Johan Norberg @johanknorberg Twitter profile

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

20 days

If you like capitalism, you will enjoy this book. If you don't, you need it.

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Last Seen Profiles

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 years

When I die, I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like Fidel Castro, not screaming in terror, like his victims.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

5 years

There, I fixed the 10-year challenge for you.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

8 years

Financial Times just gave up.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

3 years

Why have I not been vaccinated yet? A short Q&A.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

82% of Democrats and 16% of Republicans support single-payer healthcare when told that Obama supports it. When instead told that Trump supports it, Dem support drop to 46% and Rep support increase to 44%. #FactsfromOpen (15 of 100)

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

How it started: "Covid-19 is the end of globalism and neoliberalism" How it's going: Vaccine created at record speed by big pharma that declined government subsidies, based on tech developed by a German biotech company, founded and led by Turkish immigrant.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

Just one month left of the best decade in history.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

8 years

How the world changed in 25 years.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 months

What happened to the “race to the bottom”, the most popular anti-globalization theory around 2000? Stiglitz et al warned we’d see more poverty, child labor and pollution as countries lowered standards to attract global capital. Well, every prediction turned out to be false. 🧵

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

2 years

Oxfam’s new report rails against a “40-year period of neoliberalism, during which economic policy choices have been purchased by rich, powerful and corrupt elites”. If true, this 40-year conspiracy to steal from the poor must be the biggest fiasco in the history of conspiracies.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

9 months

How did Sweden fare during the pandemic? Back then, the world was shocked by our openness. New York Times called us a “cautionary tale”, Trump said “Sweden is suffering very greatly”. But we never heard how it all turned out. Now I’ve looked: Sweden did better than others. 🧵

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 years

If we don't end neoliberalism we'll see more of what happened in the last 25 years, warns Oxfam.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

26 days

So much for "The first generation that will be poorer than their parents".

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

2 years

If I were French, I would vote for the candidate who keeps a healthy distance to the dictator. 🇫🇷

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

People, please. Before you share the first chart to prove that Sweden is a disaster, or the second, to prove that Sweden is a success, bear in mind that the world knows that the other chart exists, and makes you look silly.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 years

Ten things that also happened in 2016.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 years

8 people are richer than 3.6 bn, says Oxfam. So? My daughter, who has $20, is richer than 2 bn. So the problem is poverty, not inequality.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 months

Actually, yes. More such failures, please.

Jeremy Kauffman 🦔

@jeremykauffman

7 months

Classical liberals are people who have seen the failures of the last several hundred years and say, yes, I would like to repeat that.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

But it's difficult to compare death rates in Sweden and Russia, because Sweden doesn't hide cases. For example, when a doctor is pushed out of a window to his death, it is recorded as a murder in Sweden.

RT

@RT_com

4 years

Sweden is like that kid in school who just refuses to listen to their teacher but never gets punished for it.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

3 years

Has anything like this been recorded in peacetime anywhere before? "per capita GDP in Venezuela has dropped a staggering 87% over the past decade, from $12,200 a year in 2011 to $1,540 now. For the first time, the average Venezuelan is poorer than the average Haitian." (FT)

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

I know it's hard to believe when you follow the news, but the 2010s was the best decade ever.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 years

When your clichés about Sweden don't work.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

In 2007 just 27% of US Muslims said that homosexuality should be accepted by society. 10 years later, this had increased to 52%. US Muslims are now more tolerant than the average American was in 2006. #FactsfromOpen (34 of 100)

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

How it started / How it ended

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 months

It’s that time of year again: Oxfam is making up data. Warning about ”widening and extreme inequality”, “Since 2020, the richest 5 men in the world have doubled their fortunes. During the same period, almost 5 billion people globally have become poorer.” The truth is different:

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

2 years

”Nobody has the right to not be offended. That right doesn't exist in any declaration I have ever read. If you are offended it is your problem” – Salman Rushdie

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

5 years

Happy new year!

