Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich • Hacker News Board

Re: Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

#191

Post by antpls » Sat, Jul 14, 2018, 3:26 PM UTC

mockingbirdy wrote: post #149

mockingbirdy wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what about sharing it among the people who didn't have the same luck than you? That's one big thing what taxes are for: To redistribute wealth. And I have employees which earn good money. I don't know what you expect from me. > Some people can afford to take risks and earn even more while some simply cannot. That's why a solid social system is so important. It gives us the room to take risks because we can be sure…

> Some people can afford to take risks and earn even more while some simply cannot. I would like to know what you mean specifically. When you are jobless, the German system gives you enough to rent an apartment and eat something. It's not luxurious, but it's better than those anti-social systems like those in the US. You don't have to worry about getting enough food. When these basic needs are met, you are free to op…

When I talk about environment and legacy, I talk about your parents, your grand-parents and your grand-grand-parents.

If you are born Germans and your parents are Germans since generations, there are higher chances they teached you how the system works since the first day. It's probable they accumulated a social network of friendly lawyers, politicians, or any other persons the system already rewarded, and told you what to do to make sure you keep your privileges and protect the system.

Trusting the system when you are a foreigner is way more difficult, especially when you know no one.

You can't compare the lifestyle of someone who lives with $10k/month with someone who is clueless and, because of lack of information and ressources, cannot defend his/her own human rights.

We are not born equal, if your parents are richer than mines, you are probably privileged before we even proved our skills.

Re: Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

#192

Post by wetpaws » Sat, Jul 14, 2018, 3:33 PM UTC

massysett wrote: post #184

angarg12 wrote: post #110

As the article points out, the economic miracle of Norway is fueled by oil and gas, just like Spain economic miracle was fueled by cheap industrial labour and construction decades ago. Unlike Spain, they have been wise enough to use their money to diversify their economy, aware that this won't last forever. Sadly there are few lessons we can learn and apply here to other countries, as not everyone has a tiny populati…

"the economic miracle of Norway is fueled by oil and gas" It can't be that simple. Plenty of other countries have lots of oil and gas (Russia, Venezuela, the US) and they aren't necessarily having economic miracles.

Russia and Venezuella never diversified their economy which made them highly reliable on oil industry, promoted corruption/populism politics and backfired badly when oil prices dropped.

Re: Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

#193

Post by wetpaws » Sat, Jul 14, 2018, 3:35 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #75

endymi0n wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my not so humble opinion, it all comes down to a short- vs. farsighted culture and the resulting fundamental attitude towards kids. In the US, kids are seen at worst a nuisance and at best a personal luxury. In most of the northern/western EU, kids are seen as the future workers, decision makers and keepers of the whole economy 30 years into the future. All of the symptoms you are seeing, be it maternal / paternal…

"In the US, kids are seen at worst a nuisance and at best a personal luxury." That's nonsense. The US is all about children. That doesn't result in long term thinking about their education or maternal/parental leave but children are not seen as a nuisance.

Just try to tell it folks in bay area paying $2000-$3000 for childcare monthly.

Re: Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

#194

Post by ebikelaw » Sat, Jul 14, 2018, 3:37 PM UTC

swiley wrote: post #128

endymi0n wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think so mainly because of the near total lack of societal support of bringing them up to be educated, responsible adults with opportunities. If you want to have them, fine. But then, you better be prepared to be able to pay for health care, child care and college. Without maternal / paternal leave, having kids also puts their parents at a financial and career disadvantage to non-parents, so they are indeed a luxur…

There’s a lot of fear here that giving people something for free means that the people receiving it will abuse it. People who want free education are viewed as “entitled.” The US is really weird about children, they’re the most important thing in most peoples minds but as soon as they turn 18 they’re dangerous and entitled.

The underlying reason is racism. White people dislike the idea of a social system that benefits everybody, because that would include the blacks. This is even true of desperately poor white people, who are very numerous, but would rather deny a social program to black people even if that means they also cannot benefit from it.

