[HN Gopher] Iceland: The emerging tech-ecosystem of the Nordics
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Iceland: The emerging tech-ecosystem of the Nordics
Author : imartin2k
Score : 96 points
Date : 2023-06-04 15:27 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (erikdestefanis.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (erikdestefanis.substack.com)
| busterarm wrote:
| The dirty secret of all of the Nordics and tech is that there
| aren't that many jobs and the majority of the work is outsourced
| to Barcelona where labour is much cheaper.
| yokoprime wrote:
| I'm in managment of a Norwegian tech company which is part of a
| larger corporation. There are plenty of tech work in the Oslo
| region. It's true that straight up "keeping the power on in the
| data center" type of work is in many instances handled by
| offshore resources, we are even using an Icelandic partner for
| some hosting services. But for developers, architects and
| technical project managers work is plentiful and pay is much
| higher than mainland Europe.
| busterarm wrote:
| In fairness, I have the least amount of knowledge about the
| Norwegian market. What I said could largely apply just to
| Denmark and Sweden.
|
| But it doesn't sound that far off. Managers are at home and
| many resources are elsewhere. An architect role is fairly
| senior...
|
| Also I'm not saying all of the work is outsourced -- I should
| have said "that many jobs compared to US tech markets". I
| found lots of developer opportunities in Copenhagen when
| looking around -- but everyone I talked to they had bigger
| teams working in Spain and did most of their hiring there.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| Except that most of the outsourced jobs aren't going to
| Barcelona in Denmark: they were going to Poland before it
| became too expensive then Ukraine before the war and now
| India.
| napierzaza wrote:
| [dead]
| probablypower wrote:
| I countered a post I found a bit cynical in the comments, but I
| figured I should also counter the overly rose-tinted substack
| post, as it lacks some context.
|
| > Iceland is also home to lots of "love refugees," tourists who
| found love during their trips to Iceland and never left.
|
| The foreign workforce in the tourism industry is probably filled
| with people like this, so you're likely to get that impression.
| Most foreign immigrants move here to do all kinds of jobs simply
| because the salary is better than in their home country. For
| example, I once met a guy who was a manager at a software company
| in Poland that moved to Reykjavik to clean because it paid so
| much better.
|
| It is quite common for IT related work in Iceland to be
| outsourced to mainland Europe. So while there is venture funding
| available to create new companies, the actualy labour of software
| development is outsourced. This to me is a red flag that counters
| the underlying message of the article.
|
| > Iceland stands as a global leader in renewable energy, with
| 100% of its electricity grid relying on renewable resources.
|
| Technically 99.9% as some areas require diesel generators.
| Iceland isn't a "leader". Iceland is geograhically lucky to have
| a lot of glacial meltwater (hydro) and shallow volcanism
| (geothermal). The virtue signalling around Iceland's grid is
| quite on the nose, particularly when it overlooks similarly lucky
| countries like Costa Rica. As an Icelander in this very field, I
| would say Ireland is the leader in renewable energy (if
| interested look up Eirgrid's DS3 project), as they're literally
| leaders in pushing the key technical limits of grids relative to
| renewable energy (i.e. inertia).
|
| One broad aspect that is overlooked here is the need for work and
| residency permits. It is incredibly hard to get either of those
| as a non-european foreigner. Both because the requirements are
| highly restrictive and the directorate of immigration does its
| best to find reasons not to provide permits. The only recent
| positive change, that some here on HackerNews might find use for,
| is the long-term remote work visa (https://island.is/en/get-long-
| term-visa-for-remote-workers).
| bbarn wrote:
| This is a very rose colored glasses view of Iceland. Having lived
| there until very recently, it is not a tech utopia by any means.
| There are very few jobs in tech, and no matter what you do or for
| how long it's rare to break 1M isk a month (which is about 80,000
| - 85,000USD depending on the incredibly volatile currency) due to
| hostile tax structures. You can make less money developing
| software than you can fishing, so there's not a lot of draw to
| stay in the tech industry.
|
| Most of that geothermal energy? Yeah, it's sent to massive
| aluminum smelting plants. The entire government is also
| influenced heavily by the fishing industry, and there is a lot of
| resistance to change.
|
| The article also talks a lot about per capita investment.
| Considering Iceland has 375,000 people, that's hardly the stat to
| lead with. ~250,000 of them live in the capital area.