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 months

The thing is, capital doesn’t search for the poorest places (they are usually poor because it’s difficult to do business there). More importantly, when trade and capital actually head for poor countries, they raise productivity and so also raise wages and standards.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 months

So this is what Hamas did in the midst of Gaza's severe water crisis. More important to murder Israelis than to save Gazans, apparently.

Gabriel Noronha

@GLNoronha

7 months

Hamas published a video showing their members digging up water pipes and converting them to fire rockets at Israel.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

Pope Francis on "neoliberalism": this "repetitive school of thought always offers the same recipes... resorting to magic theories". I hereby challenge the Pope to a debate about which school of thought is a) most repetitive, b) resorts more to magic theories, and c) delivers.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

3 years

Here is your annual reminder to be patient and wait for more data: The Guardian in May 2020: "Eastern Europe suffered less from coronavirus [than countries like Sweden, because of] the early lockdown implemented by almost all countries in the region"

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

3 years

A reminder: The right to speak freely is a negative right. No one may silence you or jail you for it. It’s not a claim on others, that they publish you, or take you seriously. It’s like property rights – they can’t take away your property, but they don’t have to give you theirs.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

9 months

Sweden’s excess death rate during the three pandemic years, 2020–2022, compared to the previous three years, was 4.4%. Remarkably, it is the lowest excess mortality rate of all European countries, including our Scandinavian neighbors.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 months

Welcome back, Poland, we have been waiting for you to take your rightful place as a leading democratic European power. (If exit polls are correct, and the opposition ousts the nationalist-statist PiS.)

Europe Elects

@EuropeElects

7 months

Poland, IPSOS exit poll: PiS-ECR: 37% (-7) KO-EPP|RE|G/EFA: 32% (+5) TD PL2050/PSL-RE|EPP: 13% (new) NL-S&D: 9% (-4) Kon~NI: 6% (-1) BS-*: 2% (+1) +/- vs. 2019 election Fieldwork: 15 October 2023 ➤ #Polska #Wybory2023

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

2 years

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

1 year

Incredible. Bolivarian socialism has turned Venezuela into the most unequal country in the world, according to research at Andrés Bello Catholic University.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

6 months

Yes, Javier Milei is an untested eccentric, but what Argentina had before was a proven disaster.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

6 years

This also happened in 2017. Every day.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

Who wore it better?

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 years

You know you've had a bad week when the Church of Satan feels a need to distance itself from you.

The Church Of Satan

@ChurchofSatan

7 years

For clarification, this is not a Satanic ritual.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 years

So if Oxfam thinks "neoliberalism" is a disaster, what is success? I googled.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

9 months

Swedes turn out to have adapted their behaviors to the pandemic, but voluntarily. It suggests that it was not Sweden, but the lockdown countries that engaged in a reckless experiment, depriving millions of liberties without a discernible benefit to public health.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

2 years

Don't forget who they are and what they said. The nationalist populists are not western patriots, they are Putin's fellow travellers and betrayers of western ideals of liberal democracy and the international order.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

9 months

Martin Luther King Jr. on communism.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 years

"I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." - Mark Twain

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 months

The share of workers in extreme poverty declined faster than ever before, from 26% to 6% between 2000 and 2022.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

8 months

Why on earth did I write a Capitalist Manifesto? Because more people believe in ghosts than in capitalism. Today's fashionable narrative is that the rich got richer and the poor poorer, inequality surged, and during the pandemic, free trade failed us. But that’s all wrong. 🧵

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

26 days

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

6 years

Fox News claims that Denmark is a socialist country. Here is the economic freedom ranking from conservative Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

5 years

Today Oxfam reminds us they see inequality as tragedy. So here's the annual reminder of what they consider success.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

9 months

Sweden had no orders to stay at home and no mask mandates. Schools, offices, factories, restaurants, libraries, shopping centers, gyms and hairdressers stayed open. Our Social Democratic Prime Minister said that individual responsibility was preferable to government control.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

3 years

Some of you asked if sanctions explain Venezuela's collapse. No:

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

This pandemic is a trailer for a world of deglobalization. Turns out it's a horror movie.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

