gross national hapiness index

[Taelas]

Studies elsewhere have shown that money doesn't buy happiness, and I believe there is a co-relation there on why the Scandinavian countries are happier than America. In America, we tend to value income and material goods more, in Europe you guys value vacation and leisure time more. This is one of the primary cultural differences between us.

Perhaps, though honestly, I don't know if it's quite that cut and dry.

In the middle-aged demographic, it's probably mostly true, but for young adults...? I don't think so. While we still have our culture, we're heavily influenced by globalization.

As for valuing vacation and leisure time... I don't know that we do that more than you. It's certainly possible.

The larger social welfare state in many European countries and the hyper-capitalist society in America are both causes and reflections of these differences as well, as far as I can see. I am with the Euro's personally, I have little interest in material items for the most part, and would much prefer to spend more time with my family, traveling, or engaging in more intellectual discourse instead of who discussing who won the latest American Idol, whether or not Lindsey Lohan is a lesbian, or buying the biggest gas guzzling SUV possible. But that's just me.

You're deluding yourself if you think Europeans aren't just as shallow as Americans in general. Instead of pop celebrity scandals (though they still exist, to a somewhat lesser degree), we have royalty scandals (especially in England).

We also buy new cars, new TVs, new phones, etc. at a rate that is likely comparable to yours, if not worse. In Denmark, at least, it is turning into a bit of a social problem; loans are cheap, and a lot of people tend to forget that they actually have to pay them back at some point, even if it's supposedly "cheap". There are a lot of idiots who get huge loans and buy expensive material goods to show off to their friends how "successful" they are. (There's even a teenage version of the phenomenon: due to refunding laws, many teenagers can buy clothes they can't actually afford--they wear them for a weekend while partying, then return them to the store for a full refund once the weekend is over, and there is nothing the stores can really do to combat it.)

We're capitalists too. Probably less than Americans, over all -- we don't tend to buy engagement rings worth thousands of dollars, for example -- but it's still rampant in our culture.