Fast Food in Denmark Serves Something Atypical: Living Wages

a reply to: pexx421

I would say currently there are 9 million hispanics that feel differently, there is opportunity. My son is already well on his way I didn't help him a bit, he flips houses, and does investment banking. He has already made more money than I did by his age and owns more property. He is fully aware of the opportunity as well as all the immigrants illegal or otherwise.

My opportunity started with two jobs one for myself and one for someone else, I ate spaghetti and peanut butter sandwiches for weeks to make ends meet. My mindset still today is I will go under you, over you, around you, through you, to do what it takes to be successful, no government is going to change that and no rich CEO or wealthy person will change that, it never has and never will. It has always been up to me and no one else.

I can't tell you what minimum wage was when I was a kid but I worked in a gas station when I was 16 for 1.40 hr. I rode my bike to the jobsite when I was 14 to pull wire and install outlets for a contractor my dad knew, and on the weekends I worked the swapmeets for other people selling their goods. I got kicked out of the house at 17 and never looked back. It has always been on me and no one else. It would have been an embarrassment to take any kind of government help my family never needed it and I shouldn't either. Please don't tell me how much easier it was for me
or how much opportunity I had that you don't. I made my opportunity and you could too if you can let go of the I can't do it rant.

You remind me of my brother before he became an upstanding citizen, all his problems were from a world that created them. Then one day he woke up. Hopefully your day will arrive if it doesn't you will always participate in being exploited by the rich and powerful. Until then it falls on deaf ears. I have met many people that made a great life from other countries without the slightest help, never complained just did it, sacrificed, became wealthy and never blamed anyone. I have said all of this in previous post.

Only a snot nosed kid would call me an old fart. LOL

a reply to: MarlinGrace haha, then call me snot nosed! Seriously though, you're still not getting it. You didn't do it on your own. You did it with the help of the labor movement and civil rights movement that came before you, which was still protecting you from certain levels of exploitation. Those protections are gone now. You bought a home and car on credit I assume? Those interest rates were limited in ways they no longer are. Your minimum wages bought you more bread milk and gas than the current workers get off minimum wage. And again.....my day is fine for me. I speak out for those who don't have it so well. And if you think ceo's, corporations, cops, etc don't have more power over us now than they did in your youth,you are delusional. You were living during the United states golden years, because your forefathers fought for your standard of living. Too bad your generation walked away from the fight for ours.

originally posted by: MarlinGrace
a reply to: pexx421

I would say currently there are 9 million hispanics that feel differently, there is opportunity. My son is already well on his way I didn't help him a bit, he flips houses, and does investment banking. He has already made more money than I did by his age and owns more property. He is fully aware of the opportunity as well as all the immigrants illegal or otherwise.

My opportunity started with two jobs one for myself and one for someone else, I ate spaghetti and peanut butter sandwiches for weeks to make ends meet. My mindset still today is I will go under you, over you, around you, through you, to do what it takes to be successful, no government is going to change that and no rich CEO or wealthy person will change that, it never has and never will. It has always been up to me and no one else.

I can't tell you what minimum wage was when I was a kid but I worked in a gas station when I was 16 for 1.40 hr. I rode my bike to the jobsite when I was 14 to pull wire and install outlets for a contractor my dad knew, and on the weekends I worked the swapmeets for other people selling their goods. I got kicked out of the house at 17 and never looked back. It has always been on me and no one else. It would have been an embarrassment to take any kind of government help my family never needed it and I shouldn't either. Please don't tell me how much easier it was for me
or how much opportunity I had that you don't. I made my opportunity and you could too if you can let go of the I can't do it rant.

You remind me of my brother before he became an upstanding citizen, all his problems were from a world that created them. Then one day he woke up. Hopefully your day will arrive if it doesn't you will always participate in being exploited by the rich and powerful. Until then it falls on deaf ears. I have met many people that made a great life from other countries without the slightest help, never complained just did it, sacrificed, became wealthy and never blamed anyone. I have said all of this in previous post.

Only a snot nosed kid would call me an old fart. LOL

Ack. Investment banking and flipping houses.

originally posted by: NavyDoc
If you show up on time and do your job, you will not make minimum wage for long. Every "minimum wage" job I had as a teenager rapidly went up above minimum wage after a few months because I showed up and was dependable. If an adult relies on minimum wage, he or she is doing something wrong.

I'm 30, have a college degree, have some certificates beyond that, have years of experience, and have a great work ethic. I still get minimum wage. The worlds not the way it used to be.

If you rely on someone else for your wage, you'll never be paid fairly. That is what I've learned. It's also why I'm trying my hand at starting a business, but that's still a couple years out to finish my product.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Whaaaaaat?