|
| Iceland is a wonderful place, with wonderful people, but the
| economy is collapsing and the warring 10 parties of government
| are effectively slap fighting each other instead of changing
| anything just so they can not be the Independence party.
| Inflation has been hovering around 8-10% a month for the last
| year. Iceland's real draw is its natural beauty, and the tourism
| it inspires. Unfortunately, what used to be a very inexpensive
| place to visit is now incredibly expensive to fly to, and also
| expensive to be in. People I know in the tourism industries have
| said they saw rapid growth post-covid, but rising costs have
| zeroed out or even made them less profitable than before covid.
|
| It is a place I love, and a people I love, and I will continue to
| go back and visit yearly. It isn't going to be the next hot tech
| spot though.
| jsnell wrote:
| > it's rare to break 1M isk a month (which is about 80,000 -
| 85,000USD
|
| I assume there must be an order of magnitude mistake somewhere
| here, either in the currency conversion or in the timeframe.
|
| > Inflation has been hovering around 8-10% a month
|
| Likewise I don't believe this for moment. It'd mean an annual
| inflation of about 300%.
| [deleted]
| jlokier wrote:
| _> I assume there must be an order of magnitude mistake
| somewhere here, either in the currency conversion or in the
| timeframe._
|
| I guess the GP meant "USD per year". With that the numbers
| work out.
|
| To clarify. 1M ISK [?] 7,150 USD. So 1M ISK per month
| translates to about 85,000 USD per year.
| matt_storm wrote:
| The numbers are not wrong. 1 euro is 150 ISK. Which means
| yearly salary od 80k is about 12M ISK, or 1M ISK per month.
| probablypower wrote:
| I agree that the article has rose-tinted glasses, but your post
| has (cynic coloured)-tinted glasses. I am replying here not to
| attack your post but to provide an alternate perspective.
|
| > it's rare to break 1M isk a month (85 kUSD/year)
|
| 1M isk enough is very liveable here. If you disagree with this
| statement, I'm not surprised you left Iceland. Rightly so
| Icelandic society is undergoing a period of union-based
| striking in order to improve salaries for lower wage people
| (most recently teachers). If your motive in life is to maximise
| salary and pay minimal tax then, yes, Iceland isn't the best
| place to be.
|
| > Most of that geothermal energy? Yeah, it's sent to massive
| aluminum smelting plants.
|
| This is oddly snarky and vaguely frames this to be a negative
| when it is positive (especially for the economy). Roughly 85%
| of homes in Iceland are heated directly by geothermal energy.
| This drastically reduces residental electricity use. The
| economic situation in Iceland would be a lot worse if not for
| the smelters. Also, if the smelters were not in Iceland they
| would be elsewhere using electricity with a much higher carbon
| intensity. The article is wrong also, in that it praises
| Iceland for renewable energy when it is really just
| geographically lucky.
|
| > the economy is collapsing
|
| This is a pretty big statement that lacks any sort of support.
|
| > the warring 10 parties of government are effectively slap
| fighting each other instead of changing anything just so they
| can not be the Independence party
|
| As far as democracy goes, that sounds healthy to me. I agree
| that Icelandic politics is largely self-serving and is prone to
| "big fish in a small pond" mentality, but this is basically as
| good as democracy gets.
|
| > Inflation has been hovering around 8-10% a month
|
| No, annual inflation is 10%, so monthly inflation is around
| 0.8%. [1]
|
| > Unfortunately, what used to be a very inexpensive place to
| visit is now incredibly expensive to fly to, and also expensive
| to be in
|
| Yet tourism demand is quite good, which is creating a lot of
| jobs and bringing a lot of money into the country. It is now
| one of the 3 main pillars of the Icelandic economy (with
| electricity intensive industry and fishing). Odd that you'd
| look at this as a negative seeing as you have concerns about
| the economic health of Iceland.
|
| > It isn't going to be the next hot tech spot though.
|
| I agree.
|
| 1 - https://www.sedlabanki.is/annad-efni/verdbolga/
| borski wrote:
| > The article is wrong also, in that it praises Iceland for
| renewable energy when it is really just geographically lucky.
|
| Lots of places that are geographically lucky still fail to
| take advantage of that very same luck. Iceland could just as
| easily not have used geothermal energy to heat nearly all
| their homes, but they saw their advantage and capitalized on
| it. That should be commended, imho.
