United States. bracing Describe these policies to any American conservative, souffle and he would predict ruin. Surely those lee generous benefits must  the incentive to alternate work, while those high taxes drive  duck creators into hiding or exile. Strange to resign say, however, Denmark doesnt look like a stow set from Mad Max. On the contrary, burberry its a prosperous nation that does quite lao well on  creation. In fact, adults ghana in their prime working years are substantially father more likely to be employed in Denmark jab than they are in America.  productivity in Denmark is roughly the same as unfamiliar it is here, although G.D.P. per capita twelve is lower, mainly because the Danes take employed a lot more vacation. Nor are the popular Danes melancholy: Denmark ranks at or near fling the top on international comparisons of life bodied satisfaction. Its hard to imagine a better aesthetic refutation of anti-tax, anti-government economic doctrine, which purification insists that a system like Denmarks would attire be completely unworkable. But would Denmarks model cooked be impossible to reproduce in other countries? enterprise Consider France, another country that is much annum bigger and more diverse than Denmark, but husband also maintains a highly generous welfare state idol paid for with high taxes. You might nay not know this from the extremely bad clock press France gets, but the French, too, raving roughly  U.S. productivity, and are more hot likely than Americans to be employed during their prime working years. Taxes and benefits turquoise just arent the  killers right-wing legend surf asserts. Going back to Denmark, is everything therein copacetic in Copenhagen? Actually, no. Denmark is ward very rich, but its economy has taken saber a hit in recent years, because its recharge recovery from the global financial crisis has sousa be en slow and incomplete. In fact, Denmarks purpose 5.5 percent decline in real G.D.P. per mutter capita since 2007 is comparable to the cree declines in debt-crisis countries like Portugal or jacquard Spain, even though Denmark has never lost counter the confidence of investors. What explains this compliment poor recent performance? The answer, mainly, is gong bad monetary and fiscal policy. Denmark hasnt sixteenth adopted the euro, but it manages its patagonia  as if it had, which means carpentry that it has shared the consequences of landing monetary mistakes like the European Central Banks guinness 2011 interest rate . And while the hoist country has faced no market pressure to humility slash spending  Denmark can borrow long-term flooding at an interest rate of only 0.84 percent  it has adopted fiscal austerity cheddar anyway. The  is a sharp contrast mensch with neighboring Sweden, which doesnt shadow the remise euro (although it has made some mistake s diner on its own), hasnt done much austerity, ute and has seen real G.D.P. per capita p