How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil' • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by noir_lord » Wed, Aug 27, 2014, 9:42 AM UTC

cylinder wrote: post #97

noir_lord wrote: post #42

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.

Is there freedom of movement for UK citizens into Nordic countries? If not, is the migration process hard or easy? If it's simple, why not move there yourself?

I've considered it a few times but there where and are reasons why for now I need to stay in the UK (til recently partner with health problems) and my mother is ill.

It's something at the back of my mind for one day though.

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

#142

Post by lilsunnybee » Wed, Aug 27, 2014, 6:07 PM UTC

cylinder wrote: post #94

prawn wrote: post #9

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…

Australia is basically like many African nations, where foreigners run the resources sector and the locals hope to get a piece of the pie through employment/wages. However, Norway's resources are completely different to Australia's. Norway knows where the oil is, they just have to dig it up. So, they can just have a state-owned company pump it out of the sea and keep the profits for themselves. OTOH Australia's miner…

How can prospecting and extraction be both simultaneously unprofitable and also creating incredibly wealthy heiresses? If resource extraction and profit-sharing in Australia is most closely compared to that of African nations, it doesn't seem like the public is benefiting much from allowing their natural resources to be appropriated and sold by multinationals.

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

#143

Post by lilsunnybee » Wed, Aug 27, 2014, 6:12 PM UTC

nly wrote: post #70

fnordsensei wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalism

Different definitions. The current American political ones aren't universal by any means.

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

#144

Post by Swannie » Thu, Aug 28, 2014, 7:33 AM UTC

jensen123 wrote: post #27

Bergen is not the center of Norway's oil and gas industries. Stavanger is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stavanger

That's what I thought too... But I'm biased, because I've only been to Stavanger and not Bergen.

The reason I assumed for not having super cars around there is because it gets too damn cold. Now the number of high end 4x4's I saw there... that's another story :-)

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

#145

Post by jonifico » Fri, Aug 29, 2014, 4:00 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #118

jonifico wrote: post #102

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…

Venezuela is the great example in South America. They're, in theory, sitting on the world's largest oil reserves. Meanwhile their production has been falling for 15 years because the government, under Chavez and now, has squandered the opportunity. They have somewhere between $10 trillion and $30 trillion in proven oil reserves, depending on who you believe (either way it's immense). They should be one of the wealthi…

That's a great example, as well. Although it gets even worse when you realize what kind of government they're under. I mean, it's almost a dictatorship. It's all just a big pitty over another.

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

#146

Post by eru » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 11:53 AM UTC

lilsunnybee wrote: post #142

cylinder wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia is basically like many African nations, where foreigners run the resources sector and the locals hope to get a piece of the pie through employment/wages. However, Norway's resources are completely different to Australia's. Norway knows where the oil is, they just have to dig it up. So, they can just have a state-owned company pump it out of the sea and keep the profits for themselves. OTOH Australia's miner…

How can prospecting and extraction be both simultaneously unprofitable and also creating incredibly wealthy heiresses? If resource extraction and profit-sharing in Australia is most closely compared to that of African nations, it doesn't seem like the public is benefiting much from allowing their natural resources to be appropriated and sold by multinationals.

> How can prospecting and extraction be both simultaneously unprofitable and also creating incredibly wealthy heiresses?

Not agreeing with OP, but playing the lottery can be both unprofitable, and create a few rich people.