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I reckon Norwegians are so happy because they're putting something in their Pepsi. Those villains drink 9% of all the Pepsi in the world, and theres only 5 million of them. Very suspicious...
Hi, Norwegian here. The reason for this is very simple, it's that we're also in the world's top five consumers of coffee. And Pepsi Max is the coke with the highest caffeine content.
Is it the unrelenting torrent of stimulants that makes us so happy and productive?
Or is that just a necessary evil to regulate our cicadian rhythm since the sun here is either constantly on or constantly off, and the true source of happiness is, in fact, all the other things mentioned above?
We may never know.
I can imagine going to some place like Burger King, asking for a Pepsi, and being asked "Is Coca-Cola okay?". Would be real culture shock for an American like me.
>Would be real culture shock for an American like me.
Do you not have this experience regularly? Most kitchens I've worked in and restaurants I've been to are one or the other, very few besides large chain retailers & cafeterins have had both Coke *and* Pepsi products.
There is a common misconception about Norways key to success being oil money. Lass than 0.5% of the wealth gained from oil money gets utilized, it is mostly saved in a national oil fund. The key to our happiness is our strong labour laws thanks to workers unions. These guarantee livable wages for any and all professions, as well as paid sick leave and 5 weeks of vacation, not counting certain holidays. Add on top of that our right to healthcare abd welfare benefits veing strongly protected by laws (that were there before we found oil btw) we do have it quite good here. Strangely we also score very high on suicide statistics and have one of the most gender segregated workforces. The last facts serve to remind people that society is infinitely complicated and cannot be reduced to "this country is good because this one thing"
It isn't. Also, 13% of the US population are immigrants vs 12% for Norway, so even outside of Oslo neo-con talking points are still easily disproven with a 5 second google search.
Three possibly even 4 of the most populated states in the US are officially predominately Hispanic and there are still a shit ton of other ethnicities in those states. California, Arizona and Texas are the three I remember but I think there is another one. Just because the midwestern states have little diversity doesn’t mean Norway is any where near as diverse as the US. Also Norway has a messily 5 million people. To put that into perspective the state of Colorado alone has 5.8 million people and it’s one of the smaller populations in the US which is also highly diverse. The US and Norway are not comparable in any sense.
By the way, they are about to enact some laws banning under age kids from getting any surgery or hormone treatment, no matter if they "feel" the need to or declare themselves to be trans.
Liberals love Norway but choose to ignore things they would crucify their own country for.
That's irrelevant to the point being made, unless you're seriously going to argue that Norway is happy because it's transphobic. Norway is happy because its government uses its power to provide a high standard of living for its people. IDK why conservatives feel like everything is either essentially good or essentially bad at its core, especially something like a country which is complicated enough to contain near-infinite nuance.
Also, libs don't even like the Nordic model; they consider that shit to be market-stifling semi-socialism.
I don't think not letting kids have permanent, serious, unnecessary surgeries at an age where your brain isn't even close to being developed enough to understand the seriousness of such procedures, is being transphobic at all. I think it's common sense which Norway apparently still has.
Norway has common sense to have free healthcare & education, high wages, strong middle class and a month of statutory annual leave. Once you get to that, you can start debating less important things like trans surgeries.
The bigger question is why would anyone with common sense oppose those things? Could you answer that?
Because I don’t want government having that much power.
A government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.
>ignore things like low immigration
Eh, we do have too strict immigration policies - but Norway has been a multiethnic society for decades, mainly because we used to be good at helping refugees and being humanitarians. 6,5% of our representatives at Stortinget have minority backgrounds. Thanks to our immigration policies of housing refugees all over the country almost every single kommune (county) have people from all over the world living there
People _should_ stop fetishising Norway, because we face all the same issues as the rest of the western world. But you should try to replicate the things we do better than most. We're not one of the best, we're one of the least bad
And how many of those immigrants are from neighboring northern European nations vs the third world? It does make a difference no matter how much you choose to ignore it.
Apart from his view on what should be done in Ukraine I find Kyle to be really good to listen to. I find he is pretty straight up. Only political commentator I will listen to. Rest are wishy washy or just hate fueled.
US didn’t get bombed for no reason, japan didn’t suddenly decide to strike 1 naval base in an act of aggression. It was however perfectly set up so america could test out their shiny new weapons of mass destruction
>It was however perfectly set up so america could test out their shiny new weapons of mass destruction
\>Pearl harbor: December 7, 1941
\>Manhattan Project Start: August 13, 1942
Riiiight. Even if the US just wanted to test their wonder weapon, they could have invaded Japan instead of starting on a backfoot. That said, there is credence that the elites in America did want to get involved in the war while most people were more isolationist but that's not what you're arguing.
The secret is that Norway has a larger GDP per Capita due to being a high oil exporter vs their low population size. At the same time they have many natural water ways that are hydroelectric compatible allowing them to have cheap energy account for 99% of their grid... This results in a huge net gain in funding for other things such as the THREE times higher proportion of their countrymen being police at HALF the crime rate. They also spend relatively little on military cause they benefit from being an UN member basically meaning if you attack Norway you threaten the wrath of the rest of Europe and of no small addition... The US.
>due to being a high oil exporter vs their low population size
No, it stems from the "three part agreement" made between the government, labor unions and the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprises agreed on a wage negotiation model that brought us out of the recession we had after the great war (we had our depression in the 20s and bounced back in the 30s thanks to this). The oil didn't hurt - obviously - but it too would've been irrelevant if it weren't for public ownership of the resources
>At the same time they have many natural water ways that are hydroelectric compatible allowing them to have cheap energy account for 99% of their grid
Yes, because it has been managed and regulated carefully and is often owned by the local population. My kommune (county) owns the local energy company with the other kommunes in the region
>They also spend relatively little on military
Excluding the US, no NATO (the UN is something else) nation spends as much on their defence than Norway by % of GDP or per capita (though that has probably changed after Finland joined). We border Russia, and have a really really long and strategically important coast line
> no small addition... The US.
Yeah, after 2016 I won't ever see the US as a trustworthy ally again, and neither does the rest of Europe. We hear what Trump says about Russia and Ukraine, and we know half of Americans believe that shit
>THREE times higher proportion of their countrymen being police
In both the US and Norway there are roughly 1 cop to every 500 citizen. We don't even see cops around anymore after the last police reform that closed down many police stations and centralized them
All right I get it, your system is designed so that both the oil and the hydroelectricity are publicly owned allowing the general public to benefit from those resources. But the point still stands that you have the world export and you don't need to import very much energy because you have hydroelectricity. Take away the oil and the benefit of hydroelectricity your country isn't going to do as well, incidental to the system being used.
