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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'

#101

Post by jakobsen »

sharpneli wrote: post #24
cel1ne wrote: post #19

Since we're talking about how awesome Norway is, this [0] should be mentioned. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Norway

It's an awesome right. As a Finn I always find it really weird when visiting places outside Nordic Countries that for them most of the country is unaccessible.

Only 7% of the land in Finland and Sweden is Agricultural land, compared to 70% in the UK, so it's no wonder that the countryside is much more inaccessible.

That being said, there's a lot more that could be done, such as allowing kayaks into rivers and lakes without so many unreasonable limitations and/or paperwork.

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

#102

Post by jonifico »

I'm from Latin America and many countries here have more-than-decent resources to make things happen, but the difference between us and Norwegians is trust, and that changes it all. Take a look at Brazil, for example. There were over 20 megaconstructions planned for the World Cup and one one of them was completed, the Maracana stadium. That's just an insane amount of corruption. So, what happens? Well, since everyone's stealing, I might as well try to get my piece of the cake, and that's when people start to become selfish A-holes for lack generation after generation. We need a new mindset, better governments and trust. Lots of trust.

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

#103

Post by flurdy »

makmanalp wrote: post #52

There is also the related concept of "Dutch Disease" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease ) which is what I expected this would be about. The idea is that once a country discovers it has reserves of a valuable natural resource, it tends to exploit and build its economy around that resource, at the expense of its more complex sectors like manufacturing. Norway seems to have handled that decently well so far, a…

Norway do suffer from a mild form of Dutch disease unfortunately.

The oil industry dominate new investment. Although a lot of that is high tech solutions and can probably be used in other sectors, especially in related areas such as marine and shipping solutions, but they do not invest very well in any other area.

Some new companies are successful (Fast,Trolltech,Kongsberg,etc) but it is more in spite of the investment available. The VC, general investment and interest is barren if you compare the buoyant start up market in Denmark, Sweden and Finland.

I am worried about the state of affairs in 20-30 years if they not e.g. follow Finland's post Nokia incubation assistance etc. (IMHO as a Norwegian living in the UK).

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

#104

Post by jakobsen »

sliverstorm wrote: post #87
k__ wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany we don't got this right, but seldom I have been prohibited from "roaming" the landside. But we aren't allowed to put a tent anywhere and sleep in it, which is rather sad. A friend of mine went on a hiking holiday in Scotland and he told me, he just walked till he was tired, put his tent up on the next green spot and slept there.

we aren't allowed to put a tent anywhere and sleep in it, which is rather sad Probably connected to the risk that squatter's rights poses to the land owner... not that pitching a tent for a night is a serious risk, but squatter's rights really encourages that kind of culture.

Not knowing anything about squatter's rights (or law in general), shouldn't it be possible to just create a law putting whatever limits we want on camping WITHOUT the need for it to be completely forbidden?

I am just now in a place where free camping is not allowed, but the local authorities interpret the law as: "no tents between dawn and dusk". I wish that was put into a written law.

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

#105

Post by zanny »

larsiusprime wrote: post #85
timdierks wrote: post #81

It seems to me that the high levels of trust necessary for this to work also imply a high level of social cohesion (possibly homogeneity). In a society with less internal agreement, I don't see how you could get this much alignment over what is the right management strategy, let alone trust that it's being followed.

Don't forget SIZE. Norway is a tiny country, and so the distance between people and government is small. Norway's success is a strong case for localism.

Reading this, I realize that almost everything is a case for localism, since we now have nuclear weapons and international instantaneous communications that mean trying to invade a small country is much less reasonable (unless you are Russia).

I mean, that is (in part) why the Greek model failed. Small countries are vulnerable to conquest. But today that is not much of a problem, so I hope the natural social pressure to minimize can overcome the entrenched imperialistic powers that hold a lot of the larger nations together. It just makes more sense to me to, say, have 50 countries and a EU in the US instead of one massively overbearing federal that has authority over a land area competing with continental Europe.

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

#106

Post by cgh »

adventured wrote: post #91
makmanalp wrote: post #52

There is also the related concept of "Dutch Disease" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease ) which is what I expected this would be about. The idea is that once a country discovers it has reserves of a valuable natural resource, it tends to exploit and build its economy around that resource, at the expense of its more complex sectors like manufacturing. Norway seems to have handled that decently well so far, a…

I know a lot of people talk up Norway, but I'm not aware of anything that Norway does economically that matters outside of energy production. What great technology, companies, etc. have they produced in the last 40 years? What big innovations come out of Norway? Do they have the top universities in the world? They've only won two nobel prizes since oil became the center of their economy, and they became rich. They wo…

The country only has 4.5 million people. It's like saying that greater Phoenix doesn't matter because it's only produced two Nobel winners.

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

#107

Post by sliverstorm »

jakobsen wrote: post #104
sliverstorm wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we aren't allowed to put a tent anywhere and sleep in it, which is rather sad Probably connected to the risk that squatter's rights poses to the land owner... not that pitching a tent for a night is a serious risk, but squatter's rights really encourages that kind of culture.

Not knowing anything about squatter's rights (or law in general), shouldn't it be possible to just create a law putting whatever limits we want on camping WITHOUT the need for it to be completely forbidden? I am just now in a place where free camping is not allowed, but the local authorities interpret the law as: "no tents between dawn and dusk". I wish that was put into a written law.

The key item of squatter's rights is that if a squatter occupies land with the land-owner's knowledge for a number of years, the land now legally belongs to the squatter.

One night of camping is not years, but squatter's rights certainly encourages land-owners to be ever-strict about visitors to their land.

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

#108

Post by Thrymr »

jkmcf wrote: post #82
cel1ne wrote: post #19

Since we're talking about how awesome Norway is, this [0] should be mentioned. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Norway

Driving across the US west, you can’t help but notice how every bit of land is cordoned off with barbed wire or fences. Doesn’t matter if it’s in the middle of emply plains or uninhabited mountains. "Private property" and "no trespassing" signs abound.

Hardly "every bit". The federal government owns more than half of the land west of the Rockies [0], and most of that (e.g. US Forest Service and BLM land) is free to roam over. Much of it you can camp anywhere you want, too.

[0] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/10/15/al...

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

#109

Post by tormeh »

digikata wrote: post #99
flyinghamster wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a classic "Tragedy of the Commons" scenario. The electric car benefits are great when only a few are on the road, but when everyone gets one it turns into a problem. That will become a problem in the US as well, since US highway construction and maintenance is mostly funded from motor fuel taxes.

Highway maintenance is already a problem in the US, but not because of electric vehicles, it's from increasing efficiency of fossil fuel vehicles and the political refusal to raise fuel taxes to balance the maintenance costs with the tax revenue from fuel. If electric vehicles do become a significant proportion of vehicles on the road, the pragmatic thing to do would be to charge for mileage based on the odometer and…

How is the odometer data supposed to be collected? Weight is easy, though. I guess you could let the car phone home a couple of times per year, but the consumer still owns the car and can do a lot of shady stuff with the odometer, I imagine. Better to just use a flat annual fee with modifiers for weight. Trucks and other business vehicles can be assumed to travel a lot, so higher taxes for them.

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

#110

Post by CalRobert »

jokoon wrote: post #45
CalRobert wrote: post #32

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.

As you can imagine, "we want to let anyone from anywhere who can't be bothered to do a bit of paperwork come here and work, no questions asked" is not a policy that resonates with voters.
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