Free Rides Government
Traveling through Greece years ago, I met a Swede who spent his summers partying on the Greek Isles…funded by his government’s unemployment program. What was his disability, you wonder? Like every young and able bodied man, it was simply not wanting to work. So he snookered the system and collected his dough, came to Greece where he drank ouzo all night, did a bizarre Jim Morrison impersonation routine at a local bar, and slept on the beach all day. At the time I thought, man, what an awesome government, because I too was young, and didn’t want to work. How fair is it that some get a free ride while others don’t? Sweden, a country often cited as being the poster child for how big government schemes “work,” has it’s share of problems, and lecherous “disability” bums are among them.
Earlier this year, police in Sweden’s capital city Stockholm investigated the local chapter of the Hell’s Angels biker gang for suspected benefit fraud, because 70% of the gang were on extended sickness benefits. The same doctor had certified them all as suffering from depression.
Moral of the story: if the government builds it, someone will abuse it. And who suffers? Everyone not partying in Greece, or riding with the Hell’s Angels.