Looks Like It's Time To Move To Denmark

[Silent Member]

Hey, I'm pretty happy, but socialism still hasn't been able to solve the bad weather we're seeing in the late fall/winter, so I must say Scandinavia is a big fucking failed social experiment. Sure we have it too good, but there's no going to the beach in the winter. Unless we go on one of our vacations. Shit's just not fair.

[MisterE]

i've already laid out my case- a group of people at some organization gets to decide which factors they think are most important (excluding everything else), and they get to decide how to measure each of those factors and transpose them onto their scale, and then what weight to assign to each one when they average them all down to *one* number. you (whoever) can say there is no wiggle room in that. it's an absolutely precise scale which measures actual

Quality of Living™

 

which is apparently now the other universal constant besides the speed of light.
i think that's all dumb things to say and think. obviously people think im saying dumb/wrong things or am dumb as well. but that's that and here we are disagreeing on it. we can still be fake internet friends tho

 

i dont win, i dont want to win, i just think its ridiculous to act like which country is best can be put on a precise mathematical scale and i explained why i feel that way. and it honestly blows my mind that people are acting like this scale is an actual mathematical entity, entirely separated from the realm of opinion

 

 

Yeah, just let him win. Arguing with fundamentalists is futile.

so you can apply a label to me which means that your opinions automatically trump mine, no argument or reasoning needed. classy.

[Hugh Mughnus]

foil you literally said that peoples opinions on their own living conditions isn't important when considering the living standards of people. denmarks life expectancy in 2012 was about a year greater than the US's. so that extra year of 'wishing you werent paying for dumb people to go the hospital for a hurt toe every other day' is where that extra .63 points comes from?

 

we're literally debating whether the opinion of the actual people who live in a country, about their own feelings on their lives, is more accurate of an indicator of whether it is a good country to live in, compared to a 1 out of 10 score compiled by some rich people. theyve boiled 10 factors of living down into a 1-10 score. many people here would usually agree that converting anything into a 1-10 score is dumb, but apparently if that 1-10 score encompasses an entire country, it makes sense. and some of those factors aren't mathematical things, some are opinions- such as amount of corruption, what the best climate is, etc. some people wouldn't even agree that living longer is necessarily better. but we're saying the opinions of the Economist Intelligence Unit are more important than the opinions of the masses. and guys like adieu who were probably at occupy protests crying about the 1% (who compiled this list) are now jumping in to agree. beautiful.

 

A "1 out of 10" score is not assigned. It's not 10 factors. etc etc.

 

Also it's not compiled by rich people. Data is collected from countries statistics agencies the makeup of which is often very poor people and volunteers.

 

I'm gathering you're not actually educated in this particular area because basically your entire understanding of HDI is wrong. You can still have an opinion though of course. It's just not an informed one.

[Hugh Mughnus]

And it's not just a "group of people in some organization" that decide these things.

 

[azatoth]

The HDI index doesn't have the USA as #1 and some awful socialist hellholes above it in the ranking, so there must be something flawed in it because USA USA USA is #1!!!!!!1

[Hugh Mughnus]

The HDI index doesn't have the USA as #1 and some awful socialist hellholes above it in the ranking, so there must be something flawed in it because USA USA USA is #1!!!!!!1

[o00o]

I guess its no easy to just live somewhere else without knowing the language first which is the hardest part besides getting a job I guess.

[Hugh Mughnus]

I guess its no easy to just live somewhere else without knowing the language first which is the hardest part besides getting a job I guess.

 

And adjusting the culture, social norms, etc.

[MisterE]

And it's not just a "group of people in some organization" that decide these things.

 

well honestly i was talking about this, in the first place

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where-to-be-born_Index

and maybe that got confused with the HDI at some point along the way but i'm pretty sure i mentioned that i was talking about a list of where to be born (i see where i did), and i continually referenced things which are factored into that index and apparently aren't in the HDI... maybe you being so familiar and better educated than myself with/on the HDI should've caught that and stopped assuming it's what i was talking about, stephen?

 

the HDI seems more simplified but it still seems that it's a list of figures compiled by a group, who decided what to factor in, what not to, and how to measure those things. maybe as a measurement of those exact things, averaged into one figure, it means *something*. as a ranking of countries in terms of 'quality of life' i think you're getting more into opinion. or does the UNDP not qualify as a group of people? and/or does years of schooling directly translate to quality of education? if their figure is so mathematically perfect, why did they change how they calculate it just 4 yrs ago?

[Hugh Mughnus]

You responded directly to my posts about HDI, you confused the two. Not me.

 

 

 

 

 

tell me again how weed isn't addictive and it's not a drug

[MisterE]

hahaha...

wat?

 

go ahead and check my posts though and you'll see plenty of clear references to things in that other index which aren't in the HDI and should've been your clue that we were talking about two different things, i missed it too, but hey, youre the expert

 

i have no idea what weed has to do with anything

[Hugh Mughnus]

It was an argument in chatmm that you were very adamant about.

 

I'm just ribbing you. It's the internets after all

[zkom]

I've been thinking about moving to Copenhagen, but the language..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk

[doublename]

Lol

[Squee]

I've been thinking about moving to Copenhagen, but the language..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk

 

And Finnish sounds like this: "øksi koksi jukki boksi" ;)

Anyway, yeah, the wage here is pretty good, but keep in mind that you need to pay 38% in taxes. But, then on the other hand, school doesn't cost a thing and if you end up in the hospital you don't get billed for it afterwards! I went to school for 19 years - almost 20 - and I've never paid a thing for it. I bought a couple of books when I went to the university, but quickly found out that that wasn't necessary.

