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The comments here are very negative so I'll share a little background on this Norway fund in case you haven't heard of it. Norway started making money from oil

The comments here are very negative so I'll share a little background on this Norway fund in case you haven't heard of it. Norway started making money from oil reserves and knew they wouldn't last forever. So they invested all the profits in a fund that bought stocks. Now the value of the fund, if liquidated, would net over $1 million per Norwegian citizen. read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28882312 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28882312

borge 11y ago
The math seems to be a bit off $860B / 5000000 people (2013, wikipedia) = $172000
- stanmancan 11y ago
  "The fund, worth about $800bn (£483bn), owns 1% of the entire world's stocks, and is big enough to make every citizen a millionaire in the country's currency, the kroner." $860B USD = 7T KR / 5M people = 1.4M KR each
  - vinay427 11y ago
    I'm not sure why you responded to the parent, instead of the grandparent, which first asserted "$1 million" implying dollars.
    - stanmancan 11y ago
      Because the parent was the one I was clarifying for.
- simonebrunozzi 11y ago
  I suggest you use "," when writing long numbers -> 5,000,000 This way it's easier to read for the rest of us.
  - borge 11y ago
    Sorry about that, I'll keep it in mind for the future :)
  - tzs 11y ago
    Comma is the decimal separator in many countries (including Norway). ISO and several other standards bodies recommend space for digit grouping: 5 000 000.
  - spiderfarmer 11y ago
    Only if 'the rest of us' is located in one of the blue areas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_mark#/media/File:DecimalSeparator.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_mark#/media/File:Decim...
    - reustle 11y ago
      His point isn't about commas over periods, it is that "5000000" without any delimiters is hard to read.
    - throweway 11y ago
      Yes and i dont use Arabic numerals. Whats it in Roman?
    - mattlutze 11y ago
      To be fair, considering China and India are included, I think that's more than half the world population. China, India and the US make up more than 40% of the world population alone, apparently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen... (The US is the 3rd most populous country by the Wikipedia hivemind's reckoning. Who knew?)
Skinney 11y ago
Over 1 million kr (not $) per citizen. Big difference.
anexprogrammer 11y ago
It's interesting to compare with the UK, which had less North Sea oil, but still a significant amount. When North Sea oil was first starting, Tony Benn, Energy Minister at the time, wanted to start a fund exactly as the Norwegians later did. We didn't, and unlike the Norwegians we didn't control production. As oil revenues peaked through the 80s and 90s, Thatcher used them to pay for pre-election tax cuts, welfare and generally squandered the inheritance. Britoil was one of the early Thatcher privatisations. With the benefit of 40 years hindsight many feel the wrong choice was made. Unsurprisingly perhaps, especially Scots. Though who we would have trusted to invest such a fund is another matter.
- tezza 11y ago
  Woah, I only moved to the UK in 2001, but it's pretty clear to me that Norway != UK in many fundamental ways 1) WW1 2) WW2 3) Crippling Pension schemes like final salary ( don't know to much about Norways tho ) 4) Crippling strikes in '70s The U.K. Only finished paying back the USA for WW2 a few years ago. Many died and a lot of infrastructure needed rebuilding. Norway had much less of that trouble.
  - janvidar 11y ago
    Norway was not affected by WW1 directly, but Hitler occupied Norway during WW2. When the Soviets came to the rescue, the Germans burned down everything as they withdrew from the northern parts. The most populated areas were largely not affected though. As for infrastructue, Norway was one of the poorest contries in Europe 100 years ago, with similarly poor infrastructure - so it was not a matter of rebuilding, rather a matter of building. In this sense oil helped, and foreign oil investments were welcome in the late 60s, but at a 78% tax rate.
  - anexprogrammer 11y ago
    > Crippling Pension schemes like final salary Interesting. Final Salary schemes generally only became crippling as funding regulations were progressively lightened and removed during the Thatcher years. In allowing less investment, loaning back from the fund, funding holidays etc, many pension funds were hugely underfunded for a decade or two. Tied in nicely with wanting to promote personal pensions. Little surprise we then got the pension crises and failures, most notably Maxwell. More recently we had the pension miselling scandals and compensation claims stemming from this. > Crippling strikes in '70s Hah! Doing my A level homework by candle light. The unions absolutely had too much power in the 70s. Now they probably have too little, well nearer none. I remember the 3 day week and power cuts because the electric co was on strike. Every week someone else would be going on strike. I seem to remember even grave diggers went on strike in 78/79. A pony could probably have got elected wearing a Tory badge in 79 :) With hindsight, the Thatcher "solution" was far too dogmatic, but much of the change was needed and backing away from the excessive taxation (80% top rate in 79). What's less well remembered is when Howe cut top rate in 79 from 80 to 60% he more than made up for it by doubling VAT and collection rates were far improved at 60% too, and again when they dropped to 50%. So tax take went up. Unemployment went from 1m to 3.5m (infamously they got elected in 79 with help from an election poster "Labour isn't working" [1]), and gave her the escalating welfare bill on which to squander oil revenues. Scotland and the industrial centres were hit especially hard under Thatcher which is why the Tories are unelectable there, even today. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Isn't_Working https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Isn't_Working