Let me lay a fact on you:

- Denmark is THE country in EU that takes the most refugees from the middle east.
We bring in more than all the others combined.
Most of them end up staying for good. We might be homogenous, but we are difinitely not in a racial sense....

originally posted by: AlaskanDad
In the US of A fastfood workers struggle to make ends meet, yet in Denmark the same fastfood industry pays a fair wage, whats up with that?

Well first we are talking about a country that is the size of a big American city, so kind of hard to compare a city size country to one that is 310 million.

Second, what is their taxes there? I see it has averaged 61% is that good?

a reply to: Xtrozero
I always enjoy it when people join the conversation 20 pages later and haven't bothered to read it.

originally posted by: pexx421
a reply to: Xtrozero

I always enjoy it when people join the conversation 20 pages later and haven't bothered to read it.

sorry topic wasn't that interesting to read 20 pages...

a reply to: onequestion

So now you want to decide what is an acceptable job, and how much income? Good lord the youngsters in this country with this attitude will sink this country for sure. You can finish what the liberals have started. He lives in CA. maybe he could compete with the hispanics for construction jobs. I know he could flip burgers instead of homes and make $8.00 hr.

I think the phrase they use on ATS is pfft...

a reply to: Aazadan


"If you rely on someone else for your wage, you'll never be paid fairly. That is what I've learned. It's also why I'm trying my hand at starting a business, but that's still a couple years out to finish my product.

I am yelling YES! right now.

a reply to: pexx421
".....its not about taking money from the rich. Its about stopping the rich from taking the money from the poor. You and all your peers seem to fail to realize that this IS a competition for resources, a class war, if you will. Over the last 40 years the CEO's, the shareholders, the business owners have taken the vast majority of profit from the increase in our productivity for themselves, and left none for the rest. They do it based off of financial instruments (MBS, etc), and reductions in pay and benefits, shifting the costs to the workers and the customers"

Your post, above, made me scramble around in my bedside table for my login password just to say 'Bravo!' I usually browse ATS in bed, & after a browser cache clear-out, it takes a humdinger thread to get me to dig out the 'ol trusty credentials.

Whatever one makes of it, this is healthy debate and I am eating it up with a spoon. Thanks, you two, MarlinGrace (old fart, by one account) and pexx421 (bleedin heart, by one account), and the others who have contributed numbers and quick retorts with more numbers. If only political candidates debated like this...

Gotta be honest, no lie, I did just have an egg McMuffin. When my spouse goes out for a guilty pleasure, he doesnt come home empty-handed.

From Bloomberg Business Week via Slate:
"Using data from executive compensation firm Equilar, it ranks the pay of 200 highly compensated CEOs and plots it against their company’s stock performance. The resulting pattern is almost completely random, as if someone fired bird shot at a wall. “The comparison makes it look as if there is zero relationship between pay and performance,” note writers Eric Chemi and Ariana Giorgi."
Article, with buckshot graph, here

Visual representation of earnings of low-paid to CEOs over the decadesa reply to: kkrattiger

originally posted by: Xtrozero

originally posted by: AlaskanDad
In the US of A fastfood workers struggle to make ends meet, yet in Denmark the same fastfood industry pays a fair wage, whats up with that?

Well first we are talking about a country that is the size of a big American city, so kind of hard to compare a city size country to one that is 310 million.

Second, what is their taxes there? I see it has averaged 61% is that good?

So people who live in larger countries deserve less pay????????

Paying taxes is good for the country; politicians who spend to much tax money on wars, private prisons, and in placing us in a police state are bad.

originally posted by: MarlinGrace


the wife is a CFO

Now I understand your fight for the status quo, if it works for you and your family why change anything.

originally posted by: AlaskanDad

originally posted by: MarlinGrace


the wife is a CFO

Now I understand your fight for the status quo, if it works for you and your family why change anything.

And this is why I don't get the complaint, if it works for my family it can work for yours. If it works for illegals why not yours? If it works for legal immigrants why not yours. If it works for the 24yr old contractor working at my house right now why not yours? The opportunity is there everyone says you have to have an open mind to see the way the world really works but when it comes to this, they are closed and the door is slammed shut, welded closed, with armed guards in front. This is a simple mindset, and you can set it to seeking opportunity and never accepting less than success or you can say it will never happen and remain where you are it is your choice.