But yeah, Joyrex. Move to Denmark. The language isn't that bad and we've got great coffee and food.

 

EDIT: You know what... Denmark is pretty fucking great.

[Friendly Foil]

Most danishes speak english anyway... with an accent. Dat danish accent <3

[Squee]

danishes

 

[zkom]

 

And Finnish sounds like this: "øksi koksi jukki boksi" ;)

 

 

Well, I'm not going to deny that Finnish is weird and hard. :) It's a great way to frustrate any foreigner who's trying to learn it.

[goDel]

I got a lecture on socialism in the US a while ago. Conclusion: the US has invented its own form of socialism. In the US it's the financial industry which gets the "social welfare". And the thing the financial industry has to do in return, is to give poor people credit. So, in essence, the US has a commercialised credit-card kind of socialism. That's a peculiar form of socialism where the market can make money on the backs off poor people. Interesting, right?

 

The result is, that instead of the poor people being "irresponsible", it's the financial industry which (or who....because they're people too, apparently) gets to behave irresponsibly. And btw, the irony is that being poor leads to irresponsible behaviour and not necessarily the other way around. (eg.: if you're poor, would you invest in healthy food, or would you tend to eat crappy fast food meals? ..cooking a healthy meal costs way too much, so you're pretty much forced to go for the worst option). So the whole argument that poor people will start to behave irresponsible (living of the state being lazy etc) is based on hot air.

 

A minimum wage is really common sense in economics. And the usual gop-policies from the economic pov are pretty much too stupid to take seriously anyways. Economists largely tend to agree on this, btw. You know, just like climate change and all. Science...

[goDel]

@psn- and thats one thing lefties in the US crying over minimum wage never seem to get. you force an increased minimum wage, and the prices on everything are going to go up to match. what may not go up in equal amount would be the wages people were earning just above minimum wage, who maybe had to work in some factory for 10yrs to get raises to make that much. a new minimum wage law wouldn't force THEIR wages to go up, since they are several dollars above minimum wage. but now some kid in high school working at mcdonalds makes about as much as this guy whos been busting his ass in the factory for 10yrs to take care of his family. smart. not only that, but the kids wages go up, the hamburgers the kids make go up, so its a wash for the kid as delet says- the actual cost in terms of fraction of that kids wages for him to buy one of his own burgers is about the same as it was before. but for the factory guy, everything is now more expensive but his wages didn't go up to compensate. its just another way to fuck the middle class.

 

Couple of points:

There are two market places. The market place for the products people need to buy. Regardless of the height of the minimum wage, the natural incentive within an open market is for prices to remain reasonably low. So the thing about a high minumum wage automatically leading towards more expensive products tend to also depend on the margins in the market. And seeing the amount of profit in the fastfood industry, I tend to think companies have plenty room to wiggle.

And the other market place - and this is why a minimum wage is so important, especially at this point in time - is the market of labor. Lets say there are way more people who need a job than jobs. In a market like this, the obvious thing that would happen, is that companies offer jobs with a wage which is as low as possible. (perhaps even to the point where people having a full time job need to take another job just to make even at the end of the month? ring a bell?) To prevent wages for going unreasonably low, there a things like minimum wages. And seeing the way markets work, it's pretty straightforward to see why there needs to be such a thing.

And another thing which you comment on - those hardworking people who have been working at some company for years - ....ever heard of unions? Yes? Right, so now you know why those exist in those social welfare states in Europe.

[LimpyLoo]

@psn- and thats one thing lefties in the US crying over minimum wage never seem to get. you force an increased minimum wage, and the prices on everything are going to go up to match. what may not go up in equal amount would be the wages people were earning just above minimum wage, who maybe had to work in some factory for 10yrs to get raises to make that much. a new minimum wage law wouldn't force THEIR wages to go up, since they are several dollars above minimum wage. but now some kid in high school working at mcdonalds makes about as much as this guy whos been busting his ass in the factory for 10yrs to take care of his family. smart. not only that, but the kids wages go up, the hamburgers the kids make go up, so its a wash for the kid as delet says- the actual cost in terms of fraction of that kids wages for him to buy one of his own burgers is about the same as it was before. but for the factory guy, everything is now more expensive but his wages didn't go up to compensate. its just another way to fuck the middle class.

 

1) Raising wages in one places raises wages in all surrounding places. And even if that weren't the case, the people making 'just above minimum wage' would still be make more with the proposes $15 minimum wage.

 

2) Costs don't just magically raise themselves. The reason that raising wages also raises costs is because businesses do anything and everything they can to offset overhead. Prices would go up at Walmart and they really have no reason to raises prices other than greed. This angle is always left out of the conversation, giving the false impression that some invisible hand magically raises prices. This is the purpose of regulation: to protect people from the destructive forces of 'the market' (which, like evolution, doesn't give a fuck about the well-being of humans).

[delet...]

 

The HDI index doesn't have the USA as #1 and some awful socialist hellholes above it in the ranking, so there must be something flawed in it because USA USA USA is #1!!!!!!1

 

 

 

Hah, that eagle needs a mullet dag nam it.

[MadameChaos]

Nvm

[Npoess]

Pro-tip:

 

Move to either Aarhus or Copenhagen.

 

Stay away from the rural areas (talking from many years of experience here).

[psn]

Ease of Doing Business 2015

 

Doing Business 2015: Going Beyond Efficiency, a World Bank Group flagship publication, is the 12th in a series of annual reports measuring the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 189 economies—from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe—and over time.

Doing Business measures regulations affecting 11 areas of the life of a business. Ten of these areas are included in this year’s ranking on the ease of doing business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. Doing Business also measures labor market regulation, which is not included in this year’s ranking.