General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBurger King in Denmark vs Burger King in the United States..
Any questions?
Jackie Wilson Said
(4,176 posts)RantinRavin
(507 posts)Lowest personal income tax rate is 55%
Sales tax is 25%
Bucky
(54,094 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Because those taxes are directed towards the public good.
Unlike in Adam Smith's day; his anti-tax polemics were based on the reality of an era where taxes went right to the tables and soirees of the aristocratic class.
Also unlike modern America wheree the largest chunk of our taxes go into the military, which outside of a pending invasion of the country, is the opposite of "spending it on the public good"
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)But who wants THAT if it takes higher taxes...
virgogal
(10,178 posts)belong to parents who came here to make a better life.
Denmark does not have a huge immigrant population.
Apples and oranges.
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)virgogal
(10,178 posts)Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)according to a UN report from 2015
The U.S. 14.3%
Sweden also 14.3%
Denmark 9.0%
Norway 13.1%
Finland 5.09%
Iceland 10.46%
The stereotype of the Nordic countries being homogeneous lands of blue-eyed blonds is way out of date. And as you would know if you had been there recently, most of the immigrants in Scandinavia are from the Middle East, Africa, or Southeast Asia.
Furthermore, Canada has a whopping 20% immigrant population and a lower child poverty rate than we do. Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland also have a higher percentage of immigrants in their populations than the U.S. does. Germany, the UK, and France are all over 10%. They also have lower child poverty rates, although the UK is catching up since the Conservatives took over.
You have to use a different excuse for our child poverty rate, especially since so many of the nation's poor children are natural born American citizens from places like Appalachia, Indian reservations, African-American urban ghettos, and industrial towns deserted by the corporations.
Shadowflash
(1,536 posts)Denmark came in first place as the happiest country in the world in the 2013 happiness report
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/20/travel/happiest-countries-to-visit/index.html
FailureToCommunicate
(14,034 posts)w0nderer
(1,937 posts)in the us (fla) i paid approx 20% tax
well federal income tax + social + medicare
however that's not all a Dane would get
to match a swedish (i'm using swedish since i'm more familiar but it's close enough to work for gov purposes)
tax....i'd have to add to my US tax
health insurance with a copay max $20 guaranteed
and a $150-300 or so high fee protect on medication (i go over that and i get free meds)
pension (basic)
dental (basic but enough for a check up, clean and minor procedure yearly)
paid workday insurance (aflac)
for starters
now once i started to add that onto my approx 20% in florida
healthcare insurance
high cost protection on medication and treatment
dental
pension
vision
aflac
my numbers were frequently consistent with sweden if not even much OVER them
run them yourself on yourself
cause that's what's included among other things (yes more things...subsidized school, daycare...so on) when northern europeans talk 'tax' they include all that as well
when americans usually talk tax they mean
federal, sometimes state and town tax
that's all they mean
the 'come up to spec' of what taxes in those countries give...rarely done
so take your paycheck pre tax
withdraw tax
healthcare
401k
aflac
high cost protection on meds AND healthcare
vision
dental
and so forth
then run that number...how many percent?
rurallib
(62,483 posts)w0nderer
(1,937 posts)wickerwoman
(5,662 posts)heavily subsidised and barely subsidised public universities.
In New Zealand, most recent graduates have less than $10,000 in student loans while I suspect in the US it's generally 4-10x that much.
It doesn't help having "lower taxes" when 20% of your take-home pay is going to debt servicing on your student loans.
w0nderer
(1,937 posts)i figger just my list will bring most people up to a nice percentage of 'tax' if they run the math
but thanks
and
Wilms
(26,795 posts)That's what happens when you rant and rave. Think, instead.
redwitch
(14,954 posts)Kind of a big deal.
zentrum
(9,866 posts)
.on levels of education (USA is always at or near the bottom of industrialized nations) and provide free higher education for their youth, who graduate without crippling debt.
Another big deal. They aren't eating their young.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)most people are pretty happy with it.
Very notably, however, contrary to many of Bernie Sanders' very dishonest suggestions, Denmark has a free market economy. Nasty old capitalism is very alive and well there, as we see from Burger King's presence.
Btw, my DIL is Danish, and she lost tolerance for Sanders' misrepresentations about her country long ago. "And those people call HER a liar?!" was her last comment on Bernie that I recall.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)Why must you lie? It just makes you look bad.
zentrum
(9,866 posts)He against a rigged so-called free market that favors mega corporations and hurts actual competition.
He's for a regulated capitalism, just like they have in Denmark. Your post could not be more misinformed.
Jemmons
(711 posts)I have heard a lot of what he have to say, and quite a lot of it more than once. What he call democratic socialism pretty much matches what we have here: Free public health care for all. Tuition free university education for everybody who qualifies. Paid vacation and sick leave.
There might be a problem of "translation" if you by socialism understand an economy that is devoid of private capitalism or private enterprise. We have big, strong, high quality government programs. We have common sense regulation of business and environmental issues. We have wealth re-distribution by tax, that compensates for some of the extreme advantages and disadvantages that comes with wealth and poverty. We have far less "human waste" in the form of people being incarcerated, marginalized by poverty or by health problems. We have a high female job-market participation. Our socialism is a well oil machine that actually delivers, and delivers to all involved.
