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Denmark has 36% of its population with a college degree and the US has 44%. That is a big difference, but that in and of itself isn't the end all be all.
Germany for example has a highly tracked education system, weeding out people and sending them into trades so only 27% of their country has a degree.
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"Moldy Tater Gangrene, even before Moscow Marge."
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Location: Dallas, TX
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Quote:
Originally Posted by T-310
Why should other people be forced to pay for other people’s stuff? They are not my problem.
Forced - because without "forcing" (AnCap for taxation of any sort), that leads to a hell of a lot of social problems like high poverty, low education, and it's accompanying social ills. Sorry, but this bootstraps mentality fails to work much more often than not, especially in a country with as low a social mobility as the United States. "Forcing" people to pay taxes to support the poor also is a great way to forestall revolution. You want proof? Look at much of Latin American in the mid to late 20th Century. Or going back further, the Mexican Revolution (with Pancho Villa), or even worse the Russian and French Revolutions. Think of it as good social stability (if not life) insurance for the rich, accomplished, etc.
Also, the more money poor people have, the more financial stability they have, and the more stuff they are likely to buy. Surely in a "trickle-up" economy such as ours, that would do the wealthy and accomplished good.
Besides, shoving aside anyone in need (economic or not) doesn't solve the problem. If anything, it only makes it worse, for all the reasons I gave above. On top of that, it's just plain callous and uncaring to deny aid to those who need it. I'd want people to help me were I in need, therefore I'm willing to help people when they are in need (food bank volunteer, giving money to charity and disaster victims).
Speaking of which, private charity is often not solving the problem - it's putting a band-aid on it. Charities simply lack the centralized organization needed to tackle problems on even a community-wide level, let alone a state one and least of all a national one.
Again, their country is in far better condition than yours.
Why not focus on that instead of trying to make yourself feel better.
Many Danish politicians in recent years have claimed that their success is from restricting immigration, which is supposedly a drain on society. Is that what makes them better than us?
It's hard to believe I read this in the Atlantic, but it's an article that downplays socialism and social mobility in Denmark after a study was conducted back in 2016.
Low-income Danish kids are not much more likely to earn a middle-class wage than their American counterparts. What’s more, the children of non-college graduates in Denmark are about as unlikely to attend college as their American counterparts.
In other words, there isn't much true social mobility in socialism. So...
If that’s true, how does Denmark rank number-one among all rich countries in social mobility? It’s all about what happens after wages: The country’s high taxes on the rich and income transfers to the poor “compress†economic inequality within each generation: When the rungs on the economic ladder are closer together, it’s easier to move a little bit up (or down) over the course of a generation.
So it not that socialism produces a better economy... the social mobility is based on the rich giving money to the poor. Guess what that leads to? Here is the 3rd major point gleaned from the study.
The third big idea is that Denmark’s welfare policies might reduce its citizens’ incentives to go to college. In the early 1990s, when Denmark raised the minimum age of eligibility for social assistance, college enrollment among Danish twentysomethings fell below its trajectory. Based on this finding, the researchers conclude that welfare policies may reduce college enrollment. Denmark makes it more comfortable to be poor and less lucrative to be rich, so many young people decide to end their education after high school.
Now when I read the underlined, this is how I read it, and this is why the American system, while not perfect, is better.
Because the incentive of making your own profit is available in America, there will always be a great deal of motivation to make new medicine to cure cancer, to make a better car, to make a killer app for smartphones, to make learning easier, to make better music... So we go to school and hopefully learn more about what we love to do, and make a living doing it while making the lives of others better.
In Denmark, they are not as motivated because they are forced to give the fruits of their labor away to people who don't do much. So there will never be as much innovation and drive as there should be - because they can exist comfortably without doing anything.
Basically the article is an essay on the basics of human nature. If a person is brought up around people who do nothing but live comfortably, that person won't do much either. If you around higher income college grads, those people are likely to follow suit. This blows away the whole Denmark socialism and the high social mobility myth.
Bullpooop
You are taking the right wings slant on the research and adding your own BS.
For a start denmark is not a socialist country, I suggest you figure stuff like this out before using these findings to attack a nation that has less poverty than we do!!
They are doing great compared to the US and you hate it.
You guys hate that decade after decade they continue to do very well.
And remember folks the Danish are not nearly as concerned with getting rich and consumerism as we are.
I find it odd how republicans are so afraid of mixed economies that they attempt to claim they are all socialist and communist, just to try to scare Americans away from asking for a better fairer nation.
Socialism is 'collective (in practice gov't) ownership of the means of production.' This does not describe Denmark's economy.
What you think is 'language cloaking it' is actually your lack of language comprehension.
Taking from the productive to the non productive is socialism. I really don’t care what definition you use, it’s socialism. Redistribution of wealth is socialism.
What's wrong with providing the least among us with a realistically humane standard of living? Into practical reasons, huge segments of your population earning a subliving wage tends to increase welfare rolls, not decrease them. If you want people off welfare pay these workers a living wage. That will motivate more people to work, unless you happen to believe higher wages are a demotivation to work.
