Iceland is a beautiful land. But the government here is stupid and short sighted. Nice people, but stupid.

1. Foreigners outside EU and UK can’t get a driver license until 6 months of residency. This basically steals our freedom and limits us in the capital area which is the most expensive place in the world and it’s not even high quality place to live. We are forced to spend unnecessary money on mediocre goods.

2. The country has 9.5% base interest rate. An absolute robbery of its people. Pretty much as long as your job is not about tourism, you are fucked.

3. Sure, free education and healthcare, but it’s not even good. The higher education here is like high school even comparing to US.

4. The health care system is mimicking the bad part of US system. Inefficient as fuck.

The only reason Icelandic people can enjoy such an OK life is only because US geopolitical interests in Europe so that it doesn’t need to keep an army.

If it has no army, why tax rate so high? It literally has nothing expensive to spend on.

The problem is never about welfare state vs non welfare state.

It’s always about whether the people are able to keep their tax money in check.

Just because you give more tax doesn’t automatically imply that you get a good public service in return. In most cases you get pretty much the same thing.

Most welfare states are actually not providing welfare, they only provide basic insurance and basic insurance shouldn’t cost 40% of your income.

To be honest, maybe all governments should be run like a 501c3 non profit or even better, like a DAO that people can choose to not delegate their stake whenever they choose to.

If people can move around freely like users can switch apps freely. Most countries will automatically disappear become of governments’ horrible operations.

But sadly, we don’t live in that world and most people on this planet are born with fewer rights.