I think the two keys to Danish satisfaction with life is the lack of the Joneses or the American Dream trappings combined with a full social safety net.

They don't have to worry about health care or retirement. School is not only paid for but your paid while you go to school, maternity leave and unemployment assure you can get by during those times.

Here we spend so much of our time and motivation toward covering for these issues or recovering from these issues. People frequently make their life choices based on overcoming these high costs or losses they incur.

So many times in the states living on less can mean you have to live in a bad neighborhood with crime and poor schools. I can't begin to tell you how many people live at the edge of their means in order to have somewhere safe for their kids with a functional school system.

I think the big question is still, would you give up the potential to have a yacht, a new benz and a mansion as a trade off for doing what you love and having all the uncertainty in life covered? I think many people would say yes.

The high tax rate there is frequently used to say their system is wrong and ours is better. But if you look financially as all the money you spend out of pocket on health care, health insurance, student loans, and over time losses you incur catching up from lost jobs, maternity leave and all those other negative financial events it could easily add up to the difference between our tax rate and theirs.

Another frequently used comment about Danish styles of socialism is that if we did that here people would take advantage of the system. I think a large part of the reason it work there is mentality of the people. We have created the system cheater as a byproduct of our culture. If someone that was the stereotype of a lazy system cheater in the U.S. were to be transplanted into Danish culture I think it would be such a drastic issue the person might end up in jail. The level of crime and "I got mine" mentality that the worst examples of our society carry simply would not be tolerated there.

I would be really interested to see what the crime rate and corruption incidents are like in Denmark.