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Taken from the comments of the article on The Copenhagen Post titled Home sweet home?

I’m a foreigner of Danish descent who recently contemplated a homecoming. I must have a genetic memory because my politics are socialist, egalitarian, and trend toward communal efforts to solve common problems: Ride bicycles and tax the smog-spewing gas guzzlers off the road; build wind turbines and PV panels; enact universal health care; recycle everything; and run tram, metro, and rail lines everywhere. And besides, the self-evident beauty of Danish furniture design and household items must surely reflect more refined national sensibilities, no?

So I thought I’d pack up my twenty years’ industry experience and hard-earned (and paid for) university education and move to the Shangri-La of equality and social rationalism. I made a plan and undertook research on language acquisition, potential employer targeting, etc., which led me to this column. Thank you all for your comments. I’ve read enough to draw these conclusions with confidence:

It’s clear to me that The National Network for Foreign Employees is a quixotic undertaking because the average Dane doesn’t want to assimilate immigrants, and 4.5M DKK won’t change that. I’m staying at home because I’d be unwelcome in DK by everyone but the bankers and captains of industry. Sure, you want my skills on board, but you really don’t want me. I understand. The Saudis feel the same way about their Filipino maids. Evidently, DK firms don’t pay enough to offset this inhospitability.

While I’m in love with the idea and ideals of Denmark, I shouldn’t be surprised to learn that foremost among them is the impulse to cultural self preservation. I understand and applaud this sentiment. If there’s anything the Scandinavians understand better than most—and have since 8 June 793 CE—is the mentality and consequence of invasion and cultural imperialism. Here’s a tiny country of 5.5 million people who, save for their staunch resistance, could be swallowed up whole, their culture diluted and erased like a watercolor in the rain. (Thanks Al Stewart.)

It is no longer longboats, but a never-ending flotilla of global media that threatens to erode a sense of distinct Danish identity, of community, and of safety in homologation. While the media can’t be staunched, Denmark can hold the line on immigration which is like spice in one’s food—a little is good, but a lot is not. The debate is not unique to Denmark, but perhaps most Danes understand this in their bones because they’re clear on the question: Denmark is for Danes.

Less clear are the economic consequences that could be more uniquely Danish. If there really are 40K highly skilled jobs unfilled by 2015, the trend could spell deep trouble for the nation because there’s no easy remedy for popular sentiments of national insularity.

What if the luxurious Danish system of free education until the age of 30 should prove insufficient to incentivize the emerging native work force to acquire adequate skills to meet the nation’s needs? As “tomnashdk—ranting Brit” began calculating above, 33 percent of Danes work for the government, 6 percent are unemployed, 18 percent are under 14 years old, and 16 percent are over 65 years of age—that leaves roughly 27 percent of Danes to do economically productive work today. Never mind the retiring boomers tomorrow.

Is it possible that DK needs expats more than expats need DK?

The news gets worse: The median age in DK is 40.5 years—boomers are trending greyer at the extreme top end of the global scale—while the population growth rate is a meager 0.28 percent (1.74 children born/woman in 2009) in spite of all the family emphasis. There’s a net migration rate of 2.48 per thousand (i.e., leaving DK) as well. My question is this: In 30 years, who’s going to keep the lights on and pay the pensions? As the CIA World Factbook notes, “A major long-term issue [facing DK] will be the sharp decline in the ratio of workers to retirees.” The Danish labor force will need to be highly skilled and productive indeed. Could this be the conundrum pondered by the bankers and Chamber of Commerce behind NNFE? There’s no surprise, then, that expats are taxed for pensions they’ll never collect—the DK government knows what it’s doing: Velkommen, fjols!

Given workforce trends, the final decision may be one that most Danes aren’t ready contemplate: cultural self preservation versus, well, self preservation. To bend the trend, Danish leaders will need to do more than throw kroner at a website and te-og-kiks parties.

Here’s my counteroffer, Danmark: If you recruit and employ my proven skill set, and you don’t have to pay for my education or retirement, then I shouldn’t have to pay for yours. Fair enough? I’ll learn your language. Call off your taxes and make it eronomically worth my while to endure your social ostracism during the term of my residency. Institute a defined, uniform guest-worker program of attractive terms, with special attention to limitations in scope and duration. Create an discrete, enlightened, and streamlined ministry to process guest workers in and OUT (bypassing byzantine bureaucracy), and wrangle greedy landlords. Allow me to register my car at EU norms, but force me to take it home when I leave. Fair! We won’t talk about citizenship—it’s not on the table.

Place a sell-by date on every foreign worker and perhaps the average insular Dane will be more amenable to the idea of temporary guests and less inclined to see them as raiders come to plunder cultural norms and repay the questionable karma of their Viking forefathers. “In three or five years this stranger will go home with a better understanding of our country, so maybe I can summon a modicum of hospitability.” Works for everyone, right?

Short of that, and notwithstanding my ideals, I can only conclude that my most recent Danish ancestors made the right decision.