Many of the countries we think of as quite successful and wealthy and educated and having many social programs are also shockingly homogeneous, so it’s hard to know if, say, Finland would be exactly as nice if they had more different races there. But we can say for certain that racism is holding America back.

Re: Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

#195

Post by ajmurmann » Sat, Jul 14, 2018, 3:37 PM UTC

tor0viking wrote: post #175

franciscop wrote: post #15

As a Spaniard who has discussed this in lenght with many other Europeans[1], it really seems like the US is the main country with the University debt issue. I also really believe that "score inflation" is a big issue mainly in the US. If everyone can finish University, then having a university title becomes pointless! [2] In Spain, Germany, France, Italy, etc if you get a degree in STEM it means you put a lot of effo…

Europe is able to keep its colleges and Universities free or mostly free because the European collegiate experience is a much simpler and stripped down version of what you find at US Universities. In the US, living on campus is the norm, a vast array of amenities and services are offered to students, and University bureaucracies are huge and growing by the year. Contrast this with Europe, where many Universities are…

Having studied in both US and Germany, US universities seem to have a much lighter focus on studying itself. The negative view would be that the are a lot more distractions like fraternities, sorts teams etc. Another view would be that there is a strong focus on network building. Fraternities and the whole school loyalty thing are practically made for this. It's a clear advantage to have those connections for the individual. I do wonder what this does to society as a whole. Maybe it makes matching people to jobs easier, maybe it makes it easier to find people to even start a company with. I could easily see how this caused silicon valley to be adding UC Berkeley and Stanford rather than TU Munich or the Sorbonne. Maybe it's mostly a zero sun game that's very expensive?

Re: Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

#196

Post by adventured » Sat, Jul 14, 2018, 3:38 PM UTC

massysett wrote: post #184

angarg12 wrote: post #110

As the article points out, the economic miracle of Norway is fueled by oil and gas, just like Spain economic miracle was fueled by cheap industrial labour and construction decades ago. Unlike Spain, they have been wise enough to use their money to diversify their economy, aware that this won't last forever. Sadly there are few lessons we can learn and apply here to other countries, as not everyone has a tiny populati…

"the economic miracle of Norway is fueled by oil and gas" It can't be that simple. Plenty of other countries have lots of oil and gas (Russia, Venezuela, the US) and they aren't necessarily having economic miracles.

Norway has 9-10x the oil output per capita of the US and over 5x that of Russia. Norway is a well run petro state. For the US to match Norway on that, it'd have to produce more than the equivalent of all the annual oil output on earth.

Total oil production per day per capita in 2017.

Norway: 1.9m bbl/day, 0.365 barrels per day per capita.

US: 13m bbl/day, 0.04 barrels per day per capita.

Russia: 11.2m bbl/day, 0.07 barrels per day per capita.

Re: Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

#197

Post by Wildgoose » Sat, Jul 14, 2018, 3:40 PM UTC

jamienicol wrote: post #114

Wildgoose wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The payments are based on your earnings, so it is a kind of graduate tax - but only up until around retirement when any remaining amounts are cancelled. In effect, more successful English graduates subsidise everybody else (because it is supposed to be revenue neutral). And specifically English, because only English students pay the full £9,250 per year. (Scottish students pay nothing, Welsh and Northern Irish a redu…

You have a very narrow view of who's paying for whom, which is what happens when education becomes a commodity. My tuition was paid for by the Scottish government, so by the UK tax payer. Now as a higher rate tax payer I help pay for everyone else, including English students who don't earn enough to pay back their fees. And as a resident of London, my tax will be counted as English by the books, reinforcing the idea…

Having chosen to move to London you are now an English tax-payer with less political representation than you had previously. That is your choice. Why should those of us who are English and who wish to continue to live in England amongst our friends and families have less political representation than those living elsewhere in the "United" Kingdom?

