OSLO, NORWAY—Not wanting reports of the happy, healthy lives of its citizens to demoralize people living outside the Scandinavian nation, Norway announced Monday that it would start hiding its standard of living to make other countries feel better about themselves. “In an effort to not lord it over the rest of the…
I’ve got a friend from Uruguay who lives in Finland (very similar standard of living compared with Norway) and who recently visited me in America. I can confirm that this article is not satire. He was absolutely shocked to see the amount of homelessness and poverty in New York city and he tried very hard not to talk about the rock-solid financial security available to every citizen in Finland.
The famous science fiction author Robert Heinlein wanted to tour the world with his wife Virginia. They had no interest in the northern hemisphere, they wanted to see the southern half.
Everywhere they went Robert wanted to get eyeballs on the economy, see what was really going on. He would always ask the cab drivers to take him to the worst part of town, where the poorest of the poor lived.
In Uruguay the driver took him to a modest neighborhood. The houses were very tiny, but well built, well taken care of. Flower beds out front, all that. Heinlein was a bit upset.
“I clearly asked you to take me to the poorest neighborhoods.”
“Oh no senior! These are the poorest people! They are on government welfare and are very ashamed to live like this.”
That was in the 80’s. Imagine that.