General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCan one of you knowledgeable folks look at this meme about Denmark?
I googled every way I can think of and while I discovered the woman used in the picture is actually an actress on a Danish tv show, and know part of the meme is bullshit, the facts and figures are another matter. I used Denmark as an example of a socialist country that is successful and this was a Libertarians response. I want to either prove or disprove, to myself mostly. The info looks fishy to me.
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Here is the woman in the meme on poster for a Danish show. It's about a teacher who is a single mom called Rita.
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The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,733 posts)If those "facts" are really true, why are Danes so damned happy?
Sugarcoated
(7,724 posts)Something smells rotten....
Recursion
(56,582 posts)There are some really interesting studies of the psychology of happiness surveys.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)The most illusive notion known to the modern age is that altruistic egalitarian ideals of the left-wingknown as Marxismare perceived as ideologies. Social-liberalism, which is the first step toward socialism with the intent to achieve communism, merely defines the severity of inferiority complex: the extremely tiny gap between pathological narcissism and its more extreme form known as narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).Growing up in a collective society, one is coerced, and virtually left with all but one choice. As a former socialist, finally liberated, who was born and raised in Denmarksupposedly the happiest nation on earthI have devoted my life to alerting the world about the subliminal secrets of collectivism. How can anyone truly fight anything if one is not 100 percent aware and able to describe exactly what one is fighting?
My intention in this book is to prove that one single voice, with the right words, can have the roar of a million and can influence the world by creating a precise understanding of democratic socialismor to be more precise and use the latest terminology, universal welfare society. Thus, the more appropriate terminology to describe Marxisms democratic passive-aggressive approachrather than the usual obvious and complete fascist military takeoverwould be ambient socialism. Thereby, simply with the weapon of irrefutable knowledge, Marxism can be immobilized. Quite simply, exposure will cause sudden awareness, and socialism, democratically, is less likely achieved once its awful emotional mind game has become common household knowledge. This book, therefore, is dedicated to freedom and the earths greatest individualistic culture, the United States of America.
This exposure, based almost entirely on social science, is so controversial and comprehensively detailed that Denmarks perceived right-wing newspaperironically the same newspaper that caused the Muhammad cartoons controversy in 2005 in the name of freedom of speechwill not review my book. This explicative psychological index (e.g., collectivist traits, indoctrination methods, intimidation techniques, and ways of passive coercion) is meant as a gift from me to the reader for self-empowerment through social observations, as well as a subconscious journey for the readers themselves. Please share this knowledge with friends and support my effort to alert the world.
The intimidations (threats, lies, and deceptions) in attempt to discredit me and deny this books honesty and preciseness are all worth my while. Regardless, this book will raise questions and effect societal changes, and the outcome will speak for itself. Wars should be fought with wordsthe right wordsand never through coercion or terror. Welcome to my words of revolution.
tl:dr Author hates taxes
In 2013, Denmark was rated the happiest country on earth. Sounds like hell. lol http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/22/denmark-happiest-country_n_4070761.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000029&ir=Business
Sugarcoated
(7,724 posts)Sugarcoated
(7,724 posts)it's not even a woman, it's a Danish guy, I think, but pretty exteme and nutty. Another piece of the puzzle.
https://www.facebook.com/TheWayOfFreedom/about?section=year-overviews&pnref=about
KT2000
(20,583 posts)are Ayn Rand's favorite words to smear.
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)Denmark has a whopping 25% VAT (value added tax- similar to sales tax).
It's brutal on the poor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Denmark#VAT
Recursion
(56,582 posts)along with facing a great deal of racism and resentment from white Scandinavians.
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)It's sad. There is a disconnect between compassionate Scandinavian socialism and how they treat immigrants
Recursion
(56,582 posts)American populism for most of its history was basically "socialism for whites" (Huey P Long, etc). To my knowledge no country has really squared that circle of a full welfare state with ethnic minorities fully integrated into it
DFW
(54,405 posts)In Germany, where I live, it is "low" at 19%, but it will go up. Most of our neighboring countries are at well over 20%. VAT is government heroin. When it first gets introduced, it's at a low level. Then the state can't do without it, relies on it increasingly, and keeps ratcheting it ever upward, always needing bigger doses to get by. It also ensures, as you pointed out, that lower income people get whacked worst by it.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Which yields the not very surprising result that inequality in the EU as a whole is greater than in the US. The rich EU countries have very generous public sectors, but the poor ones do not.
DFW
(54,405 posts)You can't generalize and get the full story in any one country. With one in four Greeks working for the government and pensions at age 55, no ledger of who owns what property and no real institutionalized efficiency in tax collection, the only way they could create the myth of paying out what they owed their people was to steadily devalue their currency. This posed no problem as long as the Central Bank of Greece could devalue the drachma to their hearts' content. But when they joined the Euro, the emperor was finally found to have no clothes. Goldman Sachs helped photoshop things for a while, but it couldn't last.
pugetres
(507 posts)In Denmark everyone has a personal allowance. If a person does not have an income greater tan his or her personal allowance, he does not have to pay income tax. Personal allowance is 41 000 DKK (young people under 18 years have a personal allowance of 30 000 DKK)
Deductions
Typical tax-deductible expenses in Denmark are the commuting allowance, unemployment insurance fund subscription, payment to an early retirement pension scheme, trade union subscriptions and other wage earner expenses.
