The price is not right

The first thing that struck me (not to say shocked me) when I arrived in Denmark wasn’t the weather, or how good-looking people were, or the strange ubiquity of the flag (all of which I promise to address more thoroughly in due course). No, it was how much things cost. All things.

If I could chart the progression of my life by the average cost of living in the cities I live in, it would be pretty much a straight upward curve. When I moved from Tel Aviv to New York in the 90’s, I quickly found out that everything cost more, but it made absolute sense – it was, after all, New York. A far cry from the remote ‘village’ of Tel Aviv. A few years later I moved to London and was surprised to find that everything in London was roughly 50% more expensive than New York, and as the Pound got stronger it became twice more expensive (for those poor souls like me who kept translating prices to US Dollars in their minds). At that point I started missing New York, where things were more readily available, at a greater variety and much much cheaper. But after a while I got used to London, with its ‘limited’ availability of products, and its ‘high’ prices.

And now I arrive in Denmark, and the curve takes a dramatic swing upwards. I’m in total shock. By now I translate all prices to GB Pounds, which obviously doesn’t help with today’s unfavourable GBP/EUR exchange rate, but still – everything feels so expensive. Can I get used to this, too? Can I get used to most things being half the size and double the price compared to London (from deodorants and toothpaste, to coffee and chocolate, and all the way up to cars…)? Not to mention the extremely limited assortment and variety of products, compared to London and New York.

And the thing I’m finding even more shocking, is that Danes don’t seem to mind too much. “Don’t you find prices quite high?” I kept asking all our friends here. “I guess so, never really thought about it much,” the typical answer would be. Never really thought about it? It’s probably the most expensive city in the world and you haven’t really thought about it? “It’s more expensive in Oslo, isn’t it?” some would reply. “Maybe”, I’d say “but they pay half the taxes you do, so I’d say they’re a bit better off…”

You see, the comfort I had all those years, as I moved to New York and then to London, was that my salary kept rising at a greater pace than the cost of living, and so I was still better off despite the higher prices. Not so here – senior level salaries are significantly lower than both New York and London, and the taxes are roughly double! I’m not a math genius, but something just doesn’t add up here: lower salaries, higher taxes, significantly higher prices, and the happiest people in the world! In my book people should be demonstrating in the streets, conducting consumer boycotts of the brands or companies that really go too far (am I the only one who thinks it’s crazy for restaurants to charge for tap water??), and voting for some sort of price regulation. None of this is happening. What am I missing?

“You don’t get it,” said one friend. “Prices were always high here, so we’re used to it. And starting salaries are quite high compared to the rest of Europe, so people feel they can afford what they need, and they understand that high staff costs translate into higher product and service prices. The VAT is also higher here but everyone knows it pays for valuable public services. Plus, people don’t feel the need to save money here as much as elsewhere because the state is there to help out in cases of unemployment, sickness, retirement and so on. In addition to all that, it’s always nice to feel the rest of the world is cheap when you travel abroad!”

Maybe. To me, a place that has a combination of the highest taxes and the highest prices in the world is one where people are squeezed from both ends. Then again, perhaps that’s the beauty of the Danes – the ability to see the glass half full. It’s not Denmark that’s expensive; it’s the rest of the world that’s cheap…