When comparing our tax rates to other countries, care needs to be taken. While many countries have higher tax rates than our federal tax rates, many also do not have state income taxes, sales tax and city tax.
^Or they have a lot more tax on certain items. VAT in Scandinavian countries is 25% on most items. Very high taxes on alcohol as another example.
Iglooo - I missed it if you said what carrier you were with, but with Verizon your bill is supposed to go do $25 a month per line for being outside of a phone contract. Verizon often doesn’t mention this though, or adjust automatically. I learned late that I had been needlessly overpaying, but they only gave me a small credit.
I’d still rather live in Denmark or in any of the Scandinavian countries then here. Excellent free health care, great educational systems, also free. Healthy work-life balance. And everyone is happy!
We are with at&t. One more reason to switch to Verizon.
If only their winters weren’t so long and dark, @emilybee!
^ yet they are still happy!
I thought they had a high suicide rate?
I don’t think that suicide is a big issue in those countries. First, I think reported suicide rates can be skewed as underreporting is comm.on due to religious and cultural/societal pressures, something I don’t think is significant in Scandinavian countries. Here’s a list with Sweden at #58 and Norway and Denmark at #81 and #82. By comparison, the USA ranks #50.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
“I’d still rather live in Denmark or in any of the Scandinavian countries then here. Excellent free health care, great educational systems, also free. Healthy work-life balance. And everyone is happy”
Of course everyone will say, then move!
Ain’t all great over there. Finland used to have a horrendous suicide rate, suicide capital of the world. Of course, Finns are a little crazy, and we like our booze a little too much.
Another article my husband read, much of the response about claim to happiness surveys is cultural. For example, in Denmark, people feel that they must be stoic and always claim that they are happy, no matter what. People are not the same everywhere, it is hard to measure.
I don’t know about using reported suicide rates as a measure of happiness. You see such garden spots such as Syria, Libya, Iraq and Saudia Arabia at the very bottom of reported suicides. Probably cultural pressure to not report it, however you don’t know what cultural pressures are at work elsewhere.
It’s a bit late in the game for us to move as H has 4 more years to work to be eligible for his full pensions so. Maybe once he retires though. We’re also done with college now and have now and will have fabulous health insurance at no cost to us at all after H retires. But if I were young why not go there?
Our nephew has been doing research in Sweden for a couple of years. He loves the country, but the long winter nights are almost literally driving him crazy. He said he just can’t live there long term.
“It’s a bit late in the game for us to move as H has 4 more years to work to be eligible for his full pensions so. Maybe once he retires though. We’re also done with college now and have now and will have fabulous health insurance at no cost to us at all after H retires. But if I were young why not go there?”
Well, not everyone’s top priority is the freebies they’ll receive. And there are some young people who have already finished their education, have good health insurance and good pay. So why would they move there for freebies they already have or have paid for…in order to pay mega taxes for other people’s freebies?
There’s a lot more to moving than just getting stuff for free. And like MaineLonghorn said, long, cold winter nights…brrr. Of course, watching election coverage lately, there might be more reason than ever to move, but maybe to somewhere warmer. With freebies.
I hesitate to say the obvious, but most countries have much more restrictive immigration policies than the United States. Good luck moving to another country without a job, and prepare to come back when the authorities find out you want to stay long term.
It’s not like moving to the US is even a simple matter for everyone. And yeah, some countries are even harder to emigrate to to.
I am allergic to cold, so can’t imagine relocating permanently to somewhere cold, no matter how attractive other aspects may be. I literally get hives and swell up when I get cold, so I am careful to ALWAYS wear layers and err on side of a bit too much warmth. I’m lucky I live in HI, where we don’t have much of a temperature range and even here I have more warm layering garments than most of my sibs combined.
People from the US move to Europe all the time for a job - especially if they are with a multi-national Corp. And a young single person might marry a European while there, have children who are born there and be able to take advantage of their social systems. My S will have the opportunity to go overseas for work. He got to submit his top 5 choices already and he’s only been out of college and at this company for 11 months.
Post #915 somehow reminds me of this article:
If you have some money, many countries will welcome you to go there and spend your money (either as a tourist or as a foreign student.) If you really have a lot of money, the door could be more open for you to immigrate. (Isn’t it somewhat the same for US students to apply to and to get into a college?) Then, there are many others who may prefer to park their money in other country (particularly a “lucky” country which has more privilege to print money than other countries, thus potentially inflate the price of their real estate and maybe the bond issued by the government.)
@emilybee Your delusional if you think everyone is happy in Denmark. Sure free healthcare at the cost of quality since people are put on long waiting lists for surgery or MRI scans as is the case for the NHS. We had a free education system in the UK but as the population grew to 65 million I’m afraid it was no longer affordable for the state to pay tuition. There is nothing particularly great about Denmark’s education system in comparison to Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany, the UK etc…
Free doesn’t equal great. As I stated the highest tax rates in the world and highest coat of living so everything comes at a price. I’d rather live in Switzerland or Luxembourg to be honest.