And also only 5 million people to benefit from the fund while Saudi Arabia has 35 million. It’s basically like everyone in a small city has won the lottery.
depends on the region and the actors in play. But generally, insurgency is correlated with large reserves of high value, easily extractable resources in a country with little control over the interior, particularly in countries with hard to traverse terrain. It's a simple opportunity-cost function.
The US annexing Canada? It is absolutely credible, the US is run by nazi pedophiles from the evil clown dimension right now, who the fuck knows what they'll do?
The Nordic countries are the only ones with natural resources? The Soviet Union had far more resources than Scandinavia yet still collapsed after just 69 years. Maybe oil isn't the reason Scandinavia is so successful
Not just massive oil reserves, but massive amounts of renewable energy to use domestically. They can afford to export all of the oil they have and reinvest the profits.
There are plenty of Persian Gulf emirates with tiny citizen populations and immense oil wealth that rely on slave labour and have dictatorships/absolute monarchies and widespread human rights abuses and religious/ethnic discrimination and repression. I guess this also applies to Equatorial Guinea which has many of the same problems + mass poverty even for citizens.
Norway is literally the one single example of a good result of oil money + tiny citizen population. Every other country is a hell hole for everyone except a tiny elite.
Norway is literally the one single example of a good result of oil money + tiny citizen population. Every other country is a hell hole for everyone except a tiny elite.
This is what happens when ”citizens = elite” in a rentier oil state. Canada, Brunei and Kazakhstan are partial exceptions. Among other other natural-resource heavy economies Chile (copper) Australia (Coal, Iron ore), and Botswana (diamonds) also did it reasonably well.
The closest analogy to Norway is actually Alaska. Alaska is like Norway but with zero fiscal discipline: cash handouts to all residents mean that distribution of common rent is handled fine but is lacking in discipline when the fund gets raided for whatever political whims every now and then.
So, and I mean this with all sincerity, it’s okay to profit from oil but not okay to use it yourselves? From what I recall Norway values decarbonization and EVs and such, so isn’t it ironic they don’t allow their own people to use oil but it’s okay if others do because those profits flow to their fund?
One time, I read an op ed article about US outsourcing and manufacturing moving overseas, and how basically, things like fireworks and dangerous chemicals Americans gladly let low cost offshore labor handle without regulation and we import them, but if we were to make them here OSHA and EPA would have a field day with regulations not only driving up costs but making it basically illegal to union workers. Ironic yet wise, as you say.
Not only that the sovereign wealth fund invests in a variety of companies around the world, all of which are very much plugged into the modern oil-consuming industrial ecosystem.
And I truly mean this as an outsider, not a troll, does Norway face any internal or external opposition to this?
After reading this Wikipedia my initial reaction was to feel like Norway shouldn’t be standing on its moral high ground like it does, though, I imagine it gets confused for other Nordic countries despite its distinct history and modern economic differences.
This is just the weirdest comment. Why wouldnt it be okay? They still use oil. You can value renewables and still trade in oil, these arent mutually exclusive.
The average amount of oil per day Norway produced in 2013 was 1.54 million barrels. Canada's daily production in the same year was 3.36 million barrels a day. How does Norway have so much money when it has less oil than Canada?
The industry isn’t a state monopoly per se (but Equinor is state owned), the sovereign wealth fund is stuffed using a 78% special profit tax on oil profits (which the state company’s also pays)
InVenezuela, nationalizing the oil industry (well, almost, we still had prĂvate companies from abroad) was the beginning of the end.
The Norwegians were just wiser with more capable leaders, and much much less population. Also more industrialized when they discovered oil underground. And at first they tried what every other oil producing nation does: invest the oil rent in the internal economy.
The result was economic unstability, inflation, Dutch disease. They key was correct this part. And they did, they pivoted from one model to another. I'm not sure how. That wouldn't happen in Venezuela. Most people here are left leaning and they would protest such measure.
The common factor in resource curse countries is that they often have unsound/unstable undemocratic institutions that allow the ruling class to rule without the mandate of the people due to large resource revenues. Countries with strong institutions don’t typically suffer from the resource curse.
Not spending all of it frivolously will delay the symptoms but yeah, there are definitely signs of Dutch disease in Norway.
Like, without googling, name one Norwegian company that is 1. Not oil-related, 2. Successful on a global scale 3. Not majority state-owned and 4. Is not a salmon-farming operation. It’s not difficult to to the same for Sweden, Denmark, Finland… but Norway? Uh… well, there’s conglomerates like Reitan, Orkla, Schibsted etc that try to buy up stuff in the rest of Scandinavia, but no SAAB/Maersk/Kone or Spotify/Novo Nordisk/Rovio.
