4 ms·

I lived in Denmark 1.5 years. I do not know how the country is managing things so well given that: 1. Taxes are ridiculous (my friend is in the 65% bucket, six

by kfk 13y ago

I lived in Denmark 1.5 years. I do not know how the country is managing things so well given that: 1. Taxes are ridiculous (my friend is in the 65% bucket, sixty five, after 2 years of work experience). 2. There is a huge amount of people living on welfare State. 3. The University system is far from ideal. Not much competition, grades are given almost randomly and tend towards a political 7 (average) 4. You pay 180% (one hundred and eighty) of taxes on top of the value of a new car (180%...) when you buy it 5. The cost of living is high, very high 6. Foreigners, if they are not from US, are not very welcomed (say what you want on this, it's been my and others impression). Compare this with, say, Germany, and you see a big problem right there 7. There is not really much good work. I get it, 5-6 mln people, but finding a work in Denmark without Danish is like finding the eldorado Overall, I would not take this country as a "model". If you want a model, take Germany. Germany managed to get out total destruction (world war II) and the whole West/East mess without asking help to anybody. Germany today is probably one of the most open countries to foreigners. The Police in Germany is great with everybody (I had my bad experiences with the Danish one doing absolutely nothing wrong...). Sometimes you need to look deeper to see what's really going on in a country. "Working hours" should not be the only way we measure things.

mjn 13y ago
1. Taxes are ridiculous (my friend is in the 65% bucket, sixty five, after 2 years of work experience). They aren't that high if you consider what they include. My take-home pay proportion stayed about the same when I moved from California to Denmark (I didn't qualify for the special foreigner tax, which would've made it even lower). The effective (rather than marginal) tax rate if you make a middle-class salary in Denmark is ~40%, including what the U.S. splits out as payroll taxes. In California, I paid about 30% total, but that didn't include healthcare. I had to buy health-insurance separately, and it cost me about 8% of my income. Also, Danes don't have to make student-loan payments, which is another quasi-tax on middle-class American incomes. The relative comparison does depend on where in the middle-class (a broad term) you are: Denmark's tax rates are more competitive if you make $70k than $200k, in part because they're progressive, and in part because healthcare, student loans, and payroll taxes bite a bigger proportion of your paycheck in the U.S. if you make $100k or less. It also depends on whether you're self-employed: in the U.S., individually purchased health-insurance plus 15% payroll taxes for the self-employed take a big bite of your income up front. As far as cars, I found my transportation costs have gone down significantly, precisely because I don't have to own a car, since the transit and bikeability is good. I had no choice previously, because the Bay Area's transit sucks (no, Caltrain + VTA Light Rail is not good enough). So that was another 5% or so of my income sunk into owning a car that I'm now free of. Overall, a bigger % of my income here goes into my bank account as discretionary income. And that's not even accounting for the greater peace-of-mind (and implied present value) of having a better safety net.
joakleaf 13y ago
Germany got significant help from the US; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan Taxes are maxed at 57% for income above $70000/year. It is around 40% for income less than $70000. The initial around $10000 are not taxed. You'll never get to 65%. A huge amount of people living on welfare is not by itself a bad thing. It is better than having the running around in the streets looting to survive. Both the University of Copenhagen and of Århus are on the world top 100 list. http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2012 http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-uni... . I don't know why you think grades are given randomly or politically, or why you are missing competition. Cost of living in Denmark is lower than e.g. Norway... It is also not necessarily a bad thing. Salaries are also higher. Danish is the official language. I suspect you'll have as much difficulty finding a job in Germany where you don't have to speak German, or in France w/o French. With that said, it does sound like you had some bad experiences in Denmark.
- kfk 13y ago
  I am not looking at the overall tax burden, I am looking at the margin. If 1000 of salary increase brings you 350, the incentive of being "ambitious" is drastically reduced. I agree with you on universities, but they do not foster, in my opinion, healthy ambition and innovation. Danish students know they will have a job and a good income no matter what and that's not helping growth. On top of that, you also have fake ones like Via which I still wonder what they are doing exactly. Local language requirements are a fast way to see how a country/region is open to foreigners. Denmark is not. Will it be? I do not know. Of course, you get asked German in Germany too, but here they do not have 94% of the population speaking very good English. With that said, my experience in Denmark was great! I am just tired of this glorification of Nordic countries just to justify broken spending oriented public policies (look where did they bring us...).
  - joakleaf 13y ago
    > I am not looking at the overall tax burden, I am looking at the margin. It is still 57% not 65%. But also still too high in my opinion. > If 1000 of salary increase brings you 350, the incentive of being "ambitious" is drastically reduced. Likely true and the topic of an ongoing discussion in Danish politics. > Local language requirements are a fast way to see how a country/region is open to foreigners. Denmark is not. Will it be? I do not know. Of course, you get asked German in Germany too, but here they do not have 94% of the population speaking very good English. I am not sure I understand you. Should Denmark have more English speaking jobs than Germany, because Danes are better at English than Germans (or is it the other way around?)? That aside, I know many bilingual workplaces in Denmark, and I think the number is growing. > I am just tired of this glorification of Nordic countries Nordic countries are expensive to run and are glorified for their welfare system. Other countries are glorified in the media for low taxes, growth, culture, food, environmental friendliness, etc. Something is always better somewhere else...

