Congratulations to our Norwegian Friends

You wouldn't know it from their gloomy musical tastes, but the United Nations' annual report on happiness has declared Norway the happiest place on earth, beating out even those famously contented Danes.
 
We're talking about a place that's lethally cold and pitch dark for half the year, and doesn't even have a single Disney theme park. They pay higher taxes than Americans and make less money per capita (rumor has it they're even infested with trolls), yet they rank 14 slots higher up on the happiness scale than us Yanks. 

Norway!!! 

 

bitflipper
 They pay higher taxes than Americans and make less money per capita (rumor has it they're even infested with trolls), yet they rank 14 slots higher up on the happiness scale than us Yanks. 

Obviously, paying taxes makes you happy. 
 
Well, it's really about the redistribution of wealth and a well-funded welfare state, but let's not get in to that.

Trolls.
 
they have Trolls.
 

I have seen that there are a couple of forum members here who lives in Oslo, to me they seems to be among the friendliest people in this forums.

jamesg1213

That's a documentary, you know 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Or is it?
Cool movie, though.

Zargg
Everything I write here would be biased, so I'm just reading your posts, giggling to myself 
 

 
Giggling! I take it all back 

IOW the PERFECT giggle?
 

Not that it matters, but fact check; Scandanavia is in the eastern hemisphere.
Britain too; not that it matters.
T

If there is something you could call the Scandinavian or Nordic happiness, I'd say it mostly roots to equality and safety. The Nordic countries have a narrower span of income level (how do you say it in proper English?) than the rest of the world, and education and health care is not a matter of persons incomes (for most part). When things get bad, like during the depression of early 90's (Finlands national income sunk over 10% and unemployment was 25%) people don't start rioting or raiding warehouses, because they can continue life of  a cut-down-form, mostly not losing their homes etc. Of course, I'm generalizing some...
 
From a Norwegian/Nordic point of view there are no taxes in the US :o) But most people think they get their tax-moneys worth.
 
The folks that originally settled around these corners did not come here to socialize or enjoy the weather. They must have been weird people, and some of the weirdness is still there :o/ Of course, there are plenty of weird corners on all continents.

Got to add my 2 cents to this. Maybe by now outdated since a decades old view point and from a very filtered perspective.
 
Lived for about a year in Ydrefors doing swami guru school at a secluded monastery in the beautiful deep forests. Traveled back and forth to Norway as required.
 
I remember a couple lasting impressions from the experience (beside the clash and discipline of the schooling).
 
One was the mosquitoes. So damned big they had their own orange day glo parasites eating them up faster than they could eat us up. The poor cows were patiently surrounded in a cloud of blood suckers, but learned to adjust and accept life as is.
 
Beautiful forking country if you are into nature. Incredible beauty with the Atlantic storm clouds flying by hi speed overhead.
 
Warmth of the people and how they learned English as a movement among the youth to understand the lyrics of western rock n ' roll.
 
Lots of complaints about the hi tax rate, however...
 
At that time, rarely saw anything less than a Mercedes or Volvo on the road. National pride was such that you could travel miles on a highway without seeing a piece of trash on the side. Healthcare by virtue of birth was a right of every citizen.
 
Everyone was taken care of. Problem was in later years the test of open mindedness with the influx of refugees from other cultures. Did not play out well. Please update if things have changed and I'm pouring out a defective view.
 
John
 
 

craigb
Why does every idyllic setting lately seem to end up having insects that bite?  No thanks!  

Were I grew up (in the north), we could hear the mosquitoes long before we could see them 
HUGE!!