| culopatin wrote:
| It's interesting you say it's expensive to fly to. We went last
| year from the US on our way to Poland because it was cheaper to
| fly to Iceland and then take a Wizz air than to fly through
| Frankfurt. And I'm talking a 50% savings. It's cheaper for us
| to fly to Iceland from the east coast than to fly to Dallas.
| bbarn wrote:
| Price flights today. I'm going in two weeks and paid 1500$
| months ago. The same ticket is even more today. Three years
| ago it was a 500$ flight.
| busterarm wrote:
| Years ago it was shockingly cheap, but I still found local
| lodging and eating out expensive. My last trip was in 2009
| for EVE Fanfest and a week-long stay in a hotel on
| Laugavegur ran me around $5k USD. Most other trips for same
| length of stay at that time were running me half that or
| less.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| Iceland is barely a medium sized US city. Norway has fewer
| people than Massachusetts. It's difficult to make any
| comparison at all between Scandinavian countries and the US in
| any lens given their lack of immigration and fairly uniform
| race and culture.
|
| Doesn't stop a lot of people here from trying, however.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Correct me if I'm wrong, but nearly all the immigration to
| Iceland happened before 1000 CE.
|
| That's why it's such a paradise for DNA research, and why
| they have websites so you can check how closely you're
| related to someone before marrying them -- everyone's related
| to everyone else, at a fairly close level.
| ytdytvhxgydvhh wrote:
| That was true a few decades ago. Demand for tourism jobs
| has outstripped supply (especially in summer months) so a
| good number of people have come to Iceland (some
| temporarily, some permanently) to work. Poles are the
| largest group, making up about 5% of the population of
| Iceland: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poles_in_Iceland
|
| Anecdotally, on a recent trip I briefly felt like there
| were no Icelanders in Iceland - I had a British masseuse, a
| Finnish horse tour guide, and a Namibian scuba guide.
| paddim8 wrote:
| Yeah Americans seem to have gotten the idea that nordic
| countries are completely homogenous for some reason. It's
| absurd how often I see them act like we can't compare our
| countries to the US because we apparently have no
| immigrants.
| mchaver wrote:
| In the US there are many ideas about how things work in
| Sweden without closely considering facts. This is often
| politically motivated regardless of political
| affiliation.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| "Nordic countries" is an inappropriate generalization.
| The other ones are not islands.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| They aren't, but Scandinavia may as well be. The only
| land border is an icy, barely-populated taiga controlled
| by an extremely authoritarian, violence-happy enemy of
| the West.
| paddim8 wrote:
| People say this about both Sweden and Iceland and it's
| not true for either of them.
| wasmitnetzen wrote:
| The DNA check in dating is mostly a PR stunt by a local
| genetics research company.
| paddim8 wrote:
| Lack of immigration? Where did you get that from? Iceland had
| quite a high rate of immigration. In Sweden, 30% are either
| foreign born or have foreign born parents, with the largest
| immigrant group being from Asia.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| There were over 200k recorded immigrants in November 2022
| alone. That doesn't include the ones that weren't caught.
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/short-
| reads/2023/01/13/monthly-e...
|
| Nearly the entirely population of Iceland came to the US in
| a single month. The scale of immigration here is very hard
| to compare with anything the EU sees.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| > The scale of immigration here is very hard to compare
| with anything the EU sees.
|
| It's not. Lots of European countries have comparable or
| greater immigration rates than the US. And the EU as a
| whole is soaking up a huge number of Ukrainian refugees.
| arp242 wrote:
| The US has a population of ~330 million. Iceland has a
| population of ~390,000. Iceland is 102k km2, but only
| about a quarter of that is habitable due to glaciers,
| mountains, and nature reserved. It's comparable in size
| to Vermont or Massachusetts.
|
| 17k people migrated to Iceland last year, or about 4.3%
| of the total population.
|
| The United States 200k is about 0.06% of the population.
|
| Have you been to Iceland? There's loads of non-Icelandic
| people living there. About 16.3% of the entire country's
| population[1], and in some areas it's close to 30%.[2]
|
| The highest number of immigrants in the US are in CA,
| where it's ~23%,[3], and the country average is about
| 14%.[4] Although this number is no doubt higher in some
| cities like SF and LA. But as a country, Iceland has
| roughly the same or more immigrants than the US.
|
| [1]: https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/politics_and_soci
| ety/2022...
|
| [2]: https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/2021/10/20/i
| mmigrant...
