Post: #1

http://www.policymic.com/articles/78751/...here-s-how

Quote:The news: On Wednesday, everyone in Norway became a theoretical millionaire as the country’s sovereign wealth fund — the largest in the world — soared to 5.11 trillion crowns ($828.66 billion) due to high global oil and gas prices.

Now not only is Norway the second-happiest place on Earth (according to the UN’s World Happiness Report 2013), but they’re also amongst the world's most financially secure citizens

The above is pretty interesting. But I want to track down something else. You see Norway gained it's great oil wealth despite owning less of the North Sea than its neighbour (Denmark).

According to a popular story in Denmark - the following is the reason:

Quote:According to popular lore, Denmark lost the Ekofisk oil field to Norway because the Norwegians managed to get the Danish prime minister at the time drunk during negotiations. Whether it was due to alcohol or not, the negotiating gaffe is one that has earned Norway billions of dollars a year for the past four decades.

Anyway - I don't know much about this part of the world. So - I wonder if anyone know if there is any truth to this story surrounding the oil rights for the Ekofisk oil field in the North Sea?

Post: #2

I guess the author is basing this on the fact that the Sovereign Wealth Fund is a millionaire in Krones, based on a value of 5 trillion Krones and a population of 5 million. With the exchange rate, it makes per capita value $177k according to the article, which doesn't make anybody a millionaire.

Post: #3

While true Capitan, 177,000$ is pleasant amount of money to be given.

Post: #4

Shame Oslo is also the most expensive city on the entire planet.

I left after spending only two days there.

Small bottle of water and a small snickers bar at a 7/11 ? That will be $10 please.

Post: #5

(02-03-2014 04:56 PM)frenchie Wrote:  While true Capitan, 177,000$ is pleasant amount of money to be given.

Oh, I agree, and I give Norway props for having what I consider to be the best political economy in the world. $177k is nothing to sneeze at, but it doesn't make anyone a millionaire on its own.

Post: #6

Somewhere there's a business idea. Can't see it yet though.

Post: #7

Norway got very lucky with its oil and natural gas reserves. It is essentially a petrol state. Their small population + great oil & natural gas wealth means that they enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world.

Here are their exports.

Post: #8

I recall talking to some Norwegians a decade ago about this - apparently great consternation as to what to spend the money on. At the time 2002-03, their schools couldn't properly supply their classrooms because of under-funding.

Post: #9

(02-03-2014 04:44 PM)Capitán Peligroso Wrote:  I guess the author is basing this on the fact that the Sovereign Wealth Fund is a millionaire in Krones, based on a value of 5 trillion Krones and a population of 5 million. With the exchange rate, it makes per capita value $177k according to the article, which doesn't make anybody a millionaire.

This reminds me of around 2008 or whenever the US did those bailouts and many idiots were saying things like "instead of bailing out the banks with the trillion dollars we should just give everyone a million dollars and we would correct the economy instantly." It was making the rounds on the Internet and among a lot people. I saw it on the Internet as well as a few people said it to me in person. I didn't even feel like corrected their spectacular failure at math.

The math:

$1,000,000,000,000/300,000,000 = $3,333
One Trillion / 300 million people

Obviously significantly less than a million per person.

Post: #10

It's a very developed country even without the oil bubble. One has to admire the wise way in which they're conserving the profits from it, though, whereas places like Venzuela, UAE and Saudi Arabia have remained and always shall remain shitholes no matter how much oil they dig out.

Post: #11

(02-04-2014 12:27 AM)Tytalus Wrote:  I recall talking to some Norwegians a decade ago about this - apparently great consternation as to what to spend the money on. At the time 2002-03, their schools couldn't properly supply their classrooms because of under-funding.

Its smart they are not touching it (although they have tried, and some funds are taken from)

Alberta has something similar (Heritage Fund) started by great premier Lougheed, yet in the past decades the government uses it to balance and cook the books, raiding the fund resulting in shit.

Post: #12

Interestingly though, the Norwegian birthrate is low.

All that oil money is probably going to be spent on medicine for a bunch of old, infertile cunts and their man-boobs. Natural resource curse. Resources don't matter shit if your culture is weak.

What they should really do is use the money to send the women out of the work-force, and invest money in large-scale development projects in third world countries that agree to accept Norwegian ownership in exchange for the investments.

Post: #13

(02-04-2014 04:57 AM)ElJefe Wrote:  Interestingly though, the Norwegian birthrate is low.

All that oil money is probably going to be spent on medicine for a bunch of old, infertile cunts and their man-boobs. Natural resource curse. Resources don't matter shit if your culture is weak.

Their fertility rate is almost 1.9. That's actually quite high for a European country. In Italy it's 1.4, Germany 1.36, Poland 1.3....

Post: #14

Everybody in Zimbabwe is a millionaire

Post: #15

Hmmmm....

Marry up a Norwegian?

Post: #16

It's kind of funny, the Norwegians apparently were save-the-world-stop-climate-change types until they struck oil.

Quote:Like the dealer who never touches his own supply, those dirty frackers the Norwegians boast of using only renewable energy sources, all the while amassing the world's largest sovereign wealth fund selling fossil fuels to the rest of us. As Norwegian anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen put it to me when I visited his office in Oslo University: "We've always been used to thinking of ourselves as part of the solution, and with the oil we suddenly became part of the problem. Most people are really in denial."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/ja...way-sweden

Post: #17

Why do even lower birthrates in other European countries change what I wrote?