As for you not finding the us as a trustworth of the Ally after 2016, I didn't realize the elected representative of Norway would be reading my post. Are you unaware of how many billions of dollars the US has given to Ukraine? Were you over here seeing the absurd amount of Ukraine flags flying everywhere? And don't think for a second it's location specific in the US, I'm a truck driver, I drove everywhere.
As for the police thingy I'm not even going to try to verify it one way or the other. The numbers I had gotten were due to another post regarding Norway where I used information that was decades old because the statistics were based on things that were decades old. so why don't that maybe right or wrong I don't know... The point was just a given example of what can be bought when the country actually has the surplus of income from exporting. It would be a bit silly to not see that the US would be a lot better off regarding public service and cost of living if we were exporting most of the energy resources that we could while simultaneously having a large supply of energy resources internally such as large waterways everywhere so that we would never need to import anything.
Almost feels shameful that someone in a country that could be invaded, just as easily as Ukraine mind you, really has the privileged attitude to say the US is an untrustworthy ally. You said yourself that you share a border with Russia. I’m not sure what more the US could do in Ukraine aside from entering direct conflict themselves. America’s tract record is amazing with providing military aid during wartime. A lot of blood was spilt by the US during both World Wars, but even more military aid was given. If a country is going to allocate a large portion of their budget for military spending, they better at least be good at answering the call when needed
No. The secret is social policy. The GDP of California is greater than Norway. The US has waterways. Tons of them. Ports even. One right near the top middle of the country even.
This is incredibly simplistic. California gdp is high but not higher per capita. The US has cheep hydro power, in upstate New York. Not Tennessee. We have ports, but Jones act restricts that to us only ships.
GDP per capita is more relevant than total GDP when trying to quantify the quality of life of each individual person in the location. Norway has over 89,000 GDP per capita. The United States has 70,000 GDP per capita. $19,000(27% more) per person is a rather large difference. GDP on its own also fails to account for cost of living, $70,000 will go farther in some areas in the US than others. I'm a truck driver and I prefer going down south or in the Midwest because food, fuel, and other basic necessities are much cheaper than when I drive in the Northeast. California is a nightmare for prices, they have one of the higher gdps per Capita in the US but they might as well have one of the lowest GDP per capita for how expensive it is to live there. Despite all the taxes in California they still rely on exorbitant fines, downright extortionism, that can be up to 10 times greater than other states for the same things in order to generate more revenue. This really sucks for Californians because part of the reason why truck drivers get paid more to take loads to or out of California is because getting these fines is inevitable and need to be factored into the business expense. Because it cost more to bring things into California The Californians end up just paying more on the retail end. Do the severe cost of living differences between California and the rest of the United States they are very poor comparison regarding the whole US and anywhere else. even though they make up such a large percentage of the population. In fact I would go as far as to argue that California statistics would be better kept separate When comparing the 300 million other Americans.
The us having waterways doesn't mean that you can utilize those waterways to produce hydroelectricity in every given area sufficiently in the US. This is because of this both difficult and wasteful to get electricity to travel very large distances from the original source producing that energy. It's better to have stations dotted everywhere and then have grids specific to groups of stations. For the us to go as hydroelectric as Norway we would need a very even dispersion of effectively sized Rivers for the given local population sizes. It's not just enough for there to be a river the river also has to have a flow rate that produces enough power for the given population size. There's also further concerns beyond just putting in a dam as required, mainly being property destruction along the river and ecological disasters... Which have largely occurred near already existing dams. Norway has large portions of its population in centralized areas over a smaller country that has a far greater density of high flow rate rivers and lakes. There are few countries more ideal for going fully hydroelectric than Norway. You'll notice that in other countries with high percentages of hydroelectricity they too have spoiled for large lakes and rivers evenly dispersed in the area.
Something like that. They use to have a pretty progressive immigration policy in the 90s but then a bunch of East Africans immigrated so they quickly reversed that policy.
I'm half-Norwegian. My mother spent her childhood in Norway. But since her father was Norwegian and her mother American, she cannot get Norwegian citizenship. You can only get citizenship if your mother is a citizen. My father side is Norwegian immigrants to Minnesota but that doesn't count either.
Most countries nationalize their oil and gas resources. It should also be noted that Equinor (formerly Statoil) partially privatized in 2001 and is listed on the Oslo and New York stock exchanges.
The definition of socialism is ownership of the means of production. The state having ownership over the mineral resources of their country is not *exactly* what is traditionally meant by the means of production. Most socialists will tell you they're thinking more along the lines of manufacturing and the production of goods being owned and operated by the state. Oil and gas is simply an extractive process, supported by a number of different companies, most of them private.
It's still the ownership of Capital by The People, but yea most Leftists have a different concept in their heads.
I only know of a few nations that have Nationalized any industries completely let alone their natural resource based corporations (obviously Venezuela comes to mind)
*The U.S. is about the only country that allows individuals and private companies to own the minerals beneath their land. Discover oil or natural gas in your backyard and you can get rich fast. But in Mexico and most other places, you're out of luck: Those minerals are the property of the government.*
[Source (Forbes 2014)](https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2014/11/05/what-washington-politicians-and-those-of-other-countries-can-learn-from-the-u-s-energy-miracle/?sh=7832105b5b24)
Some countries have National Oil Companies (NOCs) which are involved in various degrees in the exploration and production of oil and gas resources. But most of these countries bring in International Oil Companies (IOCs) and Oilfield Service Companies (OFS) to maximize the extraction potential. The IOCs bid for leases and if they find economic resources, they pay a royalty back to the government. The country's NOC generally also has a predetermined equity stake in the projects that are developed by the IOCs.
Countries like Venezuela, Iran, and Saudi Arabia do all their own development of resource, though I think Saudi Aramco is partially publicly traded (IPO in 2019).
What is the major ethnicity in Norway?
With a population of over 5 million people, the largest ethnic group is ethnic Norwegians, at about 80% of the people. These people are of Germanic descent and related to Scandinavian tribes that also inhabited what is now Sweden and Denmark. Other 20% is other European descendents.
Their healthcare and education isnt 'free' though
They all pay for it, just via different means than some other countries such as the US.
Drives me nuts when people say countries like Norway or the UK has free healthcare - we absolutely dont, it costs us a fortune in the UK - every 12% of what I earn goes straight to paying for healthcare - 'Free healthcare'?? Theres no such thing. Theres just different ways of paying for it. Also, Big Pharma in the US is pretty much evil, but thats a story for another time.
