Quote:
Originally Posted by MightyDog
Au contraire...in the biggest way possible. They pay heap loads for both of those.
The Scandinavian countries are beautiful and very civilized places (I've been to 3 of them) but, make no mistake, they have breathtaking taxation. Basically, the highest in the Western World...including substantial personal income tax rates, huge VAT taxes (22 to 25%) added to almost everything you buy, personal property taxes and more.
Nothing at all free about those services unless you live on the dole to begin with.
|
I have spent some time in Denmark, Norway and Sweden and talked with locals, distant relatives and friends from the US who live there (Oslo). The North Sea oil pays for a lot of what Norway has. Folks from Denmark and Sweden find Norway hugely expensive and it is. I saw the King driving himself in a BMW 740 but few other large luxury vehicles in Norway. People take trains, buses and ride bikes in these countries. They even have special train cars with bike parking inside. The people I know in Oslo are highly educated and enjoy very high end professional employment, drive an expensive Tesla (tax incentives on EVs there). They only have one car though. They live in a 3,000 sq ft close-in suburban home near the Holmenkollen Ski Museum and Tower, big yard, feels like a nice old fashioned upper middle class US suburb. Restaurant food is ridiculously expensive in Norway so we ate all meals at their house. I spent $200 on snacks and soft drinks for their two children at a park. The taxicab drive to the Oslo airport was $$$$$. I also visited my paternal grandfather's hometown Jonkoping in Sweden. It felt like the US in the 1950s. People were nice. I felt safe, like I do in TV. Denmark is also a nice country and the people quite friendly. In Scandinavia there is incredible social pressure to fit in and not stand out - achieve and/or display above the norm. "The Almost Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia" by Michael Booth is a good read.
I do not find Scandinavians happy and cheerful but a little on the morose side. They consume a LOT of alcohol - I saw large potato fields in Sweden to fuel their distilleries - and have a history of high suicide rates although those are abating.