#grimsson

[two-birds-holding-hands]

I'll stay for now. But that's better for you.

Grimsson, Maniac (2018)

[therecipe]

You’ve heard of the Nordic model. It’s a system where there is a highly competitive market economy but also an extensive network of social welfare institutions. It’s proof that socialized medicine and universal education are not, as they are called in America, some socialist conspiracy but an integral part of a successful market economy -- because you don’t find any business association in any of the Nordic countries wanting to change the nature of the Nordic social welfare state, health service, and education. It started with education and health care and then extended to immigrants, to women, to gay people, and others. Creating legal barriers that would separate people on the basis of some strange notion was contrary to what we were about. The reason perhaps that this was easier was that the Nordic model proved so successful, and cooperation between the Nordic countries is so tight that a social reform that started in one Nordic country could spread very quickly to the others.

Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, Iceland's president, interview in Foreign Affairs, Jan./Feb. 2014