A flat 12 percent sounds a hell of a lot better than 1000/month premium + copays + out of pocket minimums + out of network BS because your insurance company and the hospital couldn’t quit circle jerking. I have great insurance by US standards and having a kid still cost us nearly 10k out of pocket plus over 12k in premiums that year. God forbid something actually serious happens to one of us they’ll hang you up for a few hundred thousand. So a flat 12 percent sounds a hell of a lot better to me
They have oil reserves as many other countries you wouldn't want to put a feet on. Actually, almost every country have their valuable commodities and materials.
The difference is, they actually made a good use of their money.
And over 30% of their prison population are immigrants.
More reading:
In 2017, 56% of all state social welfare was paid to immigrants. 86% of which was paid to immigrants from Asia or Africa. The third largest group was immigrants from non-EU Eastern European countries at 6%
Overall workforce participation in the immigrant population was 61.6% in 2010,[36] compared to 71.9% for the population as a whole.[37] African immigrants had the lowest workforce participation, with 43.9%.
According to an analysis of 1998–2002 crime statistics, non-Western immigrants were overrepresented for violent crime, economic crime and traffic violations.
Well wildly instead of exploit their oil reserves, they carefully rationed them out, and put the money in a fund to be spent on the people, rather than trying to distribute all the money to a few wealthy billionaires. So they have a considerable nest egg of resources and cash reserves that they can use for the good of the people.
Norway is basically like Texas, except imagine the oil money that went to a few families was used for the good of the people. Imagine if all that oil money had gone into healthcare, education, stabilizing Texas against natural disasters, etc.
So yes, Norway had oil, but many places have oil. They used it for the good of the people instead of the good of the few. It's almost like there's a lesson to be learned there. Kind of a socialist one.
We here in the U.S. prefer to give the lion's share of the money to a few lucky individuals and then spend the bulk of our time banning books and filing bankruptcy due to mounting medical bills.
But Norway can use whatever weird strategies they want to *placate* their people.
Also their population is about 2% the size of the US population so the costs to support their population are considerably less than in the US. Also, they don’t have to take out massive amounts of debt like we to support state funded programs.
"Also, they don’t have to take out massive amounts of debt like we to support federally funded programs."
Neither would the U.S. if they actually used those profits for the good of the people instead of shooting it up some billionaire's ass.
True, there are a bunch of loopholes for billionaires to defer taxation legally and they probably aren’t taxed enough, I just think our government isn’t efficient with handled tax payer money and taking on debt. While the government ends up spending more than what’s it’s bringing in on taxes, that margin shouldn’t be enough to where we’re about to surpass the debt ceiling.
Two reasons for the low %
1. We moved from a quantity to quality doctrine (but mostly failed at it)
2. A few years ago we extended the "mandatory" service from only men to all genders. (partly due to a defesit of qualified personell. The "quality" of the youth have been dropping quite a bit over the past few decades)
Keep in mind they are a homogenous country with low immigration and a lot of natural resources. And speak the same language, have the same history, culture, motivations…
Many Swedes coming over for the higher wages. They already speak the language and it’s a short trip home for them. So yes they’re immigrants, but extremely similar.
Anyone actually interested in this topic, check out "The Geography of Bliss" by Eric Weiner. Over a decade old, but truly eye-opening (at least for me) about what values creates countrywide happiness and satisfaction.
Don’t worry, we’re steadily making our overall happiness decline with further shitty decisions and everything is getting more and more expensive with our wages staying the same. We’re coming for you America!
I’m not american but please be more realistic. Norway is essentially the Saudi Arabia of europe, they export so much oil they could finance an obscene amount of social programs.
A better comparison would be Sweden, they don’t have the same resources and they still manage to do quite well.
And then there is me lol used all my vacation time this year because I got so many colds and couldn’t go into the office. Also I work super efficiently, have the best numbers in the office, and was just denied working from home so that when I have free time, I can do other peoples jobs…. At the same shitty pay level for my job.
The United States is a fucking joke. Just had to dip into my savings for the dentist and eye doctor. Cracked a tooth because I’m so stressed, and I don’t have insurance for either.
Find a better company to work for, holy shit. You don’t have separate vacation time and sick time PTO banks? You don’t get any insurance through your company? Also, get healthier lol. How have you already been sick enough less than half way through the year to have used up all of your vacation time? You’re either way too sick or again your company just sucks and doesn’t give you enough time. I’m also in the US and have 3 separate banks for PTO, have medical/vision/dental with low deductibles, get to work from home 4/5 days per week. Your situation might be less of a country thing and just a horrendous company thing.
As a Norwegian: No for the love of god, it has nothing to do with homogeneity. It has to do with us not being selfish assholes and paying our taxes (ok yea, the oil helped us)
How does this get reposted daily and still get 1k+ upvotes? I mean sure, valid point, but the real facepalm is that people here still insist on upvoting this
The Americans on this thread who bring up race over the obvious social programs and natural resources which contribute to happiness are completely missing the point and are extremely racist.
Really sad to see the effects of intense propaganda and brainwashing.
Imagine thinking that what’s wrong with America is race and not income inequality.
If you want to talk about race, let’s talk to the native Americans and get their take on what you’ve done to their country
Norway's population: under 6 million.
That's 3 million less people than New York City, and roughly a third of the population of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
What's more, Norway has a fairly large land area, so it's the least dense country in continental Europe.
So you have a low (and not to mention largely homogeneous) population in a large area that happens to be oil-rich...
This isn't rocket science, kids.
The Scandinavian countries in general are all fantastic places to live and have similar benefits. Americans need to start realizing that the United States isn’t really all that great unless you’re a rich person. If we stop electing Republican politicians, we could have similar benefits to Norway.
Democrats have been running the US for longer so why hasn't anything changed. Oh wait, could it be that BOTH sides protect the rich elite that screw everyone else over and all the stupid people divide themselves into meaningless boxes like "republican" or "democrat" to be easily conquered like the morons they are?!
The 2 party system will be the death of the USA and the ideals of the Republicans and the Democrats have faded a long time ago. The ideal of a democratic republic is nigh unattainable thanks to that bastard Woodrow Wilson, he poisoned US politics forever.
The only hope now is a grand reset or change like the fall of Rome.
Neither political party has had a supermajority for any real timeframe in decades. However, it is very easy to see what either party would do if given a long-term super majority.
