Credit Rating Agencies: Biased or Objective?

Sweden is a prime example, actually. From the end of the second world war to the 1970's, Sweden was a Libertarian paradise. Globalist, few regulations, lower taxes, an unobtrusive government, and perfect conditions for building companies. Dozens of great Multinational Swedish companies popped up. You got big booms and smaller busts that made Sweden one of the world leaders by the 1970's. But then the workers started to get unhappy, because they weren't sharing in this great economy as much as the rich businessmen, and the busts hurt them most, whilst the rich thought it was unfair that anyone should be poor in such a rich country. So they elected a socialist government which in the 1980's started enacting regulations, high taxes, and flattened out the booms and busts and enacted job security and safety laws to protect workers. Everyone proclaimed it a socialist paradise for a few years, until they started going downhill. They went from 10% growth booms and -2% busts to 3% growth booms and 0.5% growth busts and their economy stagnated. All the rich people and companies moved out and there was no incentive for innovation. They dropped from 2nd to 30th in 20 years of socialism. They were all happy though, because all the people still in the country did pretty well off of it. At least, until the recent global crash. Then Sweden, with its global economy, couldn't withstand the crash in exports and unemployment soared. So they elected a very unusual politician - a crazy conservative with a a ponytail. He reduced taxes on the rich, downsized their safety net, loosened regulations, and tax revenues grew. He cut spending down, kept a healthy surplus, and they paid off their national debt. They're now currently the best performing western country along with Norway. All because they loosened their socialist policies. And they're still doing it.

Welfare is different to government intervention in the economy. The best economies have moderate taxes, high consumer protection, low worker protection, low and simple government regulations, and an expansive social security structure, as giving more people money to spend grows the economy at a much faster rate. We need innovation to grow. If there were no innovation in technology, we wouldn't have Nokia bricks, let alone iPhones. We wouldn't have laptops or 2TB hard drives, we wouldn't have half the medical equipment we have today, we would still be living in the 1800's regarding technology. Innovation is core to a functional society - income equality is not. The people of Sweden and Norway are happy because their incomes are high enough that they can live comfortably, due to their vast amounts of natural resources. They don't need to have a free Market economy because they can pay for their infrastructure and extensive welfare systems with their huge export surplus compared to imports. They are self-sufficient and gain huge revenues from the natural resources and large businesses operating there - note their corporate tax isn't quite so high as income taxes. And because it wouldn't be the same here. They have an efficient, democratic government, amazing infrastructure, huge export surpluses, a balanced budget, and the right mindset for unforced social equality. People want to help others. We have none of those here, so socialism would kill the economy, make everyone poorer, and send the rich and large businesses abroad. The US would sink to 20th on the global charts, you would be owned by china and brazil.