Do Americans Prefer Denmark?

[From article]
Writing in New York magazine, Jonathan Chait asks "if we want to be like Denmark, whom do we tax?"
[. . .]
We'll start with real per capita GDP. It is 22% higher in the U.S., meaning that being like Denmark would involve giving up a substantial portion of the average individual national wealth. That doesn't seem wise.
Denmark's real per capita GDP is lower now than it was in 2004. A decade of darkness. Make that a decade-and-a-half. Since 2000, its real per capita GDP has increased -- in total -- only 2.6%. As anemic as the American growth rate is, it is fivefold faster than Denmark's.
Denmark has a far higher rate of assault than the U.S. (i.e., the Danes are very violent) and its violent crime rate is headed through the roof.
Americans also score much better in terms of self-reported health. So much for that socialized medicine advantage.
[. . .]



The U.S. wins by a long shot on housing, income, and health, and it's a tie on jobs -- all the objectively measurable points that matter.
And to achieve this victory, the all-in average personal income tax rates at average wage in the U.S. are upwards of half the rate the Danes are suffering under.
Want to pay much more to be much poorer? Move to Denmark.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/05/why_would_the_us_want_to_be_like_denmark.html

May 2, 2016
Why would the U.S. want to be like Denmark?
By Sierra Rayne

Facebook Billionaire Avoided Taxes, Morphs Into Philanthropist Explaining What Is Good For The Rest Of Us

Mark Zuckerberg, Billionaire Creator of Facebook

[From article]
Yet there is a dark side to this trend. For behind it lies the sanctimonious hypocrisy of billionaires who build vast fortunes with firms that avoid the taxes paid by the rest of society, then arrogantly think they are best placed to solve the planet’s problems.
Zuckerberg talked in his letter of creating stronger communities. Yet Facebook, like too many technology behemoths, is a serial tax avoider undermining government through its stubborn refusal to pay its fair share to society.
Last year, this all-conquering social media firm handed over just £4,327 in corporation tax in this country: less than the annual sum paid in tax by the average worker.
Yet its staff in Britain took home an average £210,000 each in pay and bonuses, safe in the security of a society that relies on public servants to protect them from terror, provide health care in hospitals and repair the roads on which they travel to work.
The Facebook founder has hailed Bill Gates as his hero — the world’s richest man, who has been revered as something close to a secular saint after promising to give away the bulk of his £57 billion fortune.
[. . .]
Microsoft was accused of avoiding paying £3 billion annually in tax by shifting earnings around between low-tax nations. In Britain alone, it reported £1.7 billion revenues in one year for online sales of software, on which it paid no corporation tax. Zilch.
Gates even has the gall to tour the world telling governments to take more and more money from taxpayers for his beloved foreign aid programmes, once even branding those who oppose such policies as ‘evil’.
[. . .]
In one radio interview, Gates spoke of how philanthropists of the past such as the oil giant John D. Rockefeller offered a model for him and his generation of billionaires.
It was an interesting comparison, since Rockefeller, a ruthless monopolist, became the world’s richest man by using controversial practices such as collusion with railroad companies to crush his oil industry rivals — and then gave away $500 million to good causes.
[. . .]
are among the most notorious examples of cut-throat capitalists who stop at nothing to build their fortunes, then seek in later life to improve their public image with good deeds.
[. . .]
It is laudable to see the super-rich devote themselves to good works and give away big sums for the betterment of others.
Many of these people are technological visionaries, creating fortunes though their energetic entrepreneurship.
Yet too many of them seem to think it is acceptable for their companies to avoid paying taxes, in part because they see themselves as wonderful benefactors engaged in personal crusades to solve the world’s problems.
In effect, they are saying the super-rich have the right to ‘self-tax’ themselves by giving away money to pet causes, rather than the companies with which they made their fortunes paying their fair share of tax to governments, like the rest of us.
However much good they achieve, this is not just breathtakingly arrogant, but profoundly undemocratic. And for all their skills and smartness, they are often no better than governments at tackling problems in public services.
Zuckerberg went on Oprah Winfrey’s TV show five years ago to proclaim a $100 million gift to turn schools in the New Jersey town of Newark ‘into a symbol of educational excellence for the whole nation’.
The donation was doubled with matching funds from others. Yet his controversial scheme failed to meet its goals after blowing $20 million on consultants, and running into opposition from parents, teachers and community leaders.
[. . .]
The harsh truth is that the likes of Zuckerberg and Gates may be philanthropists, but they built those fortunes off the back of companies engaged in massive tax avoidance.
Such corporate strategy weakens society while placing heavier burdens on the rest of us.
It is all too easy in our globalised age for corporate giants to exploit tax loopholes and outwit inadequate politicians by paying the best advisers to shuffle paper profits around the planet.
So by all means praise a plutocrat such as Mr Zuckerberg for promising to give away extraordinary wealth. We must hope the money is put to good use to transform lives.
But at the same time, do not be deluded by the self- proclaimed altruism promoted so publicly by these titans of the technology revolution.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3343771/The-tax-avoiding-Facebook-mogul-act-charity-reeks-hypocrisy.html
The tax-avoiding Facebook mogul and an act of charity that reeks of hypocrisy
By IAN BIRRELL FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 20:18 EST, 2 December 2015 | UPDATED: 03:44 EST, 3 December 2015