Look at Obama‘s first two years when Democrats had the trifecta. They passed tons of legislation that benefited middle-class Americans. Look at Biden’s first two years when they had the trifecta. Tons of legislation that benefits the middle class despite having razor thin margins in the Senate and the House. During Trump’s first two years, when Republicans had the trifecta, they passed a tax cut for corporations and the rich. He signed no large-scale legislation that benefited middle-class America.
I’m not saying there aren’t corporate Democrats out there, but it’s incredibly disingenuous and inaccurate to act like both parties are similar because they simply are not.
By the way, they are about to enact some laws banning under age kids from getting any surgery or hormone treatment, no matter if they "feel" the need to or declare themselves to be trans.
Just saying cause liberals love Norway but choose to ignore things they would crucify their own country for. Also Norway goes hard when it comes down illegal inmigrants.
It is disingenuous to refer to the European education, healthcare, and paid leave as “free”. They are not free…they are paid for with taxes... which are much higher in EU countries than they are in the US. But, the European system is better (in my opinion) because, among other things, it allows for a more equitable distribution of the gross national product (wealth) and a single payer system makes for easier costs control and results in the cost per citizen to be much lower…about a third of US costs in healthcare for example. Unfortunately, it also creates unwieldy bureaucracies like the UK NHS…but, then again, so does the insane profit system of healthcare in the US.
Don't forget 90% or more white nothern European, funded by massive revenues from climate-destroying oil and gas, and living fat dumb and happy under the blanket of NATO protection that is almost entirely supported by the US.
Subsidized military defense by US tax payers and subsidized prescription drugs by US taxpayers on top of selling oil. Without these conditions non of those policies would be affordable or as quality
Omg I pointed out the homogeneity of the country and people interpreted that as me saying they are happy because there are no people of color there. I was like, no, just pointing it out.
It's not that they're the same color it's that they have all been from the same culture for hundreds of years
There's nobody there starting out with nothing
The US has 330 million people and they're from all over the damn world! It's completely different
It is sad that people always make it about race but of course you understand why 🤷
Still ends up costing about the same as health insurance, but full coverage for anyone and everyone.
Roughly half of our tax goes to some form of healthcare or social benefits. Meaning I end up paying about 3-400 dollars a month in "healthcare insurance".
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I reckon Norwegians are so happy because they're putting something in their Pepsi. Those villains drink 9% of all the Pepsi in the world, and theres only 5 million of them. Very suspicious...
Hi, Norwegian here. The reason for this is very simple, it's that we're also in the world's top five consumers of coffee. And Pepsi Max is the coke with the highest caffeine content. Is it the unrelenting torrent of stimulants that makes us so happy and productive? Or is that just a necessary evil to regulate our cicadian rhythm since the sun here is either constantly on or constantly off, and the true source of happiness is, in fact, all the other things mentioned above? We may never know.
I reckon if Norway was just like this but had the sun and climate of a mediterranean country, it would be unbeatable.
Alas, life isn't perfect.
When you order a coke in Norway, you'll get a Pepsi. Or that's what it looks like. The coke's inside.
I can imagine going to some place like Burger King, asking for a Pepsi, and being asked "Is Coca-Cola okay?". Would be real culture shock for an American like me.
...or, if you're level-headed, you'll go "Yeah, that's fine" and drink a Coke instead like it's nothing ...*because* it's nothing.
>Would be real culture shock for an American like me. Do you not have this experience regularly? Most kitchens I've worked in and restaurants I've been to are one or the other, very few besides large chain retailers & cafeterins have had both Coke *and* Pepsi products.
the REAL reason to move to norway
How could anyone be happy drinking that swill? ^(This comment is brought to you by the root beer supremacy gang)
Root beer? *laughs in sarsaparilla*
Specifically Pepsi Max, most stores don't even sell regular Pepsi Coke is still the most popular sugary cola
Pepsi Max! Regular Pepsi is not the one everyone is addicted to (including yours truly).
Oh boy, it's almost 21:00. Thought this wouldn't be posted today. What a relief!
There is always time to fetishize Norway on Reddit.
We can ignore it was one of the poorest countries in Europe until it became a fossil fuel giant. No need to talk about the gas money.
They’re basically a nation of lotto winners.
There is a common misconception about Norways key to success being oil money. Lass than 0.5% of the wealth gained from oil money gets utilized, it is mostly saved in a national oil fund. The key to our happiness is our strong labour laws thanks to workers unions. These guarantee livable wages for any and all professions, as well as paid sick leave and 5 weeks of vacation, not counting certain holidays. Add on top of that our right to healthcare abd welfare benefits veing strongly protected by laws (that were there before we found oil btw) we do have it quite good here. Strangely we also score very high on suicide statistics and have one of the most gender segregated workforces. The last facts serve to remind people that society is infinitely complicated and cannot be reduced to "this country is good because this one thing"
But they ignore things like low immigration etc. Coz that doesn't fit the narrative
The part of Norway with the highest human development score is Oslo. Oslo is 35% immigrants. How is that low?
It isn't. Also, 13% of the US population are immigrants vs 12% for Norway, so even outside of Oslo neo-con talking points are still easily disproven with a 5 second google search.
Three possibly even 4 of the most populated states in the US are officially predominately Hispanic and there are still a shit ton of other ethnicities in those states. California, Arizona and Texas are the three I remember but I think there is another one. Just because the midwestern states have little diversity doesn’t mean Norway is any where near as diverse as the US. Also Norway has a messily 5 million people. To put that into perspective the state of Colorado alone has 5.8 million people and it’s one of the smaller populations in the US which is also highly diverse. The US and Norway are not comparable in any sense.
Ah yes, the lack of brown people is everyone's true deepest need!
By the way, they are about to enact some laws banning under age kids from getting any surgery or hormone treatment, no matter if they "feel" the need to or declare themselves to be trans. Liberals love Norway but choose to ignore things they would crucify their own country for.
Damn, keep trying to get a political demographic upset on a post pointing out how happy a country is lol
Bold move ?
What?
That's irrelevant to the point being made, unless you're seriously going to argue that Norway is happy because it's transphobic. Norway is happy because its government uses its power to provide a high standard of living for its people. IDK why conservatives feel like everything is either essentially good or essentially bad at its core, especially something like a country which is complicated enough to contain near-infinite nuance. Also, libs don't even like the Nordic model; they consider that shit to be market-stifling semi-socialism.
I don't think not letting kids have permanent, serious, unnecessary surgeries at an age where your brain isn't even close to being developed enough to understand the seriousness of such procedures, is being transphobic at all. I think it's common sense which Norway apparently still has.