Yes, that’s actually a pretty good example. Small niche but so is Rovio and Supercell. When it comes to Tech Sweden is so dominant in Scandinavia it’s hard to find equivalent examples from the neighbors. Except Nokia I guess but i avoided that example because people tend to think Nokia is not a factor anymore after they left the consumer-facing markets.
Oh, never: Alberta contains the vast majority of our oil reserves and will never voluntarily offer the profits of that oil to be used to benefit the country at large. Just look at all the nonsense around the Alberta Pension Plan, and even if we didn't have a conservative government in power (which has only happened once since 1971) the topic of equalization is already a touchy one on both sides of the aisle.
Meanwhile, we already have a provincial sovereign wealth fund so expanding it to benefit other provinces would essentially mean taking away from Albertans for the benefit of people in other provinces. Championing that would be political suicide for any party, at least on the Prairies.
Singapore has larger sovereign wealth funds, it just split its wealth fund in two. It did that without access to oil, or any natural resource for that matter.
When are they going to start buying football teams and sponsoring sports?
Liv Golf and FIA Formula One but now brought to you by Neturogina Norwegian cream
So they could win the real peace prize 🏆
They have a rule about not owing more than a tiny share of each company, I believe. Is it 0,5%?
Best use of a national resource ever.
Norway is a cold Saudi Arabia with Democratic institutions.
chalk is a sedimentary carbonate cheese with high calcite contentÂ
They don’t murder journalists.
Say whut now?
And also only 5 million people to benefit from the fund while Saudi Arabia has 35 million. It’s basically like everyone in a small city has won the lottery.
5 million people is a small city?
it'd be like the 84th largest city in the world. seems fair to call that small.
That's a very bad definition
There's about 50 thousand cities in the world. If you're in the top 100, it's a big city
The Nordic model is the best economic system imo
Yeah why don’t all those other countries discover massive oil reserves, what are they stupid?
Yeah all those oil reserves that Sweden and Denmark and Finland have. Oh wait...
Virtually none of them put the profits in sovereign funds. Canada has enormous oil reserves and all the money vanishes into the pockets of AmericansÂ
Stop, every time this gets brought up I wanna puke.
We pay for your defense. No need to throw up
The only defense we need is from your shithole country. Awesome.
Which country has repeatedly threatened to annex Canada? Oh yeah, the US. We need defense from you, not thanks to you.
Russia and China bots are out strong tonight
and aside from a few global north countries, being rich in oil is highly correlated with instability and insurgency in the interior.
I wonder who funds the insurgents.
depends on the region and the actors in play. But generally, insurgency is correlated with large reserves of high value, easily extractable resources in a country with little control over the interior, particularly in countries with hard to traverse terrain. It's a simple opportunity-cost function.
Check out the Jakarta Method by Vincent Blevins. There is a reason countries with high value resources are kept unstable.
Gonna need a source for a claim like that
America too has massive oil reserves it disappears into well same place
At least Canada can piggy back off the most powerful military in the world protecting them.
Didn’t Trump threaten to invade Canada? It’s time Canada develops its own nuclear deterrent.
If you’re Canadian do you honestly believe that threat is credible?
The US annexing Canada? It is absolutely credible, the US is run by nazi pedophiles from the evil clown dimension right now, who the fuck knows what they'll do?
Yes, Canada is a vassal state in the US empire, it fucking sucks
Remind me how much oil does Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Finland produce again?
The Nordic countries are the only ones with natural resources? The Soviet Union had far more resources than Scandinavia yet still collapsed after just 69 years. Maybe oil isn't the reason Scandinavia is so successful
Not just massive oil reserves, but massive amounts of renewable energy to use domestically. They can afford to export all of the oil they have and reinvest the profits.
Other Nordic countries don't have oil reserves and they are still pretty great
And also have small populations
Especially if you only have 5 million citizens that can claim the fund. Basically like everyone in a small city winning the lottery.
There are plenty of Persian Gulf emirates with tiny citizen populations and immense oil wealth that rely on slave labour and have dictatorships/absolute monarchies and widespread human rights abuses and religious/ethnic discrimination and repression. I guess this also applies to Equatorial Guinea which has many of the same problems + mass poverty even for citizens.
Norway is literally the one single example of a good result of oil money + tiny citizen population. Every other country is a hell hole for everyone except a tiny elite.
This is what happens when ”citizens = elite” in a rentier oil state. Canada, Brunei and Kazakhstan are partial exceptions. Among other other natural-resource heavy economies Chile (copper) Australia (Coal, Iron ore), and Botswana (diamonds) also did it reasonably well.
The closest analogy to Norway is actually Alaska. Alaska is like Norway but with zero fiscal discipline: cash handouts to all residents mean that distribution of common rent is handled fine but is lacking in discipline when the fund gets raided for whatever political whims every now and then.