Cornell University Student Kills CEO Father

Members of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office at the house where Charles Tan allegedly shot and killed his father, Ling Tan.
Photo: AP

Second recent case of privileged son killing wealthy father, showing again the meaninglessness of wealth and material belongings. See here e.g.,

http://enoughroom.blogspot.com/2015/01/having-rich-daddy-no-guarantee-of-worry.html

[From article]
A Cornell University sophomore was charged Tuesday with murder in the shotgun slaying of his CEO father inside the family’s home, authorities said.
The Monroe County sheriff’s office said deputies responded Monday night to a report of a domestic dispute at a home in Pittsford, an upscale suburb just southeast of Rochester.
When they arrived, deputies said, they found 19-year-old Charles Tan and his mother, Qing Tan, 46, standing in the driveway. Inside, they found the body of 49-year-old Ling Tan, president and CEO of Dynamax Imaging in nearby Canandaigua.
Police said the father had been shot several times with a shotgun, which was found in the garage. The elder Tan had wounds on his upper body, deputies said.
Charles Tan was arraigned Tuesday morning on a second-degree murder charge.
[. . .]
Police had been called to the home several times before for reports of domestic disputes, the sheriff’s office told the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester. Specific information about the calls weren’t released.

http://nypost.com/2015/02/10/cornell-student-charged-in-murder-of-ceo-father/

Cornell student charged in murder of CEO father
By Associated Press
New York Post

February 10, 2015 | 2:10pm

The Alamo, Film

The Alamo 2004

This film shows the courage of the flawed men who defended the Alamo against overwhelming odds. At one point they knew they would die yet stayed on and fought. William Barret Travis, Lt. Col. in the Texas Army made a speech revealing that there was no help on the way. He gave others the opportunity to leave. When they were defeated Mexican General Santa Anna killed them all. Compare their actions with the lack of spine among contemporary Americans especially in the Boston area where the US revolution began. People in Cambridge MA host city of Harvard University and MIT are focused on their material wealth, the value of their homes and their prestige. The upper classes refuse to fight the loss of freedom today when they still can fight. Soon it will be too late to fight and their money and prestige will go with it. 