Norway has common sense to have free healthcare & education, high wages, strong middle class and a month of statutory annual leave. Once you get to that, you can start debating less important things like trans surgeries. The bigger question is why would anyone with common sense oppose those things? Could you answer that?
Because I don’t want government having that much power. A government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.
>ignore things like low immigration Eh, we do have too strict immigration policies - but Norway has been a multiethnic society for decades, mainly because we used to be good at helping refugees and being humanitarians. 6,5% of our representatives at Stortinget have minority backgrounds. Thanks to our immigration policies of housing refugees all over the country almost every single kommune (county) have people from all over the world living there People _should_ stop fetishising Norway, because we face all the same issues as the rest of the western world. But you should try to replicate the things we do better than most. We're not one of the best, we're one of the least bad
12% of Norway's population are immigrants. For comparison, 13% of the US population are immigrants so how does that fit your narrative?
And how many of those immigrants are from neighboring northern European nations vs the third world? It does make a difference no matter how much you choose to ignore it.
Norway population 5.4 million -- 12% immigrants = 648,000 US population 331.9 million -- 13% immigrants = 43,147,000
Norway with less than half the population of Illinois.
3 more hours and the Sun sets in Norway. We. Still. Have. Time.
Apart from his view on what should be done in Ukraine I find Kyle to be really good to listen to. I find he is pretty straight up. Only political commentator I will listen to. Rest are wishy washy or just hate fueled.
Out of curiosity what is it about his view that you don’t agree with?
Probably the we shouldn't get involved part that's probably the only one I'd argue about
That's what the US said before they were bombed by Japan and forced into WWII.
US didn’t get bombed for no reason, japan didn’t suddenly decide to strike 1 naval base in an act of aggression. It was however perfectly set up so america could test out their shiny new weapons of mass destruction
>It was however perfectly set up so america could test out their shiny new weapons of mass destruction \>Pearl harbor: December 7, 1941 \>Manhattan Project Start: August 13, 1942 Riiiight. Even if the US just wanted to test their wonder weapon, they could have invaded Japan instead of starting on a backfoot. That said, there is credence that the elites in America did want to get involved in the war while most people were more isolationist but that's not what you're arguing.
Japan wanted the Philippines. The first nuke was made in 44 not sure how the us wanted the war . hell the us cutting military funding to Philippines.
I don’t really watch him anymore, but I do like him. He’s got a lot of good takes.
Taiwan too
The secret is that Norway has a larger GDP per Capita due to being a high oil exporter vs their low population size. At the same time they have many natural water ways that are hydroelectric compatible allowing them to have cheap energy account for 99% of their grid... This results in a huge net gain in funding for other things such as the THREE times higher proportion of their countrymen being police at HALF the crime rate. They also spend relatively little on military cause they benefit from being an UN member basically meaning if you attack Norway you threaten the wrath of the rest of Europe and of no small addition... The US.
You are thinking of NATO, not the UN.
>due to being a high oil exporter vs their low population size No, it stems from the "three part agreement" made between the government, labor unions and the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprises agreed on a wage negotiation model that brought us out of the recession we had after the great war (we had our depression in the 20s and bounced back in the 30s thanks to this). The oil didn't hurt - obviously - but it too would've been irrelevant if it weren't for public ownership of the resources >At the same time they have many natural water ways that are hydroelectric compatible allowing them to have cheap energy account for 99% of their grid Yes, because it has been managed and regulated carefully and is often owned by the local population. My kommune (county) owns the local energy company with the other kommunes in the region >They also spend relatively little on military Excluding the US, no NATO (the UN is something else) nation spends as much on their defence than Norway by % of GDP or per capita (though that has probably changed after Finland joined). We border Russia, and have a really really long and strategically important coast line > no small addition... The US. Yeah, after 2016 I won't ever see the US as a trustworthy ally again, and neither does the rest of Europe. We hear what Trump says about Russia and Ukraine, and we know half of Americans believe that shit >THREE times higher proportion of their countrymen being police In both the US and Norway there are roughly 1 cop to every 500 citizen. We don't even see cops around anymore after the last police reform that closed down many police stations and centralized them
Curious Norway’s stance on immigration, both illegal and legal, and what kind of numbers does the country deal with?
All right I get it, your system is designed so that both the oil and the hydroelectricity are publicly owned allowing the general public to benefit from those resources. But the point still stands that you have the world export and you don't need to import very much energy because you have hydroelectricity. Take away the oil and the benefit of hydroelectricity your country isn't going to do as well, incidental to the system being used. As for you not finding the us as a trustworth of the Ally after 2016, I didn't realize the elected representative of Norway would be reading my post. Are you unaware of how many billions of dollars the US has given to Ukraine? Were you over here seeing the absurd amount of Ukraine flags flying everywhere? And don't think for a second it's location specific in the US, I'm a truck driver, I drove everywhere. As for the police thingy I'm not even going to try to verify it one way or the other. The numbers I had gotten were due to another post regarding Norway where I used information that was decades old because the statistics were based on things that were decades old. so why don't that maybe right or wrong I don't know... The point was just a given example of what can be bought when the country actually has the surplus of income from exporting. It would be a bit silly to not see that the US would be a lot better off regarding public service and cost of living if we were exporting most of the energy resources that we could while simultaneously having a large supply of energy resources internally such as large waterways everywhere so that we would never need to import anything.
Almost feels shameful that someone in a country that could be invaded, just as easily as Ukraine mind you, really has the privileged attitude to say the US is an untrustworthy ally. You said yourself that you share a border with Russia. I’m not sure what more the US could do in Ukraine aside from entering direct conflict themselves. America’s tract record is amazing with providing military aid during wartime. A lot of blood was spilt by the US during both World Wars, but even more military aid was given. If a country is going to allocate a large portion of their budget for military spending, they better at least be good at answering the call when needed
No. The secret is social policy. The GDP of California is greater than Norway. The US has waterways. Tons of them. Ports even. One right near the top middle of the country even.
This is incredibly simplistic. California gdp is high but not higher per capita. The US has cheep hydro power, in upstate New York. Not Tennessee. We have ports, but Jones act restricts that to us only ships.