by kfk 13y ago

mjn 13y ago

1. Taxes are ridiculous (my friend is in the 65% bucket, sixty five, after 2 years of work experience). They aren't that high if you consider what they include. My take-home pay proportion stayed about the same when I moved from California to Denmark (I didn't qualify for the special foreigner tax, which would've made it even lower). The effective (rather than marginal) tax rate if you make a middle-class salary in Denmark is ~40%, including what the U.S. splits out as payroll taxes. In California, I paid about 30% total, but that didn't include healthcare. I had to buy health-insurance separately, and it cost me about 8% of my income. Also, Danes don't have to make student-loan payments, which is another quasi-tax on middle-class American incomes. The relative comparison does depend on where in the middle-class (a broad term) you are: Denmark's tax rates are more competitive if you make $70k than $200k, in part because they're progressive, and in part because healthcare, student loans, and payroll taxes bite a bigger proportion of your paycheck in the U.S. if you make $100k or less. It also depends on whether you're self-employed: in the U.S., individually purchased health-insurance plus 15% payroll taxes for the self-employed take a big bite of your income up front. As far as cars, I found my transportation costs have gone down significantly, precisely because I don't have to own a car, since the transit and bikeability is good. I had no choice previously, because the Bay Area's transit sucks (no, Caltrain + VTA Light Rail is not good enough). So that was another 5% or so of my income sunk into owning a car that I'm now free of. Overall, a bigger % of my income here goes into my bank account as discretionary income. And that's not even accounting for the greater peace-of-mind (and implied present value) of having a better safety net.

joakleaf 13y ago

Germany got significant help from the US; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan Taxes are maxed at 57% for income above $70000/year. It is around 40% for income less than $70000. The initial around $10000 are not taxed. You'll never get to 65%. A huge amount of people living on welfare is not by itself a bad thing. It is better than having the running around in the streets looting to survive. Both the University of Copenhagen and of Århus are on the world top 100 list. http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2012 http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-uni... . I don't know why you think grades are given randomly or politically, or why you are missing competition. Cost of living in Denmark is lower than e.g. Norway... It is also not necessarily a bad thing. Salaries are also higher. Danish is the official language. I suspect you'll have as much difficulty finding a job in Germany where you don't have to speak German, or in France w/o French. With that said, it does sound like you had some bad experiences in Denmark.

kfk 13y ago
I am not looking at the overall tax burden, I am looking at the margin. If 1000 of salary increase brings you 350, the incentive of being "ambitious" is drastically reduced. I agree with you on universities, but they do not foster, in my opinion, healthy ambition and innovation. Danish students know they will have a job and a good income no matter what and that's not helping growth. On top of that, you also have fake ones like Via which I still wonder what they are doing exactly. Local language requirements are a fast way to see how a country/region is open to foreigners. Denmark is not. Will it be? I do not know. Of course, you get asked German in Germany too, but here they do not have 94% of the population speaking very good English. With that said, my experience in Denmark was great! I am just tired of this glorification of Nordic countries just to justify broken spending oriented public policies (look where did they bring us...).
- joakleaf 13y ago
  > I am not looking at the overall tax burden, I am looking at the margin. It is still 57% not 65%. But also still too high in my opinion. > If 1000 of salary increase brings you 350, the incentive of being "ambitious" is drastically reduced. Likely true and the topic of an ongoing discussion in Danish politics. > Local language requirements are a fast way to see how a country/region is open to foreigners. Denmark is not. Will it be? I do not know. Of course, you get asked German in Germany too, but here they do not have 94% of the population speaking very good English. I am not sure I understand you. Should Denmark have more English speaking jobs than Germany, because Danes are better at English than Germans (or is it the other way around?)? That aside, I know many bilingual workplaces in Denmark, and I think the number is growing. > I am just tired of this glorification of Nordic countries Nordic countries are expensive to run and are glorified for their welfare system. Other countries are glorified in the media for low taxes, growth, culture, food, environmental friendliness, etc. Something is always better somewhere else...