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Norweigan oil fund

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Re: Norweigan oil fund

#81

Post by mcv »

panpanna wrote: post #27
sct202 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norway isn't in the EU, so that wouldn't exactly be home for them either.

My bad, you are correct. Anyway, the point still stands. Why not make Oslo the silicon valley of Europe? I mean the weather is roughly the same, give or take 30 degrees :)

Do you think they need even more money?

The goal of this fund is not to invest in the economy, but to work as an insurance if ever the economy turns bad. If for whatever reason the economy in Norway collapses, they will still have this.

Re: Norweigan oil fund

#82

Post by Scoundreller »

ceejayoz wrote: post #16
BluffFace wrote: post #3

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.

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).

I do wonder if Canada could have been like Norway for the same reasons.

And Canada has more than just oil.

But a lot of it seems to be privately squandered.

Re: Norweigan oil fund

#83

Post by xnxn »

ISL wrote: post #22
ceejayoz wrote: post #16

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).

Population of Norway, 2017: 5.258 million Population of United States, 2018: 327.2 million

Using the "US exports 3x as much oil as Norway" figure from the sibling comment, does that mean a comparable fund in the US could be $3000B, or $9k/person?

Still sounds like quite the missed opportunity.

Re: Norweigan oil fund

#84

Post by Scoundreller »

asark wrote: post #39
ISL wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Population of Norway, 2017: 5.258 million Population of United States, 2018: 327.2 million

Shoulda been taxing any extraction of non-renewable resources into a fund like this. The whole country—literally, the physical country—gets poorer when that stuff's taken out. Shame we didn't capture some of that value for public, shared, long-term benefit. [EDIT] all non-renewables, that is, not just oil. Should easily make up the difference between population and extracted natural resource value vs. Norway.

That makes a lot more sense than taxing people’s work.

Re: Norweigan oil fund

#85

Post by cagenut »

lr4444lr wrote: post #34

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.

I can't stand this ideological sports-team type of commentary, so just to add some real information and context (after my downvote):

Venezuela produces ~70k barrels per person per day. Norway produces a little more than half as much total oil, but with one-sixth the population it works out to ~330k barrels per person per day. An order of magnitude per-capita difference.

Re: Norweigan oil fund

#86

Post by coliveira »

DanCarvajal wrote: post #29
BluffFace wrote: post #3

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.

U.S. Government spending is roughly 38% of GDP and in Norway it's 48%. I think it's safe to say that the U.S. can and does spend a lot, the debate is more towards what ends and how. I'm inclined to think we do a really poor job, with numerous reasons why. Source: https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-spending.htm

Most spending in the US is squandered around war and socialism to the rich. The country has doing little int the last few decades to support science and combating global warming; they're also cutting social programs.

Re: Norweigan oil fund

#87

Post by calvinmorrison »

pytester wrote: post #62
lr4444lr wrote: post #34

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.

Norway is about 20% of it's GDP from Oil/Gas, Iraq is above 90%. I think that is also an explaination

Re: Norweigan oil fund

#88

Post by belltaco »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #71
godelski wrote: post #50

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.

15 years is not UBI. If you can’t rely on it being around for the rest of your life it would be insane to leave your career to live on UBI.

I don't the point of UBI is for everyone to leave their careers. If anything, it's the opposite.

Re: Norweigan oil fund

#89

Post by bobwaycott »

coliveira wrote: post #56
lr4444lr wrote: post #34

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.

But what to say about Americans, who squandered natural resources to help the rich, and now the funding to their own social security is en route to insolvency?

PS: You mean en route—sounds the same, but that's how to correctly spell the phrase.

Re: Norweigan oil fund

#90

Post by Majromax »

maxerickson wrote: post #65
coliveira wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what to say about Americans, who squandered natural resources to help the rich, and now the funding to their own social security is en route to insolvency?

It would be easy to make social security solvent far into the future. There's no shortage of resources to do it, just lack of political will. One step would be to move it away from an insurance model and raise the cap on contributions. Another would be to modestly increase the contribution rates.

> One step would be to move it away from an insurance model and raise the cap on contributions. Another would be to modestly increase the contribution rates.

This is essentially what happened in the mid-90s with the Canada Pension Plan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Pension_Plan#1996_refor...): an increase of contribution rates to move beyond PAYGO solvency to a partial advance-funding model. As a result, the CPP now has a few hundred billion dollars in assets (invested largely in equities) providing income to support long-term solvency.

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