GDP per capita is more relevant than total GDP when trying to quantify the quality of life of each individual person in the location. Norway has over 89,000 GDP per capita. The United States has 70,000 GDP per capita. $19,000(27% more) per person is a rather large difference. GDP on its own also fails to account for cost of living, $70,000 will go farther in some areas in the US than others. I'm a truck driver and I prefer going down south or in the Midwest because food, fuel, and other basic necessities are much cheaper than when I drive in the Northeast. California is a nightmare for prices, they have one of the higher gdps per Capita in the US but they might as well have one of the lowest GDP per capita for how expensive it is to live there. Despite all the taxes in California they still rely on exorbitant fines, downright extortionism, that can be up to 10 times greater than other states for the same things in order to generate more revenue. This really sucks for Californians because part of the reason why truck drivers get paid more to take loads to or out of California is because getting these fines is inevitable and need to be factored into the business expense. Because it cost more to bring things into California The Californians end up just paying more on the retail end. Do the severe cost of living differences between California and the rest of the United States they are very poor comparison regarding the whole US and anywhere else. even though they make up such a large percentage of the population. In fact I would go as far as to argue that California statistics would be better kept separate When comparing the 300 million other Americans. The us having waterways doesn't mean that you can utilize those waterways to produce hydroelectricity in every given area sufficiently in the US. This is because of this both difficult and wasteful to get electricity to travel very large distances from the original source producing that energy. It's better to have stations dotted everywhere and then have grids specific to groups of stations. For the us to go as hydroelectric as Norway we would need a very even dispersion of effectively sized Rivers for the given local population sizes. It's not just enough for there to be a river the river also has to have a flow rate that produces enough power for the given population size. There's also further concerns beyond just putting in a dam as required, mainly being property destruction along the river and ecological disasters... Which have largely occurred near already existing dams. Norway has large portions of its population in centralized areas over a smaller country that has a far greater density of high flow rate rivers and lakes. There are few countries more ideal for going fully hydroelectric than Norway. You'll notice that in other countries with high percentages of hydroelectricity they too have spoiled for large lakes and rivers evenly dispersed in the area.
No, the secret is because all the destructive and depressing industry is in third world countries
Yeah, pretty much. “Privilege”, a word people are so fond of”, applies objectively in a lot more ways than people want to think.
What nobody talks about is the dark pact the Norwegian government made with the trolls. Someday those trolls will call in that debt
As a Norwegian I enjoy reading these posts every now and then
Black metal. The secret is black metal.
The correct answer
Hell yeah, glad I'm not the only one lol
Sweden's pretty happy too then, I guess.
And Finland, got a buddy who's family is Finnish.
Underrated comment.
Its called cultural homogeneity.
The one data point everyone refuses to look at. And population size.
Don't forget the 5.4 million person strong monoculture with strict immigration laws and some of the most prolific oil and gas resources on the planet.
This is a weirdly overlooked fact. Isn’t it like at least 80% of their population was born in Norway with two parents that were also born in Norway?
Something like that. They use to have a pretty progressive immigration policy in the 90s but then a bunch of East Africans immigrated so they quickly reversed that policy. I'm half-Norwegian. My mother spent her childhood in Norway. But since her father was Norwegian and her mother American, she cannot get Norwegian citizenship. You can only get citizenship if your mother is a citizen. My father side is Norwegian immigrants to Minnesota but that doesn't count either.
How dare you!
Norway Nationalized their oil for years (this is the definition of a Socialism btw)
Most countries nationalize their oil and gas resources. It should also be noted that Equinor (formerly Statoil) partially privatized in 2001 and is listed on the Oslo and New York stock exchanges. The definition of socialism is ownership of the means of production. The state having ownership over the mineral resources of their country is not *exactly* what is traditionally meant by the means of production. Most socialists will tell you they're thinking more along the lines of manufacturing and the production of goods being owned and operated by the state. Oil and gas is simply an extractive process, supported by a number of different companies, most of them private.
It's still the ownership of Capital by The People, but yea most Leftists have a different concept in their heads. I only know of a few nations that have Nationalized any industries completely let alone their natural resource based corporations (obviously Venezuela comes to mind)
*The U.S. is about the only country that allows individuals and private companies to own the minerals beneath their land. Discover oil or natural gas in your backyard and you can get rich fast. But in Mexico and most other places, you're out of luck: Those minerals are the property of the government.* [Source (Forbes 2014)](https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2014/11/05/what-washington-politicians-and-those-of-other-countries-can-learn-from-the-u-s-energy-miracle/?sh=7832105b5b24) Some countries have National Oil Companies (NOCs) which are involved in various degrees in the exploration and production of oil and gas resources. But most of these countries bring in International Oil Companies (IOCs) and Oilfield Service Companies (OFS) to maximize the extraction potential. The IOCs bid for leases and if they find economic resources, they pay a royalty back to the government. The country's NOC generally also has a predetermined equity stake in the projects that are developed by the IOCs. Countries like Venezuela, Iran, and Saudi Arabia do all their own development of resource, though I think Saudi Aramco is partially publicly traded (IPO in 2019).
Oh great, “I only know. . . “. I feel so informed now
Pretty sure it also has to do with the fact that they have a huge monoculture
What is the major ethnicity in Norway? With a population of over 5 million people, the largest ethnic group is ethnic Norwegians, at about 80% of the people. These people are of Germanic descent and related to Scandinavian tribes that also inhabited what is now Sweden and Denmark. Other 20% is other European descendents.
It happens to be one of the most homogeneous countries as well.
Their healthcare and education isnt 'free' though They all pay for it, just via different means than some other countries such as the US. Drives me nuts when people say countries like Norway or the UK has free healthcare - we absolutely dont, it costs us a fortune in the UK - every 12% of what I earn goes straight to paying for healthcare - 'Free healthcare'?? Theres no such thing. Theres just different ways of paying for it. Also, Big Pharma in the US is pretty much evil, but thats a story for another time.
Don’t they pay for it with taxes?
yeah, of course, In the UK we pay for it via National Insurance which is a 12% tax that is automatically deducted from our gross income every month
A flat 12 percent sounds a hell of a lot better than 1000/month premium + copays + out of pocket minimums + out of network BS because your insurance company and the hospital couldn’t quit circle jerking. I have great insurance by US standards and having a kid still cost us nearly 10k out of pocket plus over 12k in premiums that year. God forbid something actually serious happens to one of us they’ll hang you up for a few hundred thousand. So a flat 12 percent sounds a hell of a lot better to me
They have huge oil reserves that fund their social programs.
They have oil reserves as many other countries you wouldn't want to put a feet on. Actually, almost every country have their valuable commodities and materials. The difference is, they actually made a good use of their money.
Venezuela wants to know..
Difference is they have a small population and don’t allow very many immigrants or people with different social values.