Post: #18

(02-05-2014 12:53 PM)ElJefe Wrote:  Why do even lower birthrates in other European countries change what I wrote?

Calling Norway's low in a vacuum is meaningless. Everybody know's fertility is lower in Europe than the rest of the world, when you single out Norway you give people the impression that there's is exceptionally bad, when relative to other developed countries and it's neighbours they're doing well. Meanwhile Southern, Central and Eastern European fertility rates are in crisis mode territory.

Post: #19

How is 1.9 not low? Did I write it was low compared to the rest of Europe? No. In addition, anything below 2.1 guarantees an increasing ratio of elderly dependents to workers.

I wrote the birthrate was low, period. Which it is. Saying Norway is doing well to those who are doing terribly doesn't mean Norway is doing well on her own accord.

Some people might be inclined to explain low birthrates with low relative standards of living, which is clearly wrong. In spite of guaranteed future income, women still choose careers and the contraceptive pill over family.

This means the demographic problem will only be solved by addressing female preferences and rolling back the clock on the Cultural Revolution. Not until sex means family and children, instead of gratuitous pleasure, will civilization return to the ascent. It is rather solid evidence that even as we capitalize on loose morals of women, our civilization is in a death-spiral.

Nice, huh?

Post: #20

(02-05-2014 01:28 PM)ElJefe Wrote:  How is 1.9 not low? Did I write it was low compared to the rest of Europe? No.

I wrote the birthrate was low, period. Which it is.

Some people might be inclined to explain low birthrates with low relative standards of living, which is clearly wrong. In spite of guaranteed future income, women still choose careers and the contraceptive pill over family.

This means the demographic problem will only be solved by addressing female preferences and rolling back the clock on the Cultural Revolution. Not until sex means family and children, instead of gratuitous pleasure, will civilization return to the ascent. It is rather solid evidence that even as we capitalize on lose morals of women, our civilization is in a death-spiral.

Nice, huh?

Norway is never returning to "traditional" gender roles. Period. Anyone who thinks otherwise has never visited Scandinavia.

Post: #21

(02-05-2014 01:32 PM)The Texas Prophet Wrote:  Norway is never returning to "traditional" gender roles. Period. Anyone who thinks otherwise has never visited Scandinavia.

I think the above could apply to most Western countries. Damn shame.

Any society that fails to restore traditional gender roles will eventually collapse.

Post: #22

(02-05-2014 01:28 PM)ElJefe Wrote:  How is 1.9 not low? Did I write it was low compared to the rest of Europe? No. In addition, anything below 2.1 guarantees an increasing ratio of elderly dependents to workers.

I wrote the birthrate was low, period. Which it is. Saying Norway is doing well to those who are doing terribly doesn't mean Norway is doing well on her own accord.

FYI replacement fertility is more like 2.05 in highly developed countries. I'd agree with your post if it was about the western world as a whole instead of Norway specifically. But like I said singling out Norway out of context to it's peers gives people a dishonest impression and you know it.

(02-05-2014 01:28 PM)ElJefe Wrote:  Some people might be inclined to explain low birthrates with low relative standards of living, which is clearly wrong. In spite of guaranteed future income, women still choose careers and the contraceptive pill over family.

This means the demographic problem will only be solved by addressing female preferences and rolling back the clock on the Cultural Revolution. Not until sex means family and children, instead of gratuitous pleasure, will civilization return to the ascent. It is rather solid evidence that even as we capitalize on loose morals of women, our civilization is in a death-spiral.

Nice, huh?

It's not that simple. Southern and Eastern Europe have much more traditional gender roles than the Nordic Countries ,France, Ireland and the UK, yet the former's fertility is much much lower. I don't know why that is, personally it makes no sense to me but the stats don't lie.

At first glance it appears like left wing social democratic policies drive this higher fertility, but the German speaking countries low fertility flies in the face of that.

Post: #23

(02-05-2014 11:25 PM)P Dog Wrote:  FYI replacement fertility is more like 2.05 in highly developed countries. I'd agree with your post if it was about the western world as a whole instead of Norway specifically. But like I said singling out Norway out of context to it's peers gives people a dishonest impression and you know it.

It's not that simple. Southern and Eastern Europe have much more traditional gender roles than the Nordic Countries ,France, Ireland and the UK, yet the former's fertility is much much lower.

I'm sure left-wing policies play a part. Fertility in Scandinavia is declining, and the recent decline probably has more to do with disposable income. The reason it was higher in the first place was probably generous maternity leave.

However, that's only explaining the drop from below 2. How to explain the drop from 3 to 2?

That I, I believe, has everything to do with feminism and how women understand fulfillment.

I am not sure I agree that Southern Europe has more traditional gender roles where it matters. Can you document that younger Western Europeans have a more traditional view on marriage? I doubt it.

And FYI: 2.1 is equal to 2.05.

Post: #24

Assuming, of course, 2.05 exactly. If 2.046 then really it's 2.0 correct to 1.d.p.

Anyways, another interesting observation is that 23 percent of births in Norway are to immigrants. The birthrate among non-white Norwegians is actually closer to 1.6-1.7

Post: #25

I love the smell of sour grapes in the morning. It smells like Chardonnay.