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Comment by armcat | Hacker News Reader

I hiked Norwegian fjords above Bergen a couple of times in the past, highly recommend it if you ever get a chance.

Also: Norway has one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, valued at $2.2 trillion; over 50% are investments in US assets; close to $200 billion in US Treasury securities; and is a major shareholder in US corporations, especially across the tech sector.

So well done Norway, this is how you deal with clowns, not debate or argue on social media, but rub their face in your pure awesomness.

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> Norway has one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world

There were signs in the article lol

That chilling feeling when an intern in South Asia can freeze your trading account with one click.

Norway has done a great job with what they've been given, but remember that they've had the national equivalent of being born into a rich family - they have had enormous wealth from natural resources in the form of North Sea oil.

Fair, but so does UK, Canada - which might be one of the richest countries in the world in terms of natural resources I think? - and especially US of A.

But how these countries use their resources is quite different.

Thatcher sold the UK's off to her cronies.

The UK had a tiny amount of oil compared to Norway if you adjusted by population so it’s not a fair comparison. Also I’m not sure the share of the revenue the British government was getting was massively much lower than the case in Norway.

The UK government has had a huge income from the North Sea but unlike Norway we didn't invest it. We spent it as fast (or faster) than we received it. When modern Conservatives wax lyrical about Thatcher's economic miracle they seem unaware that it was mostly just oil revenue.

True, but the point is that no matter what the UK did it could never have been in the same position as Norway. Simply too many people and not enough oil.

Realistically even if they managed to accumulate a significant amount of money there would have been a lot of societal pressure to spend all of that during various economic downturns. How could a government that’s sitting on a fat pile of money ever justify cutting spending on the NHS or social services?

To be fair US produces around 5-6x less oil per capita than Norway so it’s not exactly a fair comparison.

OK, so the US' sovereign wealth fund would be 5-6x less per capita than Norway's, so less effective, but nonetheless capable of benefitting Americans substantially.

Except that ... it doesn't exist, because, from the beginning, we've given it all away to Big Oil, who spend some of it making sure that politicians get elected who keep supporting Big Oil.

So yes, a very fair comparison.

I mean you do have a perfectly valid point but I don’t see something like that working in countries like US or UK (or other countries with large trade deficits). The money would have just been used for general spending and at best would result in lower deficits. Which is of course better than nothing. It’s just that it would be simple politically infeasible and very unpopular to not spend it.

To be fair US is extremely rich in other natural resources other than oil. It is not the richest country in the world because Americans are such misers. Norways oil money could go to some Exxon or such and regular Norwegian could live in poverty.

At least we didn’t have to steal it from the original inhabitants.

… Oh wait …

Also their taxes are proportional to wealth and everyone pays them, so good public service. It's not that hard to understand and there is no need to circle around it.

You say it like it's given that natural resources wealth is distributed for population like it's in Norway. Its not. It takes a lot of work. Otherwise you get shithole countries where warlords/corporations/mafia take over control of resources and enrich them selves instead of raising global wellbeing.

Look at Venezuela.

Bad example because that country has been under American economic sanctions for the past 12 years.

If you can't trade with the rest of the world your life gets hard very quickly

And all of their problems started 12 years ago? That seems unlikely.

You can only compare Norway to richest of the gulf states like UAE, though (e.g. Saudi Arabia produces less oil per capita than Norway). Put 10x more people in Norway and keep the same amount of oil like in many of those “shithole” countries and you’d end up with a slightly different situation

Only slightly.

The major differentiator for Norway is policy, not oil quantity.

UAE and Qatar are doing quite well. Oman, Kuwait, SA, Brunei maybe not so much but there are obviously various socio-economic causes for that. I wouldn’t necessarily classify them as shitholes, though (as long as you are a male citizen at least..)

No other countries are comparable.

To be fair I think a good counterpoint is Denmark, they are doing about as well as Norway despite not having such massive amounts of oil. So surely Norway is underperforming despite the fact that they had a massive head start?

Norway won the lottery, sure they invested their winnings instead of wasting them but they are still playing on easy mode, you can count the number of countries which could have done the same with your fingers.

Exactly. They managed to use it to generate wealth inside their own country instead of spaffing it into the capital of the country next next door like Scotland.

Norway is hardly unique in having abundant natural resources. Other countries have larger oil reserves. What's unique is the fact that instead of letting a few large corporations, or corrupt mafia, get rich off of them with "trickle down economics" benefitting the rest of the country, the government is in charge of it and uses it for the public benefit.

"But socialism is bad!!"

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