One of my dear old friends is a psychologist from Denmark. He couldn't explain the "happy" Danes to me. He said that most adults suffer from seasonal affective disorder to some degree and anti-depressants are over-prescribed in his opinion. I think Danes have a different way of looking at happiness compared to the average American.
DFW
(54,405 posts)Since no one in Denmark can live on $6000 a year, it's not considered a generous exclusion.
SunSeeker
(51,571 posts)I tend to agree. Outwardly they appeared to me to be a melancholy lot when I visited there September of 1990. They seemed to to have blank stares on their faces as they rushed to and from work and school. The young people tended to drink a lot, and I often noticed severely drunk, mostly male teens, and 20-somethings sitting in groups at the back of public buses or slouched in cafe chairs. But they did not shout, laugh and carry on they way American youth do (even when sober!). They looked lethargic to me. Maybe it is just the reserved culture of the Scandinavians.
Everyone looked well-clothed and otherwise healthy. There were no homeless people that I could see. And there were as many men pushing baby strollers as women, which for the 1990s (and even today) impressed me, and suggested generous paternity as well as maternity leaves.
Still, the weather was gloomy the whole time I was there. I think I would have developed seasonal affective disorder if I had stayed longer!
hunter
(38,317 posts)The show is on Netflix if anyone is interested.
Everyone smokes in dramatic moments, especially Rita, which is gross.
Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)And some of the relations come from contemporaneity, not causality. I'll try to go through the whole list.
Danish taxes are high. They are high in all of Skandinavia. That's because Skandinavians believe that with good public services, there is no need for large private spending power. The Danes have free access to state museums, subsidised public transport, excellent emergency services, free medical treatment from highly qualified individuals, even in areas where such is not 'profitable'. And they pay for that collectively. Through taxes and sales tax and fees and duties. But the libertarian's supposition (that this makes the Danes unhappy) is complete nonsense. The Danes have a long social-democratic tradition, and they are proud of their heritage of solidarity.
It is true that low-income families in Denmark have trouble getting by. So do American low-income families. The difference between the two countries is that Danish welfare keeps them out of poverty. (The US poverty rate is almost trice as large as the Danish one, 15.0% versus 6.0%.) So it eludes me how the existence of welfare (and thereby income security) should count against Denmark.
Gas and especially cars are imported in Denmark. Imported goods are always a bit higher priced. Gas and cars are subsidised in America, making the comparison (in the libertarian rant) rather lopsided. A better comparison would be to look at a West-European country where there still is car manufacturing industry like in the USA. The Netherlands for instance. See what the Dutch 20% VAT does to the price of a Honda Accord.
13.600 Dollars (or thereabout). That's below the USA price. So much for the complaint.
The Danish home ownership rate (ratio of privately owned houses per 100 residential premises) is 63.0%. The USA rate is 65.0%. I fail to see how a 2 % difference is even significant. The Norwegian rate is 83.0% by the way. That's another country with sky-high taxes. But then: Norway nationalised its oil industry, and set up a national trust fund with the proceeds...
Danish employment is at 75% for men and 70% for women (aged 15-64), averaging at 73%. That is well above the OECD average of 65%. The work is organised in such a way that only 2 % of the Danes work very long hours. The comparable USA figures are:
73% employment for men aged 15-64 (that's below the Danish figure), 62% for women (well below the Danish figure), 67% average (that's barely above the OECD average). 11% are working very long hours. Tell me how the Danes have a problem rather than the USA?
Rich Danes are fleeing the country and take their companies with them? Source? The employment figures suggest that they remained right where they were. There is a lot of income tax evasion in Denmark. There is a lot of tax evasion in the USA too. See for instance: Mitt Romney. And Cliven Bundy.
The reason why Danes use more antidepressants than Americans is simple: medication is subsidised in Denmark.
The suicide rate correlates to depression rates, which in turn correlate to geographical position. ALL people living closer to one of the poles have higher depression rates, no matter what their political system. To properly assess the rates, one should compare Denmark to a North-American state at 55 degrees altitude. That would take us to either Quebec (Canada) or Alaska.
Quebec is at 15.2, Alaska at 21.8 (and 35.8 for Alaska natives)
Denmark is at 8.8. That's BELOW the USA figure even though the USA is farther away from the pole. The 32.0 rate mentioned in the rant is for the Greenland natives. (So even their natives are better of than the American natives.) My guess would be that the subsidised medicine has helped.
As for "deeply deprived", "severe narcisissism" and such words, I respectfully suggest that the libertarian is either calling names, or projecting some of his own psychopathology.
hunter
(38,317 posts)Sugarcoated
(7,724 posts)for the great and timely response Betty!
Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)Wikipedia has quite reliable collections of information on recent OECD rankings, and if you can read/ guess the meaning of Danish, there is a lot of public information on the web, published by various Danish ministries. Besides, graphics are pretty much the same in any language, right?
daggahead
(1,296 posts)... to Denmark being shown as a happy, productive Democratic Socialist country.
The right wing reacts to facts with lies.
For instance, Denmark's suicide rate 13.6/100,000, while the US is 11.0/100,000
http://www.suicide.org/international-suicide-statistics.html
According for Forbes Magazine, Denmark is #1 for business in the world.
No country is perfect.