So, and I mean this with all sincerity, it’s okay to profit from oil but not okay to use it yourselves? From what I recall Norway values decarbonization and EVs and such, so isn’t it ironic they don’t allow their own people to use oil but it’s okay if others do because those profits flow to their fund?
ironic yet wise
One time, I read an op ed article about US outsourcing and manufacturing moving overseas, and how basically, things like fireworks and dangerous chemicals Americans gladly let low cost offshore labor handle without regulation and we import them, but if we were to make them here OSHA and EPA would have a field day with regulations not only driving up costs but making it basically illegal to union workers. Ironic yet wise, as you say.
Not only that the sovereign wealth fund invests in a variety of companies around the world, all of which are very much plugged into the modern oil-consuming industrial ecosystem.
And I truly mean this as an outsider, not a troll, does Norway face any internal or external opposition to this?
After reading this Wikipedia my initial reaction was to feel like Norway shouldn’t be standing on its moral high ground like it does, though, I imagine it gets confused for other Nordic countries despite its distinct history and modern economic differences.
This is not weird. Oil is finite.
They will be patting themselves on the back when their basin runs out and there's no more oil to drill for.
This is just the weirdest comment. Why wouldnt it be okay? They still use oil. You can value renewables and still trade in oil, these arent mutually exclusive.
People also ask
Does Norway have more oil than Canada?
The average amount of oil per day Norway produced in 2013 was 1.54 million barrels. Canada's daily production in the same year was 3.36 million barrels a day. How does Norway have so much money when it has less oil than Canada?
Norway's oil industry is nationalised. Canada's profits went to oil companies, Norway's profits went to the government.
The industry isn’t a state monopoly per se (but Equinor is state owned), the sovereign wealth fund is stuffed using a 78% special profit tax on oil profits (which the state company’s also pays)
Not that simple.
InVenezuela, nationalizing the oil industry (well, almost, we still had prĂvate companies from abroad) was the beginning of the end.
The Norwegians were just wiser with more capable leaders, and much much less population. Also more industrialized when they discovered oil underground. And at first they tried what every other oil producing nation does: invest the oil rent in the internal economy.
The result was economic unstability, inflation, Dutch disease. They key was correct this part. And they did, they pivoted from one model to another. I'm not sure how. That wouldn't happen in Venezuela. Most people here are left leaning and they would protest such measure.
It’s not 2 trillion in oil, the profits from selling oil are used to finance investments
Canadians give it to American billionaires, Norweigans use it for development
Has Norway ever suffered from the Dutch Resource Curse? If not, how did they avoid it. Curious.
The common factor in resource curse countries is that they often have unsound/unstable undemocratic institutions that allow the ruling class to rule without the mandate of the people due to large resource revenues. Countries with strong institutions don’t typically suffer from the resource curse.
Are you saying 1980’s Netherlands was an unstable democracy with an authoritarian ruling class?
Not spending all of it frivolously will delay the symptoms but yeah, there are definitely signs of Dutch disease in Norway.
Like, without googling, name one Norwegian company that is 1. Not oil-related, 2. Successful on a global scale 3. Not majority state-owned and 4. Is not a salmon-farming operation. It’s not difficult to to the same for Sweden, Denmark, Finland… but Norway? Uh… well, there’s conglomerates like Reitan, Orkla, Schibsted etc that try to buy up stuff in the rest of Scandinavia, but no SAAB/Maersk/Kone or Spotify/Novo Nordisk/Rovio.
https://www.svt.ntnu.no/iso/WP/2020/Paperi%20pdf/4_20_Mork.pdf
reMarkable? It's big in their niche.
Yes, that’s actually a pretty good example. Small niche but so is Rovio and Supercell. When it comes to Tech Sweden is so dominant in Scandinavia it’s hard to find equivalent examples from the neighbors. Except Nokia I guess but i avoided that example because people tend to think Nokia is not a factor anymore after they left the consumer-facing markets.
When will Canada get a sovereign wealth fund?
Oh, never: Alberta contains the vast majority of our oil reserves and will never voluntarily offer the profits of that oil to be used to benefit the country at large. Just look at all the nonsense around the Alberta Pension Plan, and even if we didn't have a conservative government in power (which has only happened once since 1971) the topic of equalization is already a touchy one on both sides of the aisle.
Meanwhile, we already have a provincial sovereign wealth fund so expanding it to benefit other provinces would essentially mean taking away from Albertans for the benefit of people in other provinces. Championing that would be political suicide for any party, at least on the Prairies.
Singapore has larger sovereign wealth funds, it just split its wealth fund in two. It did that without access to oil, or any natural resource for that matter.
Norway: the most virtuous, green petroestate that there is.
Every Norwegian essentially has a trust fund worth about 350k.
Imagine Nvidia alone is worth twice as much.
having natural resources and not having it be disappeared by the colonizers must be a refreshing place to live in..