1 year

Do you remember @BrankoMilan 's Elephant Chart, revealing unequal rewards and the rise of the 1%? Since then, the elephant has lost its trunk. Since 2008, incomes of the poorest increased by 7% a year, the middle by 4-6% and the richest by less than 2%

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 years

"Thank you industrialization, steel mill, power station and chemical processing industry that gave us time to read books" - Hans Rosling

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 months

In conclusion, the race to the bottom is a myth. If anything, globalization and free trade have set off a race to the top. I’ve just published this paper about it in Cato’s Defending Globalization-series. #CatoGlobalization

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

9 months

Did these gains come at the expense of health? Surprisingly, no. Sweden was an outlier in terms of policy, but not in terms of Covid-19 mortality, and only suffered 7% of the deaths predicted by the kind of models that scared other countries into lockdowns.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 months

I save examples of intellectual honesty in a little box, and I open it whenever I risk making the mistake of confusing angry tribalists with mankind.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

1) Senior VP Kathrin Jansen: Pfizer was “never part of the Warp Speed. We have never taken any money from the U.S. government”, because "I wanted to liberate our scientists from any bureaucracy. When you get money from someone, that always comes with strings" (CEO Albert Bourla)

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 months

The child labor rate declined by 40% 2000-2020, and even more for hazardous work.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

9 months

I have just published a Cato Policy Analysis paper about these little-known findings, “Sweden during the Pandemic: Pariah or Paragon?” You can read it here:

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 months

Neither is there an environmental race to the bottom. As countries get richer, they invest more in green tech and environmental performance. Remarkably, environmental protection is now better in big middle-income countries than it was in Sweden, the UK and US in 1995.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

2 years

Putin’s speech right now.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

Fascinating data on consumption last week by a leading Nordic bank. Liberal Sweden is suffering. Our lockdown neighbours are crashing.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 months

I am pretty sure this will qualify for a blurb on the second edition.

Elon Musk

@elonmusk

7 months

This book is an excellent explanation of why capitalism is not just successful, but morally right, especially chapter 4

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

3 years

"Venezuelans now poorer than Haitians" #SocialismInFiveWords

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 years

Some men just want to watch the world burn. (Letter from Nikita Khrushchev to Fidel Castro, October 30, 1962)

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

That settles it. Ricky Gervais is not a funny guy, but just a time traveller who has stolen his jokes from future comedians.

Ricky Gervais

@rickygervais

8 years

The fact that there are warnings like "Do not drink" on bottles of bleach makes me realise that Donald Trump can become president.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 months

In 1995, Katalin Karikó was demoted from a senior position at Pennsylvania University and had to accept a substantial pay cut, because few believed in her mRNA technology. Today she got the Nobel Prize.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

5 years

Venezuela – from riches to rags.

Steve Hanke

@steve_hanke

5 years

The data speaks for itself: #Socialism destroys wealth

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

9 months

School kids also benefited. The U.S. Department of Education concludes that half of America’s students began 2023 a full year behind grade level in at least one subject. In sharp contrast, Swedish elementary schoolers suffered no learning loss during the pandemic.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

So, after 4 years with Tariff Man, are you tired of winning yet?

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

3 years

Trump just claimed his tariffs were a success, without providing any numbers. Here are the numbers.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

9 months

As expected, the economy benefited. The world economy was 2.9% smaller late 2021 than it would be according to forecasts before the pandemic; the Eurozone 2.1% smaller, and the U.S. 1.2% smaller. The Swedish economy was 0.4 percent BIGGER than forecast before the pandemic.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

I would like a leader of the free world who condemns China’s despotism and labour camps, but welcomes its cheap solar panels and washing machines. Not the other way around.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 months

@elonmusk Thanks for taking the time to read and share my book. Delighted you liked it. For anyone interested, here is the Amazon link:

The Capitalist Manifesto

www.amazon.com

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

2 months

”For a headline of average length, each additional negative word increased the click-through rate by 2.3%”

