Showing posts with label denmark. Show all posts
Showing posts with label denmark. Show all posts

Saturday, 27 February 2016

Denmark's standard of living

The Other 98% 
This inaccurate graphic has been making the rounds on Facebook. As ever, the facts are either wrong or misleading. About 180,000 people have shared this on Facebook, without checking the facts. "THE OTHER 98%" is generating much web traffic and attention for it.

 This is both misleading and wrong. Yes, this country, with a population of 5.6 million is a different story than Canada, with a population of 35 million, or the US's 319 million.

However:

Danes face the world's highest tax burden

Denmark is the most taxed country in the world with nearly half of its GDP raised through taxes, giving it a tax-to-GDP ratio that towers over the other OECD countries.

Denmark has a VAT of 25%.

Forbes: 
By basically every measure, Denmark taxes its residents more than most countries – filling its state coffers with higher revenues from taxes on income, profits and capital gains than the OECD average. In fact, the income that Denmark raises by taxing income, profits and capital gains accounts for 62 percent of its total tax revenues, nearly double the OECD average of 34 percent.
 The Danes do not have a minimum wage. The average minimum wage for all private and public sector collective bargaining agreements is approximately DKK 110 ($20) per hour, exclusive of pension benefits. The Danish “minimum wage” of $20 or $21 is actually an average of all minimum wages across a variety of sectors.

There's 180% tax on cars. (25% sales tax on everything else)
Dental care is only free for children, as an adult you gotta pay crazy amounts of money for dental care that it's scares me everytime my tooth aches a little bit
Plus we can't even get dental insurance! Many of us go to Hungary for dental work (higher standards yet cheaper costs).

Thursday, 18 September 2014

Borgen – This Danish political series is excellent!

Here is a great series. Hubby does his research and bought it for us. We've gone through several series, Broadchurch was amazing (even the scenery), not the Hollywood version with some Brit actors, but the original in Ireland. The entire Morris, lots of mysteries, such as UK: Midsomer Murders, Foyle's War, Inspector Lewis, George Gently, and the Swedish Wallender.

I spotted an editorial that points out how badly Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC) is using taxpayer dollars, in treating its halfway-intelligent citizens. I agree. CBC is trying to pander to the younger folks, despite we oldies being a majority of the population. Rather than seeking intelligent shows, for a thinking audience, they run shows with a target audience much younger than I, and a different sense of humour.

WWW.THEGLOBEANDMAIL.COM
The Danish phenomenon is the kind of television the CBC should be pursuing.
Denmark is an admirable country, but it has just 5.5 million people, smaller than Quebec’s population and roughly a fifth of Canada’s non-French-speaking population.

Editorial by JEFFREY SIMPSON

As Simpson says, "Borgen is not House of Cards, all dark and conspiratorial. Nor is it as sunny and uplifting as The West Wing. It’s about the complexities and choices politicians must make in high office – what leaps from its scripts are real-life, in-your-face dilemmas."

While some go to Netflicks, we cannot as we have a limited amount of bandwidth on our plan. Both Rogers and Bell, Canada's large providers, have been throttling internet speed, with monthly caps.  I wonder the impact of Netflicks on accessibility.

Borgen

Borgen is much the same theory as West Wing, looking at the political process and its spin doctors. Terry Fallis' book, The Best Laid Plans, was made into a fluffy series, partly filmed in the near-by town of Perth, but the humour was somewhat puerile. It was a cute read, but not something I liked watching, except to look for familiar sets from a local town.

There are subtitles, which are rather interesting, as sometimes they speak English when interacting with people from other countries, but it does give an interesting flavour to the shows. I loved listening to the language, while trying to match words in English.

I found out what Borgen means from a poorly titled:
Five Thing [sic] You Should Know About The Danish Drama
[01] About that title: it means “the Castle”
Borgen means “the Castle,” a nickname for Christiansborg Palace, which is the house of Denmark’s three powers: Parliament, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Supreme Court. Basically, it’s where most of the show’s drama unfolds.

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

  1. The politics of Denmark function within a framework of a parliamentary, representative democracy. The Kingdom of Denmark is a constitutional monarchy, in which the Monarch, currently Queen Margrethe II, is head of state.Wikipedia
The political system of Denmark is that of a multi-party structure, where several parties can be represented in Parliament at any one time. Danish governments are often characterised by minority administrations, aided with the help of one or more supporting parties. This means that Danish politics is based on consensus politics. Since 1909, no single party has had the majority in Parliament.

Why don't we have electronic voting?


First Danish Female PM

The show (premiered Sept. 26th, 2010) highlights the appointment of a female Prime Minister, there was one in 2011! Some of the plot involves the co-operation between Denmark, the US and Greenland. They have a welfare system, with social security. Their PMs have been from the Social Democrats, Liberals, Conservative Peoples Party.

Prime Minister Helle Thorning-SchmidtSince 3 February 2014, the Government has consisted of the parties 'Socialdemokraterne' (The Social Democrats) and 'Radikale Venstre' (the Danish Social-Liberal Party), with Helle Thorning-Schmidt  (The Social Democrats) as Prime Minister. 




Welfare

The basic principle of the Danish welfare system is that all citizens have equal rights to social security.
  1. Sidse Babett Knudsen (Birgitte Nyborg)
    Sidse Babett Knudsen
    Birgitte Nyborg
    Birgitte Hjort Sørensen (Katrine Fønsmark)
    Birgitte Hjort Sørensen
    Katrine Fønsmark
    Johan Philip Asbæk (Kasper Juul)
    Johan Philip Asbæk
    Kasper Juul
    Mikael Birkkjær (Philip Christensen)
    Mikael Birkkjær
    Philip Christensen
    Soren Malling (Torben Friis)
    Soren Malling
    Torben Friis