|
| [3]: https://www.ppic.org/publication/immigrants-in-
| california/
|
| [4]:
| https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/20/facts-on-
| u-s...
| swimfar wrote:
| For the US the parent said it was 200k migrants in one
| month. That's 2.4 million/year, or 0.7% of the
| population.
| paddim8 wrote:
| Absolute numbers tell me absolutely nothing. What matters
| is per capita. But if we're going to go by absolute
| numbers... Sweden had over 100-200k immigrants per year
| several years. That's over 1% of the population in just a
| year. Sweden has a higher rate of foreign born people
| than the US.
| progbits wrote:
| I'm sorry, _hostile_ tax structures?
|
| Some people happen to prefer taxes and governments that provide
| value to its citizens.
|
| https://www.icelandreview.com/culture/manoftheyear/
| bbarn wrote:
| Talking about him has nothing to do with governments. If the
| government was functioning and so provided value to his
| citizens it wouldn't rely on a generous rich man to go around
| the country to install handicap ramps.
|
| Go live there and see what you get for your money. A poor,
| overloaded health care system, food prices that the rest of
| the world drops their jaw at, and a nice clean downtown area
| in Reykjavik to show off.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| > Inflation has been hovering around 8-10% a month
|
| Actually, about 1/12th of that. You meant 8-10% a year. [0]
|
| [0]: https://tradingeconomics.com/iceland/inflation-cpi
| runeks wrote:
| More like 1/30th of that. Because of compounding, 10% monthly
| inflation is over 300% yearly inflation.
| paddim8 wrote:
| The inflation they're experiencing is not a sign of a
| collapsing economy. It's similar to other European countries
| right now. Also, 80k USD a year is a ton by European standards,
| so I'm not sure why you're using that as a point of comparison.
| Especially considering the employer pays significantly more
| (which goes to healthcare, pension, etc.) in practice. Iceland
| has some of the highest salaries in Western Europe.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Let's see: you don't live there, but you're arguing with
| someone who did? Have you ever even been there?
| yoavm wrote:
| How is this relevant? Why does one need to live in Iceland
| (I have) to remind us that 80k USD a year is quite good in
| Europe, and that inflation isn't much worse than anywhere
| else?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| It is obviously relevant and I don't need to waste time
| explaining it. But you said you did live there, so never
| mind.
| mchaver wrote:
| It doesn't matter that they have not lived there, but
| they are not appropriately considering cost of living.
| Just because Iceland is in Europe and is a Nordic country
| does not mean it has the same economic situation as
| Sweden.
| paddim8 wrote:
| I live in another Nordic country that also has the same
| inflation rate as Iceland.
| gaadd33 wrote:
| Isn't Iceland significantly more expensive to live in than
| the majority of Europe? Not specifically housing cost but
| everything else.
| busterarm wrote:
| > Also, 80k USD a year is a ton by European standards
|
| The rest of Europe doesn't have to import nearly as much food
| and at high tariffs.
|
| If it isn't fish, lamb, potatoes, some garden veg or oats,
| it's coming over on a boat. The price of a single lime at
| Bonus will make your eyes water.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > it's coming over on a boat.
|
| Is a maritime shipping supposed to drive up prices or
| something? I thought it was the cheapest way to go, to the
| point of being cheaper than trucking.
|
| The only exception I can see if for stuff that doesn't
| store well, but controlled atmospheres have done a ton to
| make it possible to eat "local" apples in the middle of
| winter.
|
| I'm in Canada and it seems to be a wash whether our citrus
| comes from Spain, North Africa or Florida.
| paddim8 wrote:
| Food is not a huge expense though. I spend 150EUR a month
| in Sweden. Even if it was twice as expensive in Iceland, it
| wouldn't be too bad. They have a very high disposable
| income. And things like heating and electricity are
| basically free.
| Styrminator wrote:
| Icelander here as well, I've worked in Norway, the UK and
| Germany. An 80k salary here buys you the lifestyle of a
| 50k salary in Berlin, the only reason I moved back is
| kids and grandparents.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| Spending 1.6 euros (18,50 SEK) per meal (assuming 3 meals
| per day) including eating out etc is very low. That is
| far from the average in Sweden. And it is even more far
| from being what you spend if you wanna eat out a lot
| (which many high income tech people want). I'm not
| judging (I spend very low amounts on food myself) but you
| can't really say you are representative for the average
| tech worker in Sweden when it comes to food spending.
