51–60 of 146 posts
Kinda ironic having the picture of the current finance minister, Siv Jensen, there, as she is so opposed to us saving this money. She is mainly elected on promises on lower immigration, cheaper alcohol, cheaper fuel and lower taxes. Planning to achieve that by using the fund's money.
I've often said the Nordic countries in general are as close to a Star Trek style civilisation as we've ever gotten. As someone who lives in America Lite (the UK) your policies on just about everything strike me as insanely reasonable. I pretty much feel shame whenever I think about our last two governments.
Since we're talking about how awesome Norway is, this [0] should be mentioned. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Norway
Yeah, so awesome. 729 whales so far, tell me again how awesome they are. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/norway-kills-...
Oh and whale meat is delicious.
C'mon man. Norway's the #1 importer of Teslas [1] Otherwise, man I wish Canada would manage our oil money like Norway. But we burned that bridge a long time ago. [1] look it up
The Tesla isn't priced as a luxury car in Norway. Electric vehicles are exempt from taxes and fees, which is mostly where the money goes when you buy a more traditional vehicle. They also don't pay anything when passing toll booths, IIRC. Where I grew up, people now pay ~$10 just to pass toll booths to and from work every day. There are other benefits as well, like free parking, Tesla's free charging station--and mos…
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as an australian, i m sadden by this. Why isn't there public outrage and change? =(
Because the mining industry is powerful (major share of our exports) and big business dominates the media. They get the public fearful about the loss of jobs. Further, Labor's infighting put off a lot of people while the Coalition were consistent with their message in opposition.
Out an out corruption basically. The country began because of a miners revolution, and to this day they have more power than they earn.
The large coal mine (by an Indian company) despite declining coal prices, and the state earning more money via tourism, is going ahead because of brilliant control by the mining companies. This company has a terrible record of keeping their mines clean as well. Not only that, but the carbon produced is similar to all planned carbon saving planned by the government proving they lied about reducing carbon themselves. Further more coal kills a million people per year through pollution, and China is reducing their spend on coal, like most other countries. Which means the price of coal is only going to fall.
Kinda ironic having the picture of the current finance minister, Siv Jensen, there, as she is so opposed to us saving this money. She is mainly elected on promises on lower immigration, cheaper alcohol, cheaper fuel and lower taxes. Planning to achieve that by using the fund's money.
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Well, make it happen. University is one option: http://www.studyinnorway.no/Tuition-Scholarships I say this not to be glib, but as someone who yearned to move abroad and found out that it wasn't as hard as I thought.
"However, you should take into consideration that living expenses in Norway are higher than in many other countries." I don't have a job right now, no savings, 29 years old, and paperwork bore me. There are dozens of those "programs", and I don't want to spend one entire week sorting it out to discover I can't afford to just live over there. I want to go there no question asked, to work, not to study.
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The last benefit actually is starting to become a problem, since so many people have gotten Teslas. There's a lot of traffic in the bus lane, as electric cars, buses and taxis fight for the same spaces.
I suppose it will eventually be taken away. It's a nice temporary incentive but it obviously cannot scale.
Statoil and how Norway essentially protected its future is a lot like how Australia should have dealt with the so-called mining boom. Named and outlined better, our "mining tax" could have been this. It could have protected against capital flight and essentially built national strength for all at the expense of those (especially foreign interests) looking to dig up serious swathes of our ground. Instead, we had a pre…
There was even discussion around this prior to the disastrous introduction of the mining tax[1][2]. Interestingly there was at least some support on both sides of politics for it. [1] http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/a-n... [2] http://www.afr.com/p/national/gillard_rejects_call_for_wealt...
I hope the opportunity to capitalise isn't completely lost.