On the appalling failure of the Scandinavians to consume conspicuously

You would think from this headline "We're Rich, You're Not. End of Story." that the article would be making fun of someone who bragged about wealth. But no. It is a whole New York Times article about how the US is actually wealthier than the Scandenavian countries.

But wait, isn't Norway number one on the human development index, and aren't we number 8?

Sure, but what you don't know is that the Norwegians have to bring their lunch to work.

One image in particular sticks in my mind. In a Norwegian language class, my teacher illustrated the meaning of the word matpakke - "packed lunch" - by reaching into her backpack and pulling out a hero sandwich wrapped in wax paper. It was her lunch. She held it up for all to see.

Yes, teachers are underpaid everywhere. But in Norway the matpakke is ubiquitous, from classroom to boardroom. In New York, an office worker might pop out at lunchtime to a deli; in Paris, she might enjoy quiche and a glass of wine at a brasserie. In Norway, she will sit at her desk with a sandwich from home.

Because nothing is a better indicator of your quality of life then whether you will casually by 5 dollars for a cup of coffee and a muffin.

But wait, there's more. The norwegians don't have pimped out cars like we do:

After I moved here six years ago, I quickly noticed that Norwegians live more frugally than Americans do. They hang on to old appliances and furniture that we would throw out. And they drive around in wrecks. In 2003, when my partner and I took his teenage brother to New York - his first trip outside of Europe - he stared boggle-eyed at the cars in the Newark Airport parking lot, as mesmerized as Robin Williams in a New York grocery store in "Moscow on the Hudson."

Wow, and I bet almost no one in Norway drives a Chevy Tahoe remodeled to look vaguely like a humvee. Loosers. And who needs universal healtcare when we have cheap pizza?

Even the humblest of meals - a large pizza delivered from Oslo's most popular pizza joint - will run from $34 to $48, including delivery fee and a 25 percent value added tax

Oh but wait, surely the author can give us real numbers to back up his claim of norwegian poverty. And he does. He cites the holy grail of all economic indicators: growth!

Economic growth in the last 25 years has been 3 percent per annum in the U.S., compared to 2.2 percent in the E.U. That means that the American economy has almost doubled, whereas the E.U. economy has grown by slightly more than half. The purchasing power in the U.S. is $36,100 per capita, and in the E.U. $26,000 - and the gap is constantly widening.

Why worry about indicators that track literacy or women's rights when we can focus on the one thing that makes a country great: cash cash cash. The fact that the cash is in the hands of a very few, and they mostly use it to buy status symbols that bring only superficial satisfaction is irrelevant. In the end, the economy is a game and GDP is the score! Your happiness is irrelevant!