Weekend Economists at War! January 10-12, 2014

[Demeter]

12. Rich Danes Face Benefit Cuts as Universal Welfare Abandoned

YEAH, WELL, AUSTERIANS ARE ALL OVER, LIKE BEDBUGS

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-07/richest-danes-face-benefit-cuts-as-universal-welfare-abandoned.html

Denmark’s richest citizens are finding themselves cut off from some welfare benefits as Scandinavia’s weakest nation reviews state-paid services once considered a universal right.

“We’ll see a welfare state that is gradually optimized to work under the conditions of globalization and global competition,” Danish Finance Minister Bjarne Corydon said yesterday in an interview in Copenhagen. “We continually alter priorities and financing to optimize the model.”

Denmark is the Scandinavian nation that has fared worst during the global financial crisis after a housing boom that peaked in 2007 burst a year later. Though Danish households are the world’s most indebted, the AAA-rated government has kept its borrowings at half the euro area average, in part after refusing to bail out insolvent banks and instead pushing losses onto creditors.

Alongside those measures are efforts to ensure state spending doesn’t grow unmanageable. Danes, who carry the world’s highest tax burden, have punished the Social Democrat-led government of Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt for their lost benefits and most polls show her coalition trails behind the opposition ahead of elections due November 2015 at the latest...

AT LEAST THEY GET SOMETHING FOR THEIR TAXES...NOT UNENDING WAR