider that a little more than five years ago he also said that “the next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated.'"

All that remains unspoken is the desire to bell the American economy with massive regulations and restrictions. Why?

Thank American-style capitalism for this chart - AEI

America is economically accelerating away from the other nations, even the wealthiest nations. Note that Sweden began to reform its welfare state just before its economic performance began improving in the 1990s.

Sweden 'slimmest Nordic welfare state '

"'The generosity of the system has declined," said Gothenburg University politics professor Jonas Hinnfors. "Much of this already started changing in the 1980s and especially in the 1990s.' 

In the wake of a banking crisis in the early nineties, Stockholm scrapped housing subsidies, reformed the pension system and slashed the healthcare budget. A voucher-based system that allows publicly funded, privately managed free schools to compete with state schools was introduced, and has drawn attention from right-wing politicians elsewhere, including Britain's Conservative Party.

In 2006, conservative Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's government accelerated the pace of reform, tightening the criteria for unemployment benefits and sick pay while lowering taxes. Income tax in Sweden is now lower than in France, Belgium and Denmark, and public spending as a share of GDP has declined from a record 71.0 percent in 1993 to 53.3 percent last year.

Once the darling of progressives, Sweden has become a model for free-market-leaning thinkers including British weekly The Economist, which last year hailed the scaled-down Nordic model as "the next supermodel."

"They offer a blueprint of how to reform the public sector, making the state far more efficient," it wrote."

Tragically, this is one of the most useful lessons coming out of Europe today, yet neither other European countries nor America's left/progressives are willing to accept this received wisdom, and implement it. The real problem is the old progressive system allowed extensive graft and corruption, and politician find this invigorating, while the reformed system allows little room for graft and corruption. 

The other received wisdom coming from Europe is that the endemic political corruption, family structure, and business/employment relations of the southern European countries make them a model to avoid at all costs. They will likely return to a sub-first world economic status unless they change.

As the article discusses, the budget bite which is affecting nearly all of Europe, and nearly all of the United States is serious, and demands political, economic, and welfare state reforms. Ultimately, I suspect that all will be forced to move to a blend of American and Swedish models. Here at the End of History we are finding that while we understand the macro level pillars of republican governance, free markets, and reformed religions, there is much to accomplish at the micro level implementing the three pillars with respect to each institution. So, applying the End of History received wisdom to education means determining whether vouchers, or some other mechanism works better than public schools, and whether those vouchers should be extended to all schools, or only secular schools, etc. 

Back to the subject at hand. America is accelerating away from the rest of the world economically. This is causing much consternation among the elite in many nations. Sweden has apparently found a way to maintain a safety net which is greater than that offered by America but also create greater economic growth. 

Global warming is a policy run amok, its underlying goals are venal. The idea that limiting economic growth, and per capita GDP will somehow be a benefit is wrong. We have seen that over time wealth limits population, and solves problems like pollution. This will continue to happen and improved the lives of all. Limiting economic growth in light of this is a human rights violation of the greatest magnitude. 

Both Sweden and America can learn much form each others economic models. Europe would do well to forget the punitive attempts to shackle America's economy, and instead take to heart the best options arriving from the American, and Swedish economic models.