| EddieEngineers wrote:
| I'm moving to Sweden from the Bay Area and this seems
| very low - I spend that for myself and my wife probably
| over two days (including coffees etc)... Is this the
| genuine average? It'll make me swallow lower salaries a
| lot easier!
| alpinemeadow wrote:
| Looking at my banking app for the last 6 months I spend
| between 6K to 10K Swedish crowns in supermarket food,
| work lunches and dinning. I live I Malmo. Stockholm
| dining will be more expensive. Moved here in 2011 from
| the US, love it. 6 weeks of paid vacation and work life
| balance: priceless. Welcome!
| Ekaros wrote:
| Nope, that is extremely low. I would double that for
| buying food just from a super market. And even then it is
| likely not too special.
|
| 150EUR sounds like the advertised poor person diet. Rice,
| beans, cheap vegetables like potatoes, little of cheap
| meat(chicken legs maybe).
| triceratops wrote:
| > 150EUR sounds like the advertised poor person diet.
| Rice, beans, cheap vegetables like potatoes, little of
| cheap meat(chicken legs maybe).
|
| That's my diet too lol. Am I eating like a poor person?
| TIL
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Hopefully you're not eating like that and poor. If you
| did, you're going to live a long time and need to save a
| ton for a long retirement!
| rlkf wrote:
| The average expenditure on food and staples of a
| Norwegian household is according to national statistics
| EUR235/month/person (not including dining out); based on
| the general cost difference between Norway and Sweden,
| this should translate into EUR210/month/person.
| kristiandupont wrote:
| >80k USD a year is a ton by European standards
|
| I can't speak to all of Europe but tech wages are
| significantly higher here in Denmark.
| jdmoreira wrote:
| Really? Not in Sweden though. What do you think accounts
| for this difference?
| atdrummond wrote:
| Tax burden on Danish salaries is borne by employees post-
| tax rather than businesses. This tends to inflate net
| take home pay.
| thfuran wrote:
| Post-tax taxes?
| paddim8 wrote:
| Denmark doesn't have employer taxes, unlike the rest of
| Europe, making salaries look much larger.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| That depends on if it's before or after tax. If after: 46k
| DKK out monthly is top of the line given our own crushing
| taxes. If before, yeah not good.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| > Also, 80k USD a year is a ton by European standards
|
| I can't speak for Iceland, but for Western European tech
| workers 80k USD isn't massive. Like it's not bad, maybe an
| early-mid level developer?
| meheleventyone wrote:
| FWIW I've worked in tech here in Iceland for 12 years and this
| isn't really my experience. The article is a little rose-tinted
| but it isn't as negative a bbarn makes things seem either. In
| particular salaries in tech can definitely be higher than they
| make out and this sector is healthy for the size of the
| countries population!
| Slava_Propanei wrote:
| [dead]
| gumballindie wrote:
| The main issue with the nordics is that you get taxed to death.
| 3np wrote:
| Not on capital gains, with schemes available to cap salaries
| and shift compensation to equity, especially for executives.
|
| So despite the public perception on progressive taxes, in
| practice the Nordics can be quite attractive compared to
| European countries which have lower income tax rates but income
| through equity/stocks are progressively taxed together with
| income taxes. So they can eat their cake and have it too in a
| sense, by being more accomodating for the wealthy tax-wise than
| most of the population realize.
| TehCorwiz wrote:
| My understanding is that unlike the US they actually have get
| social benefits like healthcare and university for their tax
| dollars.
|
| https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/iceland/individual/taxes-on-per...
|
| And according to Wikipedia Iceland has a lower marginal tax
| rate than the US.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rat...
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| >And according to Wikipedia Iceland has a lower marginal tax
| rate than the US.
|
| Does that "marginal tax rate" in the US include payroll tax?
| If not it is inaccurate.
|
| Employees pay payroll tax, even if they don't see it taken
| out on their paychecks.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Employees pay payroll tax, even if they don't see it
| taken out on their paychecks.
|
| Yes, the so-called "employers' contribution" is a fine
| piece of propaganda.
| paddw wrote:
| In the U.S corporations have lots of ways to avoid tax, not
| sure about Iceland.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The best way for a US corporation to avoid tax is to lose
| money.
| paul7986 wrote:
| And free geothermal bathhouses to enjoy and socialize after
| work like the Romans did.
