zlacker

>>obscur+(OP)
> But recently, cracks have been starting to show. Norwegians are taking much more sick leave than a decade ago, driving up costs for health services. Student test scores have worsened more than in other Scandinavian countries, and critics of the government say there are too many boondoggle tunnels and bridges to nowhere.

These are the issues they're worried about? None of the numbers I saw while scanning look particularly worrying, and I doubt there's ever been a country on the face of this planet for which you wouldn't have been able to produce a similar list of issues of this magnitude - including past Norway.

They're worth paying attention to, but not sounding the alarm bells over.

>>Vinnl+e6
> They're worth paying attention to, but not sounding the alarm bells over.

That's because there is a default bad assumption that because they are so wealthy that no problems should exist, similar to how very rich people are seen. Looking at other wealthy petro-states (and people) around the world, that's clearly not true.

But relatively speaking I don't think there's a country that wouldn't trade most of their problems for Norway's, with the possible exception of their aging population.

>>danans+j9
What's the problem? Only poor people care about test scores as they imagine high test scores is how one can pull themselves out of being poor. When you are rich you can also do pointless things just for the fun of it like build bridges to nowhere. None of these are problems unless you try and look at it through a poor man's lens.

Poorer health might be concerning, but is likely the result of the population growing older. More children would help make the numbers look better, I suppose, but, statistically, only poor people like having children.

>>9rx+Ka
> When you are rich you can also do pointless things just for the fun of it like build bridges to nowhere. None of these are problems

For one thing it's clearly a problem if you include the environmental impact of constructing those bridges to nowhere.

>>datafl+Ii
Only to the extent of the environmental impact being greater than the alternative activity. Like another commenter said, wealth is the ability to get people to do things. You're not wealthy if you crawl into a cave and just sit there doing nothing (ignoring that even then you are impacting the environment with your methane emissions).