I'm moving to Denmark

 

 

The other day, I monitored a construction class, and the topic of the day was container ships.

 

The link below has more information, but the main facts are that these monsters can be as much as 1300 feet long – and they are powered by liquified natural gas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_ship

Construction costs for the largest ships can exceed $100 million, and the majority of ships built are either in Shanghai or South Korea. 

One of the largest ship owners is MAERSK, which leads to “the rest of the story”.

 

          A.P. Møller – Mærsk A/S (Danish) is a Danish shipping and logistics company founded in 1904 by Arnold Peter Møller and his father Peter Mærsk Møller.

Maersk's business activities include port operation, supply chain management, warehousing and air freight. The company is based in Copenhagen, Denmark, with subsidiaries and offices across 130 countries and over 100,000 employees worldwide in 2024.

It is a publicly traded family business, as the company is controlled by the namesake Møller family through holding companies. The company's 2024 annual revenue was US$55.5 billion. Net income for the company is over $6 billion a year.

If you are a fan of Steve Berry, you may remember that one of the main characters in his book is “Cotton” Malone, a retired justice department employee who now operates a rare book store in Denmark, which leads to the inevitable question: why in the world would someone want to live in a country where temperatures can by as low as 24 degrees below zero in the wintertime.

     

The country as a whole has a population of 6,000,000 people, which is less than the number of people living in Arizona. Its GDP is just under $500 billion, which works out to a per capita GDP of just over $83,000. By comparison, the GDP tor the United States is roughly $29 billion, which is the word’s largest economy. However, GDP per capita in America is $75,000, which is less than Denmark’s GDP per capita.

Denmark is a developed country with an advanced high-income economy, high standard of living, and robust social welfare policies. Danish culture and society are broadly progressive egalitarian, and socially liberal; Denmark was the first country to legally recognize same-sex partnerships. It is a founding member of NATO, the Nordic Council, the OECD, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the United Nations, and is part of the Schengen Area. Denmark maintains close political, cultural, and linguistic ties with its Scandinavian neighbors. The Danish political system, which emphasizes broad consensus, is used by American political scientist Francis Fukuyama as a reference point for near-perfect governance; his phrase "getting to Denmark" refers to the country's status as a global model for stable social and political institutions

Like its Nordic neighbors, Denmark is one of the happiest countries in the world.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/happiest-countries-in-the-world

Finland is the happiest, but Denmark is close behind. (America is #23)

Denmark has a very low Gini coefficient (27.7), which measures the level of income inequality. America has a Gini coefficient of ,47, an increase from .43 that existed in 1990. In simplest terms, the rich got richer, and the poor got poorer, and the “Big Beautify bill will exacerbate the situation, since miss will lose health insurance to that millionaires and billionaires will get tax breaks.

 The official language in Danish, but German is also widely used. In addition, a large portion of the population also speaks English, so someone whose native tongue is English could easily converse with most people.

Denmark controls the Faroe Islands and Greenland – and they are not going to give either one to Donald Trump.

 As a member of Development Assistance Committee (DAC), Denmark has for a long time been among the countries of the world contributing the largest percentage of gross national income to development aid. In 2015, Denmark contributed 0.85% of its gross national income (GNI) to foreign aid and was one of only six countries meeting the longstanding UN target of 0.7% of GNI.The country participates in both bilateral and multilateral aid, with the aid usually administered by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The organizational name of Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) is often used, in particular when operating bilateral aid. According to the 2024 Global Peace Index, Denmark is the 8th most peaceful country in the world. (Iceland is considered to be the most peaceful)

Interestingly enough, Ireland is considered to be the 2^nd most peaceful, which bring to mind a phrase that my dad used to say. Durning WWII, the 2 counties that did not fight were the peaceful Irish and the cowardly Swedes.

Even people with only a passing familiarity with Denmark know about the little mermaid statue in the harbor:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Mermaid_(statue)#History

Here is a street scene from Copenhagen, Denmark's largest city

 If you are a fan of music, you also may have listened to the Danish Symphony orchestra

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_National_Symphony_Orchestra

The roots of the orchestra date back to the singer Emil Holm, who expressed a wish to establish a full-time symphony orchestra in Denmark. In collaboration with fellow musicians Otto Fessel, Rudolf Dietzmann and Folmer Jensen, the orchestra was founded in 1925, with 11 players in the ensemble and conductor Launy Grøndahl having a leadership role, though without a formal title. The orchestra grew to 30 players within a year. The orchestra performed its first public concert in 1927, and began to give weekly concerts in 1928. In 1930, Holm recruited Nikolai Malko to a key role similar to that of Grøndahl, as a conductor of the orchestra, though again without a formal title. Early concerts were at the Axelborg building. In 1931, the orchestra began to give concerts at the Stærekassen hall of the Royal Danish Theatre. After going into exile from Germany in the 1930s, Fritz Busch worked extensively as a major conductor of the orchestra in parallel with Malko, though again with no formal title. By 1948, the orchestra had attained membership of 92 musicians.

You’ll recognize the song below:

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - The Danish National Symphony Orchestra (Live)

In spite of the turmoil that we gave been living with since January, the good old USA is still a pretty good place to live – but there ARE better alternatives, so a move to a foreign country could actually make a lot of sense.

På trods af den uro, vi har levet med siden januar, er det gode gamle USA stadig et ret godt sted at bo – men der ER bedre alternativer, så en flytning til et fremmed land kunne faktisk give meget mening.