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Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

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Re: Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

#261

Post by jessaustin »

pnutjam wrote: post #256
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd have to disagree. My niece attends one of the top-rated high schools in the country. I recently perused her summer reading list and was astonished that the vast majority of them were books for children. Reading comprehension and writing proficiency are much, much lower than they were just a few decades ago, across all levels of schooling.

Memory can be tricky. You need some data, not anecdotes.

Lots of us remember reading e.g. Shakespeare and Faulkner in high school. If the most challenging material they're reading now is Rowling (or whatever GP means by "books for children"), that is data.

Re: Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

#262

Post by jessaustin »

throw2016 wrote: post #244
ethelward wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like Venezuela, for instance? You can't deny that Norway adopted a peculiar way of managing its good fortune, IMHO far better that what you can find in Russia, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, etc. It's the only “oil” state I know to be so good at it.

This perspective completely misses the politics and history of these countries. Colonialism, interference from external powers, exploitative capitalism, being caught in the middle of the 'great game' can all derail any natural resource wealth like in Venezuela. Saudi Arabia is a very unique history and continues to exist as a feudal regressive regime with global support and approval while Saddam, Gaddafi and Assad wh…

One might have expected Russia, at least, to have the sort of history of sophisticated socialism that would prepare a nation to wisely distribute the spoils of petroleum exploitation...

Re: Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

#263

Post by rsync »

bradlys wrote: post #260
rsync wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Although better than most other U.S. states, I don't have access to the services that Norwegians do. But my taxes are also very low here." CO State taxes are (roughly) 5% which puts it right in the middle of US states (between 0% in places like Florida and 10-ish percent at the (non CA/NY) high end). Then factor in (roughly) 35% federal + local taxes ... let's call it 40%, give or take. Let's just forget property ta…

Unless you're $300k+, your tax burden is under 40%. Even at $100k, you're around 31% total. That's for CA. https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-paycheck-calculator#...

I speak of the highest tax brackets because my parent was implying that tax rates were not high enough - which is in reference to the people whose taxes should be raised.

I don't think the suggestion was that lower income brackets should bear that burden.

Therefore it only makes sense to discuss the highest brackets.

Re: Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

#264

Post by dragonwriter »

jessaustin wrote: post #261
pnutjam wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Memory can be tricky. You need some data, not anecdotes.

Lots of us remember reading e.g. Shakespeare and Faulkner in high school. If the most challenging material they're reading now is Rowling (or whatever GP means by "books for children"), that is data.

> Lots of us remember reading e.g. Shakespeare and Faulkner in high school.

Yes, and my mom just last month retired from teachig English in a nothing-special (in ratings terms) high school in a relatively poor area, and was teaching Shakespeare, Donne, and the rest of the traditional canon of classic literature, as well as a small number of more current bits of non-juvenile literature that isn't part of the Eurocentric canon, works from Amy Tan and others (many of which I also remember reading—in college.)

But in any case what makes it challenging or not isn't what books they read, but what the expectations are of what they'll be able to do having read them.

Re: Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

#265

Post by endymi0n »

ebikelaw wrote: post #194
swiley wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a lot of fear here that giving people something for free means that the people receiving it will abuse it. People who want free education are viewed as “entitled.” The US is really weird about children, they’re the most important thing in most peoples minds but as soon as they turn 18 they’re dangerous and entitled.

The underlying reason is racism. White people dislike the idea of a social system that benefits everybody, because that would include the blacks. This is even true of desperately poor white people, who are very numerous, but would rather deny a social program to black people even if that means they also cannot benefit from it. Many of the countries we think of as quite successful and wealthy and educated and having m…

Just for the record, Norway is just about on par with the US if you count foreign born population, and Germany is even slightly above:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...

Re: Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

#266

Post by fulafel »

dredmorbius wrote: post #232
fulafel wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US was until recently a net importer of oil, so it's sort of a lite oil economy. Norway is exporting $50+B/year worth of oil industry products with a population of 5 million people and this has been going on for a long time.

The US has extracted more oil than any other country on Earth, full stop. It was a net exporter from the 1860s through 1950. It had surplus extraction capacity until 1972. And yet, no resource curse?

Ots the $$ per capita in (un/underrefined) exports that does it. Oil was cheap pre-50s and us has a big population. I can't be bothered to look up the figure but i bet it was much smaller than Norway's $$/capita figure.

Re: Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

#267

Post by soziawa »

jazoom wrote: post #126
soziawa wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It almost seems like city centres are not finite. Who would have thought?

>It almost seems like city centres are not finite. Who would have thought? Did you get your sarcasm backwards? finite -> infinite ?

Yes I did. I'm gonna blame it on autocorrect.

Re: Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

#268

Post by arcturus17 »

franciscop wrote: post #15

As a Spaniard who has discussed this in lenght with many other Europeans[1], it really seems like the US is the main country with the University debt issue. I also really believe that "score inflation" is a big issue mainly in the US. If everyone can finish University, then having a university title becomes pointless! [2] In Spain, Germany, France, Italy, etc if you get a degree in STEM it means you put a lot of effo…

And yet in Spain when we finish a CS degree at a top uni (UPM, UPC, etc) all we can aspire to is a 25,000€ / year salary with a ridiculous progression in most cases, whereas in the US it's not uncommon to climb to 150k fairly quickly.

Re: Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

#269

Post by jazzyk »

arcturus17 wrote: post #268
franciscop wrote: post #15

As a Spaniard who has discussed this in lenght with many other Europeans[1], it really seems like the US is the main country with the University debt issue. I also really believe that "score inflation" is a big issue mainly in the US. If everyone can finish University, then having a university title becomes pointless! [2] In Spain, Germany, France, Italy, etc if you get a degree in STEM it means you put a lot of effo…

And yet in Spain when we finish a CS degree at a top uni (UPM, UPC, etc) all we can aspire to is a 25,000€ / year salary with a ridiculous progression in most cases, whereas in the US it's not uncommon to climb to 150k fairly quickly.

I agree that salaries for college-educated people are shockingly low in Spain, I think it is a reflection of the lower general (not necessarily individual) productivity in Spain - as in bureaucracy, labor laws, etc.

Please keep in mind that MANY college-educated people in the US never get to even $100K (teachers, architects, there are more).

Also, it takes at least 10 years (perhaps more) to get to $150K for software engineers (with a B.S. degree), and you need to live in one of the bigger cities (where the cost of living is higher).

The numbers are a bit skewed here because a lot of the posters on HN live/work in the S.F./Silicon Valley area, which is a world onto itself.

Re: Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

#270

Post by blattimwind »

blattimwind wrote: post #230
lotsofpulp wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society can't expect the value of labor to remain the same if you double the supply by adding women to it. Plus automation and globalization means no way Americans could continue consuming so much per capita more than the rest of the world. Unless via the use of force, usually military, which the US does but it's not as effective as before.

While I don't think the supply was doubled (at least not here), yeah, that seems about right. What this meant is the middle class got nuked. You can't have a middle class family any more with only one parent working; as a mother you're pretty much coerced to work to make ends meet (or take a drastic standard of living and social cut). As an added bonus, people will tell you that you have a bad character and you are m…

And I think this is one of the most impressive feats here (besides turning, or rather directing, feminism into mainly being about reducing labour costs); a lot like spin doctoring.

Instead of gaining actual, actionable choice and freedoms, merely one social ideal (man works, woman cares for the children) was exchanged for another social ideal (both have to work, state handles the children), and the demographic pressuring women into compliance changed perhaps slightly.

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