Our economy is benefiting from a highly skilled labor population. Our labor unions are not as strong as they were 50 or 100 years ago, but neither are they as weak and rare as the ones in the US.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)to help the bank$ter/jihadists, who prey on and steal from the rest of us, live better. 'Cause we are exceptional.
And they got N. F. S. Grundtvig too, but that's another post.
tabasco
(22,974 posts)Beautiful country and happy people.
Skittles
(153,310 posts)alarimer
(16,245 posts)Denmark has some sort of universal health care that does not involve paying through the nose to insurance companies, doctors and hospitals. So comparing the tax rates is kind of an apples and potatoes comparison.
Matrosov
(1,098 posts)Bjornsdotter
(6,123 posts)..."We are not Danmark".
Yeah, no shit....
The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)A statistical sample of two leads you to wonder that?
The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)And, most people in Denmark are white.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)$19 an hour
2 weeks paid vacation
No pension plan
Cannot afford to live in one of the handful of walkable neighborhoods in his city
Would you like fries with that?
wickerwoman
(5,662 posts)$25-40 an hour
35 hour work week
6 weeks paid vacation
6 months paid parental leave
Pension plan - employer required to match 3% of salary
Single payer universal healthcare
Free daycare/preschool until age 5
State-guaranteed student loans; university tuition around $2-3000 a term.
Taxes only around 35%.
Egnever
(21,506 posts)Danish law does not require fast-food companies or their franchisees to adhere to the wages required by the agreement with the 3F union. But they do, because employees and unions pledge in exchange not to engage in strikes, demonstrations or boycotts. What employers get is peace, said Peter Lykke Nielsen, the 3F unions chief negotiator with McDonalds.
McDonalds learned this the hard way. When it came to Denmark in the 1980s, it refused to join the employers association or adopt any collectively bargained agreements. Only after nearly a year of raucous, union-led protests did McDonalds relent.
The unions forced those wages on them. Danish law did not require those wages.
We need to re energize the unions. Without them workers are destined to smaller pieces of the pie.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,075 posts)appalachiablue
(41,204 posts)pansypoo53219
(21,010 posts)they don't have to worry about shit. it also was very very clean. no sheriffs on the highway to make up revenue. break down? walk to the closest road phone. in almost a month is a smaller town, the ONLY siren i heard was an ambulance. i know a retired man in his 70's. amazing health care. he is a bike rider, w/ asthma, if he could not bike home, they provide a cab. HOUSE CALLS, nursing help. fixed up his apartment after a long hopital stay & NOT BANKRUPT. on his visit to NYC he had to stay in a hospital a few days, THEY PAID for all his costs AND his lost vacation time. we need to DEMAND BETTER government.
James48
(4,444 posts)The price of a hamburger in Denmark is LESS that the USA:
See
http://www.statista.com/statistics/274326/big-mac-index-global-prices-for-a-big-mac/
redwitch
(14,954 posts)Fairgo
(1,571 posts)between tax rates and happiness in countries that are not corrupt. Seems almost counter intuitive...if you are a 'Merkin
n2doc
(47,953 posts)The US is incapable of that level of change. Better to hope for some sort of incremental stuff and a few nice-sounding bills, maybe. All our resources must be directed towards the twin wars: Drugs and Terror. Nothing else matters!
At least that is the message I hear.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)I believe that a number of states in the U.S. would attempt to operate closer to this if they operated independent of the Federal Government
madinmaryland
(64,934 posts)corbettkroehler
(1,898 posts)Why can't you Sandernistas see that?
Mnpaul
(3,655 posts)O'Reilly's response on Colbert the other night.
I guess, in Bill's twisted reality, you can only accomplish this with smaller populations. I fail to understand the reasoning.
SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)Kablooie
(18,648 posts)So Burger King gets more respect.
President Burgers would do better here.
Retrograde
(10,184 posts)who seems to be a pretty cool woman - translated Lord of the Rings into Danish, moonlights as a theater designer, and recently designed her own tomb.
But, yeah, Burger President never really caught on here.
[URL=http://www.imagebam.com/image/07aefb481574294][IMG][/IMG][/URL]
Besides ruling the country she is also an accomplished artist.
Jemmons
(711 posts)Ingahild Gratmer is her pseudonym.
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)Because their wage structure means they have to make workers more productive. So, for instance, most of the time you order via a touchscreen.
That's kind of the point: high wages force innovation that reduces inefficient employment. That's an intrinsic good.
The trick is finding other paying work for those former McDonalds employees to do. That's more difficult; and in fact Denmark's unemployment rate (6.3%) is a good bit higher than ours.
GeorgeGist
(25,327 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)StarTrombone
(188 posts)In fiscal year 2015, military spending is projected to account for 54 percent of all federal discretionary spending, a total of $598.5 billion. Military spending includes: all regular activities of the Department of Defense; war spending; nuclear weapons spending; international military assistance; and other Pentagon-related spending.
Denmark 2011 2012 2013
3.1 3.1 3.2
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.ZS
Don't you wish just 1 Presidential candidate would tell the rest of the world that they're fucking on their own?
TrappedInUtah
(87 posts)Well how much does a burger cost in Denmark>?