Yeah, that ten-millionaire may have to sell off his or her "fabulous" lake home or obliged to spend their ski vacation in the Sierras instead of Switzerland, but why should you lose sleep over it.
Yep, 1/3 of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and workers are immigrants (mostly from India and China). Economic incentives, by themselves, sure isn't keeping the "low tax South" from losing jobs to Mexico and China.
This is a big problem I have with this country. Why should that ten millionaire have to sell their fabulous lake house? Who cares if they are a ten millionaire or a hundred millionaire? It’s THEIR money.
At what amount does whoever decide when someone else has enough and needs to give whatever they deem extra to someone else to distribute to others?
That’s just wrong.
I, personally, grew up in a one parent household with a low income mother and no stability. Moved 16 times by the time I left home. I went to college after dropping out of high school. Did not receive aid because of my mother continuing to claim me on her taxes for two years after I moved out. Yes $36k per year was too much to get aid in the early 90s.
I have busted my butt to scratch, claw, and climb ladders, change careers and make my way to a six figure income. My husband did the same. No college for him. VERY low income upbringing and no college, vo tech program in his high school. He also makes a six figure income now.
This upward mobility of income happened after we got knocked down multiple times from natural disasters that we finally had to walk away from after using every dime we’d saved for our retirement, kids’ college funds, everything. We started all over just 7 years ago after all that.
We have worked so incredibly hard. Now some unknown person or group is going to judge and say we have too much? We don’t get to enjoy what we’ve worked so hard for? We make enough to give to other people?
No. I don’t want that at all. And yes, I’ll figure out how exactly to keep every dime I can in our own pockets. We’ve earned it.
Don’t tell others they have too much. Who decides what’s too much?
This is the problem conservatives have. I don’t mind taking care of our elderly, truly disabled, and children, but other able bodied? No. Go work hard and reap your own rewards.
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"Moldy Tater Gangrene, even before Moscow Marge."
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Location: Dallas, TX
5,791 posts, read 3,598,050 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jerseyt719
This is a big problem I have with this country. Why should that ten millionaire have to sell their fabulous lake house? Who cares if they are a ten millionaire or a hundred millionaire? It’s THEIR money.
At what amount does whoever decide when someone else has enough and needs to give whatever they deem extra to someone else to distribute to others?
That’s just wrong.
I'd say earning more than what you need for a realistically humane standard of living (note well I did not say "middle class") is a good starting point: adequate food, clothing, shelter, utilities, communication, transportation, plus about a year of buffer of savings. In "Middle America", that's about $32,000 for a single individual with no dependents. All yearly earnings (salary, rental, dividends, etc.) should be tax free (and I also call for a 10% tax credit besides, to make up for state and local sales taxes). Otherwise, keep the practice of tax brackets the way they are. This isn't a thread about tax policy, so I won't continue about it, for the sake of getting to the next point.
Even if everybody did get a realistically humane standard of living or higher through their efforts alone, an account manager in Denver or Atlanta earning $90,000/yr doesn't have even close to the political power of someone earning $2,000,000/yr, the latter is still powerless compared to somebody earning $40 million/yr. Financial power often equals political power. The latter two especially are big contributors to PACs, SuperPACs, and are of course people with a lot of influence over their workers and even general community. They have the resources to make what they want happen, the accountant, let alone the poor, do NOT. That means the rich can easily convince legislators to pass laws that benefit them, often to the detriment of everybody else. That's what 20th century "banana republics" were made of.
Below is just is just an appeal to the old line "I worked so hard for this [beyond what it takes to have a realistically humane standard of living HERE]". I addressed that part by bringing up (1) where to draw the line at taxation, as I said "a realistically humane standard of living" as defined in that paragraph, and (2) to prevent huge concentrations of political power power in society - given that money usually translates into political power. So I see no point in addressing the rest of this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jerseyt719
I, personally, grew up in a one parent household with a low income mother and no stability. Moved 16 times by the time I left home. I went to college after dropping out of high school. Did not receive aid because of my mother continuing to claim me on her taxes for two years after I moved out. Yes $36k per year was too much to get aid in the early 90s.
I have busted my butt to scratch, claw, and climb ladders, change careers and make my way to a six figure income. My husband did the same. No college for him. VERY low income upbringing and no college, vo tech program in his high school. He also makes a six figure income now.
This upward mobility of income happened after we got knocked down multiple times from natural disasters that we finally had to walk away from after using every dime we’d saved for our retirement, kids’ college funds, everything. We started all over just 7 years ago after all that.
We have worked so incredibly hard. Now some unknown person or group is going to judge and say we have too much? We don’t get to enjoy what we’ve worked so hard for? We make enough to give to other people?
No. I don’t want that at all. And yes, I’ll figure out how exactly to keep every dime I can in our own pockets. We’ve earned it.
Don’t tell others they have too much. Who decides what’s too much?
This is the problem conservatives have. I don’t mind taking care of our elderly, truly disabled, and children, but other able bodied? No. Go work hard and reap your own rewards.
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