|
| The Blue and or Sky Lagoons (disney world of spas) for me
| werent that great when compared to meeting/conversing with
| locals at the local and free bathhouses (not free for tourist
| though; $10).
| gumballindie wrote:
| One needs to factor in extra taxes - 25% vat, vehicle reg
| taxes (in denmark) of around 85% to 150% of the car's value,
| and so on. These countries are cool but still not justifying
| extreme taxation.
| [deleted]
| paddim8 wrote:
| It's not extreme. It's used to provide services for us.
| Denmarks taxes on cars are high even compared to other
| nordic countries, so I'm not sure why you're bringing that
| up. Most people don't even need a car there.
| tpmx wrote:
| This is true. The fix is to start your own company and do
| consulting instead of being employed. Some companies are cool
| with this, some aren't.
|
| This allows you to even out high income periods with low income
| periods, thus avoiding the high margin tax on income.
| slushh wrote:
| It can also be an advantage. You are only taxed on profits so
| it's only a disadvantage for those who are in a business for
| the money. I would assume that this leads to better business
| relations with better opportunities because greedy people will
| leave.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > those who are in a business for the money ... greedy people
|
| Well, yeah. And people who get a job also do it for the
| money.
| neuronexmachina wrote:
| Do you have any numbers for how many die from taxes there
| annually? It looks like they have a pretty high QoL:
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/standard-...
| [deleted]
| ksimukka wrote:
| But I get a lot of value from those taxes. To name a few: -
| Education. - Daycare/kindergarten. - Healthcare. - Public
| transportation. - Libraries and museums.
| imartin2k wrote:
| In Sweden, if you invest in / trade stocks and choose an "ISK"
| type of account, you pay almost zero tax on your gains (you pay
| a very low flat tax on the total value of your stocks, and this
| is quite unsubstantial for most average people who
| invest/trade)
|
| At least compared to most other European countries, where every
| profit from stocks is heavily taxed, this is quite wild.
|
| The downside of this ofc is that losses aren't tax deductible
| either, and that you still pay the tax even if your stocks lost
| in value during the year. But still: Your capital gains earned
| through this scheme are close to be tax-free. If you bought a
| lot of Nvidia in January and sold it now, you could even
| withdraw the profit to buy a house or a car - and thereby avoid
| most of the tax that would come as a consequence of a bigger
| value of your stock holdings.
|
| Just writing this to point out that there's more nuance to this
| "taxes are high in the Nordics" narrative.
| paddim8 wrote:
| Adding to this, Sweden has no property tax or inheritance
| tax, unlike the US.
| alexanderchr wrote:
| NL works similarly but without the opt in, i.e. all your
| assets above a threshold are taxed at a fictitious income
| level, like it or not. Means they have no capital gain taxes
| at all.
|
| Makes for great countries to be rich in, but if you're a high
| earning low wealth individual like many early-mid career
| programmers you'll be taxed to death.
| busterarm wrote:
| It's not that much more than living in New York City or SF.
| Also you actually get the benefit of your tax dollars.
| mataug wrote:
| Those taxes aren't wasted usually, one does get some value out
| of paying such high taxes.
| newZWhoDis wrote:
| That value does not make up for the costs, it's not even
| close.
| baq wrote:
| Low taxes is how you get everyone on a single street to
| drive a 100k SUV because the city has no money to fix
| potholes. Adam Smith wrote a book about the topic, I hear
| it's quite good.
| paddim8 wrote:
| Tell me what they pay for and why it's not worth it then.
| buildbot wrote:
| Sure, but the benefit to freedom by disconnecting social
| support services such as healthcare from employment is massive.
| It's a tradeoff many seem pleased with.
| bbarn wrote:
| I see you haven't used the Icelandic health care system -
| which receives over half of the high income tax rate.
|
| It's trauma care, not health care. Anything preventative is
| deprioritized and the country beats the United States in
| Obesity rate. Get hurt, they patch you up, but have a chronic
| condition, like say a thyroid problem? See you in 6 months.
| gpm wrote:
| US Obesity rate: 41.9%
|
| Iceland Obesity rate: 21.9%
|
| Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_
| obesity_r...
| emptysongglass wrote:
| The public healthcare system in Denmark is a travesty.
| Preventative care is almost totally absent. Yet Danes defend
| it as "unnecessary tests" [1]
|
| That perception is made clear in this Reddit thread
|
| [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/copenhagen/comments/11xbvvk/boom
| _in...
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