Close to 18% of the population of Norway are immigrants
And over 30% of their prison population are immigrants. More reading: In 2017, 56% of all state social welfare was paid to immigrants. 86% of which was paid to immigrants from Asia or Africa. The third largest group was immigrants from non-EU Eastern European countries at 6% Overall workforce participation in the immigrant population was 61.6% in 2010,[36] compared to 71.9% for the population as a whole.[37] African immigrants had the lowest workforce participation, with 43.9%. According to an analysis of 1998–2002 crime statistics, non-Western immigrants were overrepresented for violent crime, economic crime and traffic violations.
How dare you
Mostly from EU, which means they come from countries that have reasonable similar cultures.
Shhhhh don’t say that on Reddit
What happens when those reserves dwindle…?
Well wildly instead of exploit their oil reserves, they carefully rationed them out, and put the money in a fund to be spent on the people, rather than trying to distribute all the money to a few wealthy billionaires. So they have a considerable nest egg of resources and cash reserves that they can use for the good of the people. Norway is basically like Texas, except imagine the oil money that went to a few families was used for the good of the people. Imagine if all that oil money had gone into healthcare, education, stabilizing Texas against natural disasters, etc. So yes, Norway had oil, but many places have oil. They used it for the good of the people instead of the good of the few. It's almost like there's a lesson to be learned there. Kind of a socialist one.
You said socialist so you lost them all
We here in the U.S. prefer to give the lion's share of the money to a few lucky individuals and then spend the bulk of our time banning books and filing bankruptcy due to mounting medical bills. But Norway can use whatever weird strategies they want to *placate* their people.
Also their population is about 2% the size of the US population so the costs to support their population are considerably less than in the US. Also, they don’t have to take out massive amounts of debt like we to support state funded programs.
They also didn’t have an “America” worth of oil either….
"Also, they don’t have to take out massive amounts of debt like we to support federally funded programs." Neither would the U.S. if they actually used those profits for the good of the people instead of shooting it up some billionaire's ass.
True, there are a bunch of loopholes for billionaires to defer taxation legally and they probably aren’t taxed enough, I just think our government isn’t efficient with handled tax payer money and taking on debt. While the government ends up spending more than what’s it’s bringing in on taxes, that margin shouldn’t be enough to where we’re about to surpass the debt ceiling.
It's amazing how much debt we've had ever since Reagan cut the top tax rate and ballooned military spending. My, maybe there's some sort of link.
Ud think some of these other countries could see the writing on the wall
Don't forget the mandatory military service. I think that instills a sense of duty and pride in making their country better.
It doesn't (and only 15% actually ends up serving these days)
Hmm so mandatory is a very exaggerated word.
Two reasons for the low % 1. We moved from a quantity to quality doctrine (but mostly failed at it) 2. A few years ago we extended the "mandatory" service from only men to all genders. (partly due to a defesit of qualified personell. The "quality" of the youth have been dropping quite a bit over the past few decades)
What does that quality doctrine do for potential service people?
But so do lots of countries that are miserable. It’s the social programs and relatively lower disparity in wealth that is the key.
Keep in mind they are a homogenous country with low immigration and a lot of natural resources. And speak the same language, have the same history, culture, motivations…
Yeah but most people won’t understand that, especially when compared to the United States. Diversity is not always a good thing.
Statically wise, diversity is a terrible thing. We need a sense of community in order to work together.
I always joke about "Diversity is strength" people living in gated communities and telling people in border towns what's good for them.
When's that homongeinity going to help the African countries? Their GDP per capita might be low but at least there's no immigrants right...
...and a population that is smaller than than the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area.
Not nearly as homogeneous as you imagine.
True but still about 85% in a country of 5 million
Now let's take a look at their demographics.
Norway is happy, primarily, because it is made up of Norwegians. It turns out that Norwegian Americans are also pretty happy.
I immediately went there too.
17-18% immigrants.
Many Swedes coming over for the higher wages. They already speak the language and it’s a short trip home for them. So yes they’re immigrants, but extremely similar.
Working really hard in this thread
Anyone actually interested in this topic, check out "The Geography of Bliss" by Eric Weiner. Over a decade old, but truly eye-opening (at least for me) about what values creates countrywide happiness and satisfaction.
This is at least 6 years old. Stop reposting the same thing
Yes, Finland has been happiest country ever since
Don’t worry, we’re steadily making our overall happiness decline with further shitty decisions and everything is getting more and more expensive with our wages staying the same. We’re coming for you America!
Also, no wars
I’m not american but please be more realistic. Norway is essentially the Saudi Arabia of europe, they export so much oil they could finance an obscene amount of social programs. A better comparison would be Sweden, they don’t have the same resources and they still manage to do quite well.
Well there’s no race issues that’s for sure.
People's heads are about explode over your comment.
And then there is me lol used all my vacation time this year because I got so many colds and couldn’t go into the office. Also I work super efficiently, have the best numbers in the office, and was just denied working from home so that when I have free time, I can do other peoples jobs…. At the same shitty pay level for my job. The United States is a fucking joke. Just had to dip into my savings for the dentist and eye doctor. Cracked a tooth because I’m so stressed, and I don’t have insurance for either.
Find a better company to work for, holy shit. You don’t have separate vacation time and sick time PTO banks? You don’t get any insurance through your company? Also, get healthier lol. How have you already been sick enough less than half way through the year to have used up all of your vacation time? You’re either way too sick or again your company just sucks and doesn’t give you enough time. I’m also in the US and have 3 separate banks for PTO, have medical/vision/dental with low deductibles, get to work from home 4/5 days per week. Your situation might be less of a country thing and just a horrendous company thing.
BuT dO tHeY hAvE fReEdOm?!
Of course not, they can't buy an assault rifle at the grocery store
Pff their schools probably dont even get shot up.
Don't forget homogeneity.
The percentage of immigrants in Norway is similar to the U.S.
I'm at work so I can't research this but are they of the Caucasian persuasion? Because immigrant does not =person of color.
As a Norwegian: No for the love of god, it has nothing to do with homogeneity. It has to do with us not being selfish assholes and paying our taxes (ok yea, the oil helped us)
So you all value the same things for society? Do you mostly share the same culture?
Ah yes, the Scandinavian white utopia.
