chartz wrote:

Of course Jeff.

I for one would love to have such a hifi equipment in my 16-year-old Opel Omega... whose speakers badly need a re-foam job!

 

Hi Jacques,

Well I frankly admit that I am quite impressed with the old Ford stereo in my car. I did have to replace one speaker, which is no longer available, but once acquired, the four speaker system sounds remarkably concert hall quality.

Most people would not go to the trouble to replace a 14 year old car’s speaker with an OM speaker, but though the car is an “appliance” I am a car aficionado. The dealer has never commented, but I rather suspect that they are stunned that everything still works on the car: electric windows, door locks, powered sunroof, AC, and of course the radio.

Pop the hood and the engine looks like a six month old car and that’s the truth. 🙂

Jeff

Mikkel Petersen wrote:

Here in Denmark AUDI is like "the poor mans Mercedes," but still a very expensive car.
Denmark has the highest registration taxes in the world, so generally not many people can afford to even buy an AUDI A4.
Mostly Danes buy Peugeots, Toyotas, Kias, Suzukis and Chevrolet New Generation (the dull European built ones).

In Denmark an AUDI A4 easily cost 100.000€, same goes for Volvo's. A fully configures Volvo S40 like I have, though mine is far from fully configured, costs 130.000€ here.

So though you can create stereotypes around cars and their respective owners, there're generally not that many owners to choose from, when you look beyond the boring cars:)

Something as extravagant as an AUDI A8 or Mercedes S-Class only get a couple of sales in their entire model lifespan, the rest are imported from Germany when they've reached a certain age.

For the record, the registration in Denmark is like this, the initial 100kDKK is taxed by 100%, everything above is taxed by 180%, plus you pay 25% VAT of the price. So a car that from factory costs 100kDKK, ends up costing 250kDKK before it has plates. A car that costs 1mDKK ends up costing 1.000.000 * 1,25 + (100.000 * 1) + (1,125.000 * 1,8) = 3.600.000DKK.

If it's a motorcycle, the 180% is 200% instead.

You see my point?;)

 

Cheers, Mikkel:)

Hello Mikkel,

Wow, and I thought Washington State was bad. I come from Florida where a license plate for a new Rolls-Royce cost about $30, so when I registered my cars in Washington State I was shocked that it cost from $400 to about $1,200 depending on the price of the car. And as I had all older collector cars, the state told me what it would cost for the license plate/registration and that was NOT open to discussion.

Here in British Columbia sales tax comes to 12% but Denmark is in a league by itself!  

Jeff

Mikkel Petersen wrote:

Here in Denmark AUDI is like "the poor mans Mercedes," but still a very expensive car.
Denmark has the highest registration taxes in the world, so generally not many people can afford to even buy an AUDI A4.
Mostly Danes buy Peugeots, Toyotas, Kias, Suzukis and Chevrolet New Generation (the dull European built ones).

In Denmark an AUDI A4 easily cost 100.000€, same goes for Volvo's. A fully configures Volvo S40 like I have, though mine is far from fully configured, costs 130.000€ here.

I have been watching the Danish political drama "Borgen" and I was surprised to see the Prime Minister being chauffeured in an upmarket VW ... now I know why 😁

Yup, we're quite something here;)

The worst part about it all, is since we have high taxes, people need to make more before tax, making our companies the least competitive for exporting. So often when you for instance look at the price of Danish timber, versus German timber. The German company might be 30% cheaper than the Danish, but the German company still make 25% more, due to a German uneducated worker costing only 2/3 of a Danish, plus usually having larger volume:/

We have almost no production left in Denmark, and more or less live solely of niche products such as, medical instruments, pharmaceuticals, stage lighting, measuring instruments, wind mills, software development. The rest of the workforce are pretty much making their money on cutting each others hair, so to speak.

In fact in Denmark there're roughly three times as many government employees as private sector employees, and at the same time we have one of the smallest defense budgets in the world, with very few career soldiers employed. In fact a single US Aircraft Carrier have more planes on board than the total number of aeroplanes in the Royal Danish Air Force and the Royal Danish Navy combined.

Room for thought...

The ironic thing here is actually, that government vehicles are tax and VAT free, since you'd effectively just be moving money around the same pit😎

Mikkel Petersen wrote:

Yup, we're quite something here;)

The worst part about it all, is since we have high taxes, people need to make more before tax, making our companies the least competitive for exporting. So often when you for instance look at the price of Danish timber, versus German timber. The German company might be 30% cheaper than the Danish, but the German company still make 25% more, due to a German uneducated worker costing only 2/3 of a Danish, plus usually having larger volume:/

We have almost no production left in Denmark, and more or less live solely of niche products such as, medical instruments, pharmaceuticals, stage lighting, measuring instruments, wind mills, software development. The rest of the workforce are pretty much making their money on cutting each others hair, so to speak.

In fact in Denmark there're roughly three times as many government employees as private sector employees, and at the same time we have one of the smallest defense budgets in the world, with very few career soldiers employed. In fact a single US Aircraft Carrier have more planes on board than the total number of aeroplanes in the Royal Danish Air Force and the Royal Danish Navy combined.

Room for thought...

The incredibly high Danish tax rate unquestionably affects exports; however look the world over and you will find that manufacturing has largely left the western world for China, Malaysia, Viet Nam, India, Bangladesh, etc. The high taxes only makes an unsustainable situation worse.

In regard to the sensible Danish military budget consider the US military budget which exceeds the next seven largest military budgets COMBINED! Got that? You add up the second largest military budget, the third, through the seventh and the US spends MORE!

Take the Abrams tank that the US spent a half billion dollars developing a new version that cost $436,000,000….. and for equipment that the Army doesn’t want or need.

Numbers and I are not friends; however the jest of what I said is correct. So folks, high taxes notwithstanding, I believe Denmark has got it right.

Jeff

Well I guess I'm the only BeoTrekkie on the forum.  The commercial is brilliant!   May it (and he) 'Live Long and Prosper'.  'Saw Shatner in person at a Barnes & Noble book signing event a few years ago.  It's still a thrill.

MediaBobNY wrote:

Well I guess I'm the only BeoTrekkie on the forum.  The commercial is brilliant!   May it (and he) 'Live Long and Prosper'.  'Saw Shatner in person at a Barnes & Noble book signing event a few years ago.  It's still a thrill.

Not to worry Bob, you ain’t the only Trekkie at BeoWorld. I loved the original series, never missed it, AND the movies that followed.

Personally I thought the whole Audi commercial was clever as heck, extremely well done down to the extended golf club that wouldn’t fit into the Mercedes-Benz trunk.

The end with the Vulcan death grip was excruciatingly well done. Bravo! 🤩 🤩 🤩

Jeff

Jeff,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Agreed.  The original series still airs on cable here (Me-TV).  And in case you couldn't figure out why he was singing that ditty in the car,

I like the TT driving off on its own at the end