I know the Norway obsession has to end, but what can I do when editors are slow.

Strangely, too, this one was modified and changed quite a lot without my permission or knowledge. (I certainly did NOT pick that crappy of a headline.)

Entire phrases and paragraphs are not mine, some specific numbers and links ("while cities at sea"?!) are not mine at all. Very heavy-handed editing, jeez.

Anyway, the main points are there and the overwhelming story is fine. And I liked this (trademark Den) sarcastic twist

On the day dedicated to celebrating America, Nicholas Kristof, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, wrote for The New York Times that America is so great that, in fact, it should be more like Norway. If American companies can pay high wages and generous benefits to workers there, Kristof observed, they could do so in New York, too.

"If only America were willing to embrace a little more social democracy and bigger government, this popular and recurring story goes, perhaps it could enjoy the same prosperity and flourishing that Norway does — and have its population also routinely rank among the happiest on the planet.""If only America were willing to embrace a little more social democracy and bigger government, this popular and recurring story goes, perhaps it could enjoy the same prosperity and flourishing that Norway does — and have its population also routinely rank among the happiest on the planet."

When American politicians or intellectuals promise Nordic welfare states, most people imagine this happening automatically or by taxing the rich, and everybody benefits. That’s not the case. The real Nordic model taxes earners more (45 percent in Denmark, 40 in Norway, 41 in Sweden, compared to 25 percent in the United States) and charging flat value added tax (VAT). *Broad welfare states require broad tax bases; Nordic welfare states are financed not by billionaires but by ordinary workers.

And

The political equilibrium keeping Scandinavia afloat was, until recently, a mostly homogenous population on sparsely populated lands eerily willing to subjugate individual preferences and quirks to common, collective rules. America stands out in the exact opposite way: letting 15 times as many people pursue radically different lifestyles and individual ambitions with cheerful respect, but little regard for whether the neighbors approve.

Scandinavia has built wildly successful societies for a few million very similar-minded people. But the United States has built something more impressive: a vast, messy republic of economic and social flourishing where hundreds of millions of people peacefully pursue wildly different visions of a good life.

"Becoming more like Norway means becoming less American, with less of the opportunity, ingenuity, and the entrepreneurship that made America great""Becoming more like Norway means becoming less American, with less of the opportunity, ingenuity, and the entrepreneurship that made America great"