No Job? Get Lost! Response

       Could you imagine being kicked out onto the street, out of your house, just because you are unemployed? Then possibly being kicked out of your own home country! In this article No Job? Get Lost! by Andrew Higgins, the author demonstrates how unemployment in Svalbard, Norway is illegal. Insuring no homelessness and poverty is crucial to being a "welfare state". Svalbard also wants to keep the status of having a crime-free society, and unemployment, according to Governor Odd Olsen Ingero, is a major effect on the increase of poverty and homeless people. Higgins also describes many other unnecessary situations where you have to be pulled from your home in Svalbard.

       Higgins' main point that he;s trying to express to the readers is the unfairness of having to be taken from your home when you're for example, retired. In the article, Higgins tells us readers some situations when the government can kick you out of your house. Moving into retirement is one of them. As quoted from the article, "Even retirees are sent away unless they can prove they can support themselves." Under all circumstances I completely disagree with this strategy of wanting a perfect crime-free society. First of all, the main reason they are doing this is so the government doesn't have to spend money on supporting these elders, which I think is truly selfish of them to do. The government wants the elders to be able to pay their high income taxes and their 25 percent sales tax, which as I quote is the, "ninth-highest in the world." This rule is truly unjustified because elders have every right to be able to live a long and peaceful retired life, and Svalbard has taken away that peacefulness, even though they say to be one of the most peaceful and calm places in the world.


Another situation mentioned was joblessness. When you think about it, the main reason most people lose their job and become unemployed is because of the government. Svalbard charges their citizens with one of the highest income taxes in the world, so of course it's going to be hard to support your family and keep up a well paying job when you're paying the majority of your income for these taxes. Higgins also mentions homelessness and how it isn't tolerated in Svalbard. Unemployment usually leads to homelessness, because you aren't receiving any money, so how can you pay for your house? And since the main contributor to unemployment is the high income taxes from the government, these taxes connect directly back to homelessness, proving that the main reason Svalbard is so perfect is because of the high income taxes which is driving the homeless, unemployed, and retired, leaving only people born into rich families with jobs that they have had passed down.