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Considering this is explicitly stated to be for welfare, it would be really interesting to see a major UBI experiment. If the fund doesn't grow there's 186k 4 per person could be 12k/yr for over 15 years.
Wow! These people must be extraordinary to use oil money this way! Not kidding! Never been in Norway, but in countries I have ever been this would be barely possible due to corruption and the needs of the politician’s buddies. Like yachts, private jets, Bentleys and Vertu phones. This $186k/person isn’t far from what average German poses: https://www.bundesbank.de/resource/blob/617492/cd59713c156ad...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps this is why they can afford many government programs that the US simply cannot. Without a prolific income stream comparable to Norwegian oil, the only way to provide more social services is to tax individuals and businesses harder. Tax any group too heavily and you create brain drain, which hurts in the long run.
Without advocating taxing any group too heavily, is there any evidence that this practice has ever created a brain drain?
- CalPERS[1] has about $360 billion in assets under management.
- The US Social Security Trust fund (which, depending on your POV you might count as an accounting fiction) is about $2.9 trillion.
- Vanguard has about $5.3 trillion in AUM.
1. California Public Employees' Retirement System
Assuming that a fund like that grows ~10% per year or so, each norwegian makes a bonus of 19230.7 just by existing. That is enough for a family to live in the european south. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor...
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Their income tax is 22% if I'm not mistaken.
Sales tax is 25% (lower on food + public transport). Income tax is close to 50% for most of people (progressive), in addition there is a 14% tax per employee that the companies have to pay. If you take out dividend there is a 25% tax that don't earn you pension.
Surely the government doesn’t burn it.
And a better metric would be to look at tax burden, because top marginal rates are just that: what you pay on our last dollar, not your first. Sales tax isn’t charged on rent/food/property so it’s only charged on a small percentage of one’s after-tax income.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US produces 10x the oil Norway does, and was producing significant amounts of oil as far back as the 1860s. We've had that profit stream, we just let it get captured by private corporations (or in Alaska's case, given away to garner votes).
The Us exports 3x times as much oil as Norway Norway is 5 million people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_expor...
Isn't this contributing to climate change? The economy everyone uses as an example to replace the current system in the US...
Perhaps this is why they can afford many government programs that the US simply cannot. Without a prolific income stream comparable to Norwegian oil, the only way to provide more social services is to tax individuals and businesses harder. Tax any group too heavily and you create brain drain, which hurts in the long run.
The Norwegian success is the single biggest piece of evidence as to why the Venezuelan catastrophe was largely avoidable, and the fault of irresponsible leadership.
Except every other oil dominated country - e.g. Iraq, Libya, half of Africa is more like Venezuela (worse even), than Norway. The oil curse is very real and, for Venezuela, largely unavoidable.