Poor Little Rich People

Margery Eagan forgot the Kennedy family which suffered so much tragedy. Once saw the new red car in 2010, of a Harvard architecture student with the license "EX SLAVE." Hello? I knew a man in college who explained the first time he met another, "My parents survived the holocaust." He thought he deserved pity and sympathy, more than the children of those who did not survive? Huh? If they did not survive they had no children. Duh! Then there are the paranoid Black Americans who when reminded that the German government murdered en mass, Jews, delivered the typical reply. "It was worse for Blacks in America." Oh yea. People who really grew up in a poor dysfunctional family are not proud of it. They are ashamed of where they came from. It is nothing to be proud of; except when media spin doctors are making a myth of how a man achieved greatness coming from a poor background. Otherwise it is not a great accomplishment? As when children of wealthy and powerful men and women achieve greatness. In Boston it is especially common to worship children of celebrities. The daughter of Edward Bernays lives in Cambridge on that for many years. And she is only one of many in the Boston area. The children of celebrities whine about how hard it is to grow up in the shadow of a great person. Poor little rich girl? One attractive woman obtained sympathy because she was "cursed with beauty." Minds have a terrible ability to rationalize any misguided beliefs which make the mind holder look good. Children of wealthy and powerful Black Americans and Africans are expert at getting sympathy from Whites. Recipients of Affirmative Action are seldom grateful for the special privileges and benefits they get due to skin color.

http://bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view/20220909the_pols_cry_we_had_it_worse_than_you/

The pols cry: We had it worse than you!
Boston Herald
By Margery Eagan
Sunday, September 9, 2012

Comment On Paul Krugman's Income Inequality

[Comment about article by Paul Krugman in NY Times on income inequality]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/opinion/krugman-money-and-morals.html?_r=1

Money and Morals
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times
Published: February 9, 2012

rebecca1048
Iowa

I will say it again --- women should have never left the home. (a decline which began when they left home) I know many have to work today, but it was a mistake. (honestly, I'm suspicious of Freidan and Smith College's motives) Women held the homes together, they kept the kids in check, and I personally believe they were the authors of the innovation we seem to have lost --- they also kept the old neighborhood spit spot! I truly believe, the only thing women suceeded in doing, was driving down wages and the perks companies used to pay to keep a good man. Now, with a surplus of humans willing to keep their eye on the keyhole, why should a company pay a decent wage? And don't peg me a conservative -- -maybe fiscally, but I'm pretty liberal. I certainly don't believe women should lay down and die --- they should be ready to step in and run things in an instant, but, home is where they were needed most. And, if a guy wants to stay home, fine. But America cannot support two decent incomes per household ---- it is trying to do it now, and what has happened, you have some homes with no or little income.

Ethnic and Racial Animosity and Wealth Gap

[From article]
"Focusing attention and attacks on people who have greater wealth-generating capacity -- whether races, classes or whatever -- has had counterproductive consequences, including tragedies written in the blood of millions. Whole totalitarian governments have risen to dictatorial power on the wings of envy and resentment ideologies.
Intellectuals have all too often promoted these envy and resentment ideologies. There are both psychic and material rewards for the intelligentsia in doing so, even when the supposed beneficiaries of these ideologies end up worse off. When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.
Both politicians and intellectuals have made their choice."

http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2012/01/20/an_ignored_disparity_part_iv

An Ignored 'Disparity': Part IV
THomas Sowell
TownHall.com
January 20, 2012

Poor Little Rich Man Part 2

[From article]
"Although he has four current wives and has been divorced twice, Jefri has never let the bonds of matrimony keep him from bedding other women.

The prince, who has 17 children by seven women, at one point was spending upward of $250 million per year just to keep pricey calls girls, centerfolds and runaway teens on payrolls of companies linked to his family's sultanate."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/very_picture_of_deca_dunce_53hSnLQDNe3rUCV4rrSTUO

Very picture of deca-dunce
Brunei royal a prince among pervs
By DAREH GREGORIAN, ADA CALHOUN and DAN MANGAN
New York Post
Last Updated: 8:51 AM, November 5, 2010
Posted: 2:28 AM, November 5, 2010