Steven Pinker

@sapinker

2 months

Negativity drives online news consumption | Helps explain why people are misinformed about positive trends in the state of the world.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

2 years

Vive la France! 🇫🇷

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

These polls are remarkable. By attacking trade and immigration so viciously and incompetently, Trump has turned Americans into staunch pro-immigration free traders.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

5 months

All I want for Christmas is free market capitalism. Merry Christmas, all of you.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

1 year

As both the Left and the Right reject global capitalism, there is a sudden demand for pro-market arguments, and the market instantly responds with ample supply. UK 15 June: US 19 Sept:

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 months

What happened to absolute poverty overall? It increased when Covid shut down the world economy, but declined when it re-opened, to the lowest level ever. Since 2000, down from 29% to 8.6%. Oxfam doesn’t mention this, because they seem to hate wealth more than they hate poverty.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

Two months ago, Stockholm built a field hospital with 140 beds in case our health care system was overwhelmed. It will now be shut down. It never had to admit any patients.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 years

Was it safe for me to return to Sweden? I checked the data:

Trump's Fake News Attack on Sweden, Immigrants, and Crime

The president talks nonsense about refugees, immigrants, and crime.

reason.com

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

9 months

There are different ways of adjusting for age and previous trends, and according to some methods, Denmark beats Sweden to first place, but all methods show that Sweden had one of the lowest rates. America’s excess death rate was more than twice as high as Sweden’s.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 months

Global working conditions improved. WHO and ILO records a “substantial reduction in the total work‐related burden of disease” 2000-2016. The global rate of deaths related to work declined by 14%.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

2 years

Oxfam published a new report today, ahead of the Davos meeting, as usual blaming poverty and hunger on “neoliberalism”, inequality and billionaire wealth. Here is what’s wrong with it. 🧵

Profiting from pain | Oxfam International

www.oxfam.org

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

Arrow inserted at the precise moment Marine Le Pen said that Macron's En Marche only marched towards deregulation and unemployment.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

7 months

Thanks to @elonmusk for taking the time to read and recommend my new book. Hope the rest of you find it interesting:

The Capitalist Manifesto

www.amazon.com

Elon Musk

@elonmusk

7 months

This book is an excellent explanation of why capitalism is not just successful, but morally right, especially chapter 4

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

Pfizer did not take part in the Trump Administration's Operation Warp Speed, and did not accept government subsidies. It succeeds because it was built for speed and conducts tests in many countries, not just in the US. (Excerpt from NYT Sept)

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

6 months

Wow. The Capitalist Manifesto is on the Financial Times' Best books of 2023 list.

FT Weekend

@ftweekend

6 months

Wondering what FT chief economics commentator @martinwolf_ has been reading this year? His 2023 reading picks feature new titles by @anubradford , @DeatonAngus , @Dieter_Helm , @brendanballou , @johanknorberg , @EdmundPhelps , @alanwwolff & more #booksof2023 📚

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

1 year

Since robots started destroying all jobs, the number of US jobs increased by more than 130 million.

Louis Anslow

@LouisAnslow

1 year

🧵 Robots have been about to take all the jobs for 100 years: 1920s

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

3 years

"But that wasn't REAL socialism" #SocialismInFiveWords

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

3 years

The 2000s in one chart.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

9 years

Pic of the day. http://t.co/yNZZo5NlP3

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

4 years

2) The $1.95 billion deal some mention is an order for 100 million doses of a tested and functioning vaccine, not a subsidy for research, development and production that other companies got. It's the difference between buying asphalt for a road or subsiding an asphalt company.

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

3 years

I am very proud to contribute to @AntonellaMarty 's exciting new anthology together with Mario Vargas Llosa and a who's who of classical liberal thinkers. (Only in Spanish so far.)

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Johan Norberg

@johanknorberg

9 months

However, counting COVID-19 deaths is tricky, since countries have different definitions. That is why we were told to wait for data on “excess deaths” – mortality compared to a previous period or expected value. Now we have this data, and this is where it gets really interesting:

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