[ThomPete]

It's a European cultural issue. Denmark is not any different.

There are big discussions in Denmark right now about how to create growth. So the following can be applied to Germany as well I think.

I am saddened to see that most politicians thinking is:

1. Education 2. Green Tech (Wind Mills and Wave Mills primarily with government funding. Yes you heard that right) 3. Upgrading your education 4. Education 5. Innovation

All completely useless. And here is why:

1. Less than 5% of people with higher education in Denmark starts companies.

2. Green tech is not a thing. It's a term a vague one like UX. Let it go on record that the next bubble will be the green tech bubble.

What we should be talking about is technology, chemistry, biology, physics and various combinations of those.

Instead as seem to be the case in most of Europe eager to ditch nuclear (an actually fairly environmentally friendly energy source) governments are betting on specific technologies. Completely disregarding that it's impossible to get any proper economy into them anytime soon.

What can I say, sigh...

3. Denmark has a fairly large group of blue collars. Of course it makes some sense to try and upgrade them and I am sure it helps with some of them. But the battle to get a proper production industry up and running is simply futile and wont work.

First of all, the danish salaries are some of the highest in the world. Danes have some of the most protecting laws to the blue collar worker (no I am not at all against that, just trying to explain why it wont work) That means we are loosing to Germany and Poland and Sweden.

Danish Engineer ca. 40.000 DKK Polish Engineer ca. 15.000 DKK Indian Engineer ca. 5.000 DKK (if not less)

Just to show you the difference here. Anyone having done outsourcing knows that the quality can be different but it really depends on what kind of project we are talking about.

Second. The US lost 4 million jobs to the Chinese between 98-04. In the same period of time the chinese lost 18 million jobs to ... the robots.

Everything that can be automated will be automated and believing that we can somehow resurrect an industry that never really where that competitive is just pure insanity. Even engineers are loosing jobs.

4. Yes education once again. This is just to illustrate how much the government believe in this. Recently a study was done that showed that companies with most Phds had the highest revenue. This was then used as a proof to show just how important education is for the future of this country.

Now anyone who have spent just a couple of days on HN knows one of the biggest fallacies gets called out here.

"Correlation != causation"

Of course the other take on this story could be. The companies with the highest turnover had the most Phds hired.

The report made no attempt to claim connection between the number of Phds and the financial success of the company. No. Leave that the to the politicians.

5. According to our politicians we are supposed to grow from the experience economy and through innovation. Our cultural minister even have made a "task force" of cultural celebrities from around europe who are to travel around europe and find out how to use art as a vehicle for growth and innovation.

Yes you heard it right. This is the kind of insanity we are dealing with here.

Never mind that saying we need innovation has as little effect on the ability of a country to innovate as saying green tech creates green technology. The politicians actually believe that they can intellectualize growth and progress.

In other words. Everything that is right about SV is wrong about Denmark and my guess most places in Europe.

[_delirium]

My impression (foreigner in Denmark) is that visibility and what "counts" is some of the problem as well. For example, university masters programs track employment statistics of their graduates, but the statistics, in many cases, count people who start their own businesses as basically in the "not employed" bucket, so there's no incentive for universities to promote entrepreneurship, and to the extent they do, they get no credit for it anyway. The statistics are basically looking for, "graduated, got a job at Maersk".

I don't think the salaries are the issue, though, because Danish engineering salaries, while nice, are slightly lower than Silicon Valley, so they can't be the main difference.

Another complaint I've heard is that there are some issues around entrepreneurship and the social-welfare system, because if you start a company and it fails, you aren't eligible for the same benefits as an employee who joins a business and then gets fired. That's also true in the U.S. (no unemployment insurance for entrepreneurs), but the U.S. social-welfare system is weaker so it's not as big a differentiator; losing the a-kasse is a bigger deal. On the other hand, the fact that Danish startups get free healthcare for themselves and employees is a plus.

[ThomPete]

Salaries are not the issue for engineers. But for production blue collar it kind of is. That plus the fact that automation is really starting to kick in.

I mean in 30 years from now, can you see construction workers build houses the way they do today in most modern societies?

I certainly can't and yet some young guys today is going to choose to work in that field because that is what they think they can manage.

I mean hell even the creative industry is feeling the heat in many ways.

Danish healthcare is a plus but I think it's only a matter of time before we will see the end of it.

It's unsustainable because you can never put enough money into healthcare. 100% taxes arent enough to compensate.

The US system is broken in many ways but so is the Danish. It's just not visible yet.

[stdbrouw]

With all due respect, but it feels like you're railing against those political priorities because they don't suit you, not because they are wrong.

I would love to have a startup hub somewhere in Europe (C'mon London, kick it up a notch!) but there are tons of other ways for governments to create jobs and further the economy.

We shouldn't automatically assume that fostering tech startups is macroeconomically superior to, say, creating an environment that's enticing to big multinationals.

[ThomPete]

The challenge is not to create jobs. That is relatively easy.

The challenge is to create businesses that can sustain themselves and thus help grow the economy.

What do you mean with "they don't suit you" how wouldn't growth of danish economy suit me if that was the case?

[stdbrouw]

> The challenge is to create businesses that can sustain themselves and thus help grow the economy.

Again, what evidence is there that tech startups achieve this goal more easily than any alternative?

> how wouldn't growth of danish economy suit me if that was the case?

You'd appreciate any kind of economic growth, I suppose, but wouldn't you prefer it if, in the process, you got a vibrant startup scene out of it, rather than if it happened all through education and clean tech? Nothing wrong with that, it's just that, say, your average student or blue collar worker would have a different perspective. The government's job is to figure out what would make most people happy, not what would make techies happy.

[ThomPete]

"Again, what evidence is there that tech startups achieve this goal more easily than any alternative?"

Where did I claim that?

I was showing evidence and argument that the proclaimed solution from the government isn't going to solve what they attempt to solve. I.e. just because you have better educated population doesn't mean that you get growth.

I suppose, but wouldn't you prefer it if, in the process, you got a vibrant startup scene out of it, rather than if it happened all through education and clean tech?

Can you please explain why I should prefer that?

[pablasso]

You're lucky. I'd love it if our politicians in Mexico had those priorities.

[omegant]

Don´t worry we are far off in Spain... :(

[ido]

It seems more germanic/nordic (demark is both) thing than european.