Ah, I hear they come with a swastika air freshener these days, probably best to imagine nicer things.
But yeah, it's the shittyness of capitalism that the inequality gap keeps growing and billionaires seem determined to take money from the poorest rather than pay their fair share of taxes
I dunno, there's a reason the Scandinavian countries pay high taxes, have less social inequality and are also constantly coming in as the happiest countries.
As someone who lives there, my take is that a) inequality is lower, but rising, and may take more subtle forms, b) that happiness stuff feels made up. We have more single households than anywhere else in the world, and loneliness is NOT happiness.
I think Scandinavians are introverted and reluctant to express their emotions, so these surveys probably do a poor job of capturing their actual happiness level. Also, if you don't know any better, maybe you think you are happy.
But everywhere else in the world people seem more animated, more bubbly, and above all more sociable. So yeah, I don't trust the happiness claim, I think it is a marketing ploy.
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But yeah, it's the shittyness of capitalism that the inequality gap keeps growing and billionaires seem determined to take money from the poorest rather than pay their fair share of taxes
I put it down to human nature. If we had Communism, we'd just get Stalin in his dacha.