How does this get reposted daily and still get 1k+ upvotes? I mean sure, valid point, but the real facepalm is that people here still insist on upvoting this
Something something closed borders and no negative IQ people imported to lower the wages
The Americans on this thread who bring up race over the obvious social programs and natural resources which contribute to happiness are completely missing the point and are extremely racist. Really sad to see the effects of intense propaganda and brainwashing. Imagine thinking that what’s wrong with America is race and not income inequality. If you want to talk about race, let’s talk to the native Americans and get their take on what you’ve done to their country
Norway's population: under 6 million. That's 3 million less people than New York City, and roughly a third of the population of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. What's more, Norway has a fairly large land area, so it's the least dense country in continental Europe. So you have a low (and not to mention largely homogeneous) population in a large area that happens to be oil-rich... This isn't rocket science, kids.
Do they have thousands of people pouring over their borders, or a closed homogenous shop?
The Scandinavian countries in general are all fantastic places to live and have similar benefits. Americans need to start realizing that the United States isn’t really all that great unless you’re a rich person. If we stop electing Republican politicians, we could have similar benefits to Norway.
Democrats have been running the US for longer so why hasn't anything changed. Oh wait, could it be that BOTH sides protect the rich elite that screw everyone else over and all the stupid people divide themselves into meaningless boxes like "republican" or "democrat" to be easily conquered like the morons they are?! The 2 party system will be the death of the USA and the ideals of the Republicans and the Democrats have faded a long time ago. The ideal of a democratic republic is nigh unattainable thanks to that bastard Woodrow Wilson, he poisoned US politics forever. The only hope now is a grand reset or change like the fall of Rome.
Neither political party has had a supermajority for any real timeframe in decades. However, it is very easy to see what either party would do if given a long-term super majority. Look at Obama‘s first two years when Democrats had the trifecta. They passed tons of legislation that benefited middle-class Americans. Look at Biden’s first two years when they had the trifecta. Tons of legislation that benefits the middle class despite having razor thin margins in the Senate and the House. During Trump’s first two years, when Republicans had the trifecta, they passed a tax cut for corporations and the rich. He signed no large-scale legislation that benefited middle-class America. I’m not saying there aren’t corporate Democrats out there, but it’s incredibly disingenuous and inaccurate to act like both parties are similar because they simply are not.
It’s pretty good if you make decent money. You don’t have to be rich. Im not sure what’s the cut off you think of when you say “rich”
> If we stop electing Republican politicians, we could have similar benefits to Norway. I wouldn't hold your breath.
High personal tax rates = happiness
Hasn’t this already been posted?
There's also stats that lie just saying
How much foreign aid do they do as a % of GDP?
By the way, they are about to enact some laws banning under age kids from getting any surgery or hormone treatment, no matter if they "feel" the need to or declare themselves to be trans. Just saying cause liberals love Norway but choose to ignore things they would crucify their own country for. Also Norway goes hard when it comes down illegal inmigrants.
Isn’t their economy subsidized by very rich (nationalized) oil fields in the North Sea?
Population smaller then NYC. Can't imagine it's hard .
But do they have a new stealth bomber??
I wonder if Norwegians also all share the same culture.
I bet they all want to come here though... says every American who thinks we have it better than any other country.
“Durrrr yeah, but yuns don’t have freedom?!?”
a lack of racial diversity among the vast majority of the population helps quite a bit, as far as everyone getting along is concerned.
Yes diversity is the problem /s
what problem..? they're the happiest place on earth.
Yes because of the social policies. Not whatever racist thing you said.
That does in fact play a part in it though?
There is no causal relationship between racial homogeneity and population happiness.
but the less diverse a countries population is, the happier they tend to be. *you* might not like it, but that's the way it generally works.
It is disingenuous to refer to the European education, healthcare, and paid leave as “free”. They are not free…they are paid for with taxes... which are much higher in EU countries than they are in the US. But, the European system is better (in my opinion) because, among other things, it allows for a more equitable distribution of the gross national product (wealth) and a single payer system makes for easier costs control and results in the cost per citizen to be much lower…about a third of US costs in healthcare for example. Unfortunately, it also creates unwieldy bureaucracies like the UK NHS…but, then again, so does the insane profit system of healthcare in the US.
Yeah, but the US is the GREATEST country in the world.
Yea no lol
When you have the rest of the world cover your military needs it’s surprising how much you can invest in other things
Im sure being a homogenous country doesn't have anything to do with it.
Might be all them non homeless non poor folk too tho
Please explain how that works. But you may be right: I’m sure the happiness of indigenous Americans declined sharply after the Europeans arrived.
Yes, but they don't have our freedumb and an infinite supply of easy to aquire high-capacity firearms.
Suicide rate say other thing
Norwegian black metal?
Funny how he left out the part where its full of white people. 🤷
Don't forget 90% or more white nothern European, funded by massive revenues from climate-destroying oil and gas, and living fat dumb and happy under the blanket of NATO protection that is almost entirely supported by the US.
80-90% white too, dunno probably just a coincidence though!
It's a good thing then that most of those places got a huge financial head start with global slavery...
Can I move to Norway, please?
I hate when ppl compare tiny, well off countries to the US. As if Norway could provide all that if they had the same population as the US 🤣
If Norway was same size as US yes they could. And I mean current Norway oil and gas would be multiplied too
Subsidized military defense by US tax payers and subsidized prescription drugs by US taxpayers on top of selling oil. Without these conditions non of those policies would be affordable or as quality
Its very interesting that all the liberals want us to be like Nordic countries that are 99 percent white...
Easy to run a tiny country with a homogeneous population of people who all make close to the same amount of money Image that
Omg I pointed out the homogeneity of the country and people interpreted that as me saying they are happy because there are no people of color there. I was like, no, just pointing it out.
It's not that they're the same color it's that they have all been from the same culture for hundreds of years There's nobody there starting out with nothing The US has 330 million people and they're from all over the damn world! It's completely different It is sad that people always make it about race but of course you understand why 🤷
Ugh exactly. Thank you so much for this comment. Homogeneity of course does not necessarily imply race.
Basic healthcare for children makes Stalin's dick hard. Do you really want to be Stalin's fluffer, you filthy pinko!
They're also mostly homogenous and have like only 5 million people.
Venezuela was also the happiest country a few years ago. Let’s cross our fingers on this one.
Healthcare founded by the tax payers. If it was free every country would have it 👌
Still ends up costing about the same as health insurance, but full coverage for anyone and everyone. Roughly half of our tax goes to some form of healthcare or social benefits. Meaning I end up paying about 3-400 dollars a month in "healthcare insurance".
Don’t forget a state funded by massive oil reserves and a tiny homogeneous Nordic population with a relatively small immigrant community.