Could you imagine if Steve Jobs, Larry Page, or Bill Gates had this mind set? What if Obama had the same mindset as you? No wonder the Bushes like it status quo it has worked for their whole family, Chicago is the place for Obama flipp'in burgers because there is no where to go.

originally posted by: kkrattiger
From Bloomberg Business Week via Slate:
"Using data from executive compensation firm Equilar, it ranks the pay of 200 highly compensated CEOs and plots it against their company’s stock performance. The resulting pattern is almost completely random, as if someone fired bird shot at a wall. “The comparison makes it look as if there is zero relationship between pay and performance,” note writers Eric Chemi and Ariana Giorgi."
Article, with buckshot graph, here

This happens everyday everywhere, how many times have you said my boss is a idiot? It is one of the things that made me become self employed I thought hell if this knucklehead can do it then it should be easy for me. It was never easy it was sheer determination, working, changing, adjusting, seeking opportunity, finding a niche, looking for that thing I was good at, then finding that niche within my skill set to make the most money. Hard work, drive, never saying no I can't do it, will power every cliche' but they are the truth in the end.

What you find out in the end is it was about you, and not the obstacles in your way. Think of it as driving through a busy city with major traffic, are you going to sit and bitch about traffic, the buildings in the way, people on the street, trash in the gutters, red lights up the wazoo or keep driving and get to the end? It takes desire, determination, and never give up.

For me the CEO making big money is like the cop getting to run red lights. So what? Good for him. I have my drive to do to make it, lets go.

again, marlin, missing the point. Ok, let me try to be clear about this, and put it in question format. Do you not realize that with every generation now, there is less opportunity than for the one before? Do you not realize now that America has less social mobility than it had in the past, and much less than most of Europe? Do you not realize now, that people performing a job today will get less real compensation than a person performing the exact same job 15 years ago? And that 15 years ago it was less for that person than for someone 25 years ago? Do you not realize that over the last 30 years corporations and executives and shareholders have used manipulation, bribery, lax immigration policies, outsourcing, specifically in an attack on the middle class to force the workers share of profit down, while driving their own up (not through more productivity, but from stealing it from the workers)? Because, I have to say, all of your posts sound like you are ignoring all of these facts. Please just answer those questions.

One more thing, understand this.....we all know that it is POSSIBLE to succeed. We all know that its POSSIBLE to thrive. But statistically, and empirically (all you have to do is look around) it is becoming less and less likely to do so. Less and less people are doing so. So my question now is.....are people being born now just less intelligent, strong willed, hard working than you? Because if you think that is the case, I can point you to many other nations where everyone is stronger and smarter than you, and show that they experience detrimental social change that affects the vast population as well. Take a moment to realize, every generation wants to scoff at the ones coming after for not doing as well.....despite the fact that often it is in some part the responsibility of the ones that came before to help them do so (failed). But the fact is, people in actuality are really much the same from generation to generation. Its the environment that changes. And our environment now, that you seem to have such a hard on for defending, is obviously detrimental to the development of an effective, healthy, secure society. And your berating them for the lack of protections, freedom, and opportunity to get ahead (that your generation squandered) is ungracious and unjustified.

originally posted by: AlaskanDad

So people who live in larger countries deserve less pay????????

Paying taxes is good for the country; politicians who spend to much tax money on wars, private prisons, and in placing us in a police state are bad.

What I'm saying is that your system only works when you have more producers than consumers. Human nature will take the easiest path and so the consumers continually grow. As the producers keep less and less of their hard earn wage they too find that being a consumer is easier... You end up with a Greece...

My other point is just because Denmark is a country it does not mean all countries are compared equally due to the vast differences and size, so what might work within a small population with a certain type of cultural doesn't mean it works in others just the same.

Oh BTW screw 61% tax...just saying...I would end up being a consumer real quick and just sit home typing on ATS all day.

a reply to: Xtrozero what do you mean by producer, exactly? If you mean the owners of the corporations....then over time it is easy to see here, that the producers are taking a larger and larger portion of the hard earned wage. Further, Greece is not about anything like that. Greece is about mortgage backed securities and credit default swaps (mostly by US run companies), tanking the economy of the world. Then austerity was imposed by the IMF and the WB in order to allow all the greek services and resources to be divvied up to western corporations for pennies on the dollar....just like every other nation we try to impose austerity on. Further, human nature does not take the easiest path. Human nature battered by hopelessness and pathology takes the easier path. Human nature at its leisure climbs mountains, builds pyramids, and creates great works of art. It is your society of capitalistic implied hopelessness that robs human nature of its majesty. Wisdom, creativity, compassion, humanity, all these thrive with cultivation and leisure time to contemplate and learn from the human existence. Our capital, consumer society where people scurry 40-70 hours each week in the rat race to provide shelter and food.....they rob us of our god given gift of creative divinity. When people aren't getting enough sleep, food, security, then you find the drive for the path of least resistance. Lastly....61% tax....when you get free healthcare, free education, plenty vacation and family time, maternity and PATERNITY leave, and pay while you do all these things. That makes the majority of that 49% left over disposable income.....something almost non existant in the us.