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How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

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Re: How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

#61
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Try Stockholm, it has a huge tech sector and you can go there to work as an EU citizen, no questions asked. You can't afford to live in stockholm either without a job of course, but programmers get jobs quite easily if they speak English, and salaries are decent.

How much is 'decent'? And how much is rent?

Re: How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

#62
post #53

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.

If it's of any consolation, your healthcare is still better.

For now.

The current government seems determined to paint the NHS as failing in a pretty blatant attempt to privatise large chunks of it, the bastards.

I used to be pretty neutral towards the major parties, tending to look at what they did rather than what they said but quite frankly the conservatives can go and fuck themselves.

Re: How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

#64
post #63
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. They are. However, the IWC resolution to ban whaling is not binding. It's advisory and in my opinion not based on facts but feelings.

[deleted]

Minke whales are not in any way endangered (or close to it). Check your facts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minke_whale

Re: How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

#65
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try Stockholm, it has a huge tech sector and you can go there to work as an EU citizen, no questions asked. You can't afford to live in stockholm either without a job of course, but programmers get jobs quite easily if they speak English, and salaries are decent.

How much is 'decent'? And how much is rent?

As everywhere salaries vary wildly (as they should), but an uneducated "scriptkid" without experience probably makes EUR2500/mo, a 5yr exp collage educated developer makes EUR3500-5500 and top devs of course make much more than that in some industries. It all depends. "Rent" is pretty much unheard of since getting an apartment to rent in central stockholm is impossible due to rent control, so if you move to stockholm to work in tech you most likely sublet someone's apartment at EUR750-2000/mo depending on size and location. A single bedroom apt in central Stockholm is ~1000.

Re: How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

#66
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Norway isn't violating a whaling ban?

There is no law which bans it. Just an agreement among several countries which Norway isn't a part of as far as I know.

Yep, just like the Kyoto Protocol. (no sarcasm, just pointing out that he's right, and that most people also think every nation is bound by the Kyoto Protocol)

Re: How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

#67
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Minke whales are not in any way endangered (or close to it). Check your facts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minke_whale

Yet. I take the view that the human race should only be harvesting things it really needs. The case for whaling (that I'm aware of) seems pretty weak. And if Norway did sign up to protect marine wildlife in exchange for oil rights (I'm taking that at face value at the moment) then it does seem like a jerk move to take the oil and not protect the whales.

Re: How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

#68
post #22

Probably one of the best examples of how natural resource wealth has been preserved and invested for the whole nation, instead of being lost to the pockets of few through privatisation, corruption or mismanagement of funds. I think the magic ingredients (aside from being lucky with natural resources in the first place) are egalitarian society, high level of trust, very low level of corruption, a functioning democrati…

This must really be upsetting for the extreme liberals of the country. "Public resources being invested sensibly! Horrifying! You can tell that this is an awful idea by looking at how miserable the people of Norway are, and how badly their businesses are doing. You should liberate yourselves by giving all of it to private interests. That's the definition of freedom!" /end sarcasm

I think you were downvoted because in the U.S. the term 'liberal' has a different meaning than in different parts of the world.

Re: How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

#69
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Really, you want to go live and work legally on a different nation, but you don't want to spend some days on paperwork, you just want someone to call you and say 'you're brilliant! Come over we got everything sorted out!' I hope you really are brilliant. Hmmm... since this is HN and I've seen this before, let me ask: did you win the Putnam?

Re: How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

#70
post #22

Probably one of the best examples of how natural resource wealth has been preserved and invested for the whole nation, instead of being lost to the pockets of few through privatisation, corruption or mismanagement of funds. I think the magic ingredients (aside from being lucky with natural resources in the first place) are egalitarian society, high level of trust, very low level of corruption, a functioning democrati…

This must really be upsetting for the extreme liberals of the country. "Public resources being invested sensibly! Horrifying! You can tell that this is an awful idea by looking at how miserable the people of Norway are, and how badly their businesses are doing. You should liberate yourselves by giving all of it to private interests. That's the definition of freedom!" /end sarcasm

'Liberal' parties in much of Europe lean toward socialism, pushing for higher taxes and better public services. Over here, the people you describe as liberals would be considered extremist conservative.
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