TheDag

> Obviously how rich a country is plays a part in this?

Of course it does. But not necessarily only in the direction you're hinting! At the end of the day it's not the number of hours worked, but the value created, that determines how wealthy a country gets. Having sufficient vacation and generally taking into account that employees are human beings might have an effect on how happy and productive they are.

I don't know if there are studies lending support to this, but to my mind it seems a pretty plausible thesis. I regard spending some of my tax money on my neighbour staying home with his kids as an investment. Social security is fundamental to human health, crime, education, and ultimately productivity.

To me, that is not all though. GDP growth isn't a goal or an end in itself - it is merely a (very important) means to worthy ends. It would be completely meaningless to have GPD growth if it did nothing to promote "the pursuit of happiness".

I've used Opera for a long time, and when I started using it it was simply alone on top of a lot of crap browsers. Now there are several decent alternatives, all of which are very frustrating for me. I work on multiple computers and have multiple computers at home. I'm lazy. Hence, no plugins should be required, so I get the experience I want installing just the browser.

For the most part Chrome or Fox or even IE10 behave similarly enough that I can almost use them instead of Opera. I think there's just 2 exceptions. Whenever I use another browser I find myself getting frustrated with 2 things: (1) Nothing happens when I "roll-left" over the mouse buttons (navigate back). (2) Tabs MORONICALLY cycle left-to-right, rather than in most recently used order. Both are show-stoppers for me, and I don't care if a plug-in can fix it, as long as Opera is otherwise more or less on par with the alternatives.

I wouldn't worry to much. This is Norway, not the US, and our courts aren't quite as corruped-by-corporations, yet, as are yours. Do a little research on the DnB vs Røeggen case where the latter recently won a crushing victory in the Supreme Court, and ask yourself if there's any way that case could have been won in the US, against the largest US bank.

> All of which is to say that the term "for-profit" doesn't necessarily mean the entity's sole purpose is to maximize profit, or indeed to make one at all; it's simply a classification for tax law purposes...

Except the minor detail that any for-profit is in fact legally OBLIGED to maximize profit for its shareholders.