As for London, it is the capital of England just like Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland. Both are richer than elsewhere in their respective countries. I am not sure what point you are trying to make.

As for the Scottish Government's "progressive tuition fee policy", it was voted in by Scottish MSPs. The tuition fees paid by the English were forced on the English by MPs from Scotland who knew their own constituents would be unaffected - MPs from England (and Wales) voted against these fees but were overridden by Scottish MPs. That is not the fault of those MPs that the English voted for, but rather by a system of Devolution designed by effectively the Scottish Labour Party. And every time anybody who is English tries to address the issue there are howls of outrage from the rest of the UK, and Scotland in particular.

Re: Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

#198

Post by rsync » Sat, Jul 14, 2018, 3:41 PM UTC

Latty wrote: post #26

franciscop wrote: post #15

As a Spaniard who has discussed this in lenght with many other Europeans[1], it really seems like the US is the main country with the University debt issue. I also really believe that "score inflation" is a big issue mainly in the US. If everyone can finish University, then having a university title becomes pointless! [2] In Spain, Germany, France, Italy, etc if you get a degree in STEM it means you put a lot of effo…

> If everyone can finish University, then having a university title becomes pointless! Only if the value of a degree is having an edge over others, not if it's value is learning - primary school isn't pointless even though most people master it. This feels like it links back to the same problem as everything else - as time goes on automation removes less skilled jobs, and more and more people will need to do more ski…

"Or, worse, arbitrary jobs that aren't needed, but are created just to employ them."

...

"You ask for a miracle ? I give you the (T S A) ..."[1]

[1] Die Hard

Re: Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

#199

Post by xvedejas » Sat, Jul 14, 2018, 3:46 PM UTC

3rdAccount wrote: post #180

mac01021 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do European professors and universities avoid grade inflation? Are their incentives very different?

I'm sure many degree programs in the US are inflated, but it wasn't my experience in the US where engineering professors brag about how many students they failed that semester. "You only had 1/3rd your class drop? You must be getting soft." I had AP Calculus in High School (took school seriously) and had to give 110% to pass engineering school. I never partied and basically lived in study hall. Not everyone has to pu…

This does not seem to be the case in private universities, where high graduation rate is a strongly desired statistic. Maybe one or two people total left my Chemical Engineering class over four years, and usually to switch to something like Chemistry. I'm not sure what kinds of grades were typically passed out, but there always seemed to be strong pressure not to fail students.

Re: Unlike most millennials, Norway's are rich

#200

Post by adventured » Sat, Jul 14, 2018, 3:57 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #48

bufferoverflow wrote: post #32

Norway is a very special case. A small country with lots of oil, fish, and a small population (just 5.2 million). They would have to go really wrong to be poor.

Norway was rich on a global scale before oil.

Norway's oil boom began in the mid 1980s. In 1973 they essentially had zero oil production.

In the span of seven or eight years from the moment oil production began, their economy tripled in size (from 1973 to 1981). Oil caused that economic miracle.

Norway GDP per capita in 1973, pre oil, was $5,600 or so. Sweden was $7,200. Denmark was $6,100. Finland was $4,200.

Norway's GDP per capita in 1984 as the oil boom was underway was $15,000. Sweden was $13,000. Denmark was $11,500. Finland was near $11,000. Keep in mind these other three are among the best run couple dozen nations on earth.

Today: Norway $75,000; Denmark $56,000; Sweden $53,000; Finland $46,000.

Now show me the extraordinary products that Norway is creating and selling to the world, to generate that stunning $75,000 figure, as opposed to Sweden's remarkable economy that has boomed for a long time and is still lagging far behind Norway.

Norway's GDP per capita went from $38,000 in 2001 with cheap oil prices, to $97,000 by the end of 2008, due to the oil boom. It's very obvious that Norway owes its particular outlier performance to oil.