borge 11y ago

The math seems to be a bit off $860B / 5000000 people (2013, wikipedia) = $172000

stanmancan 11y ago
"The fund, worth about $800bn (£483bn), owns 1% of the entire world's stocks, and is big enough to make every citizen a millionaire in the country's currency, the kroner." $860B USD = 7T KR / 5M people = 1.4M KR each
- vinay427 11y ago
  I'm not sure why you responded to the parent, instead of the grandparent, which first asserted "$1 million" implying dollars.
  - stanmancan 11y ago
    Because the parent was the one I was clarifying for.
simonebrunozzi 11y ago
I suggest you use "," when writing long numbers -> 5,000,000 This way it's easier to read for the rest of us.
- borge 11y ago
  Sorry about that, I'll keep it in mind for the future :)
- tzs 11y ago
  Comma is the decimal separator in many countries (including Norway). ISO and several other standards bodies recommend space for digit grouping: 5 000 000.
- spiderfarmer 11y ago
  Only if 'the rest of us' is located in one of the blue areas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_mark#/media/File:DecimalSeparator.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_mark#/media/File:Decim...
  - reustle 11y ago
    His point isn't about commas over periods, it is that "5000000" without any delimiters is hard to read.
  - throweway 11y ago
    Yes and i dont use Arabic numerals. Whats it in Roman?
  - mattlutze 11y ago
    To be fair, considering China and India are included, I think that's more than half the world population. China, India and the US make up more than 40% of the world population alone, apparently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen... (The US is the 3rd most populous country by the Wikipedia hivemind's reckoning. Who knew?)

Skinney 11y ago

Over 1 million kr (not $) per citizen. Big difference.

anexprogrammer 11y ago

It's interesting to compare with the UK, which had less North Sea oil, but still a significant amount. When North Sea oil was first starting, Tony Benn, Energy Minister at the time, wanted to start a fund exactly as the Norwegians later did. We didn't, and unlike the Norwegians we didn't control production. As oil revenues peaked through the 80s and 90s, Thatcher used them to pay for pre-election tax cuts, welfare and generally squandered the inheritance. Britoil was one of the early Thatcher privatisations. With the benefit of 40 years hindsight many feel the wrong choice was made. Unsurprisingly perhaps, especially Scots. Though who we would have trusted to invest such a fund is another matter.

tezza 11y ago
Woah, I only moved to the UK in 2001, but it's pretty clear to me that Norway != UK in many fundamental ways 1) WW1 2) WW2 3) Crippling Pension schemes like final salary ( don't know to much about Norways tho ) 4) Crippling strikes in '70s The U.K. Only finished paying back the USA for WW2 a few years ago. Many died and a lot of infrastructure needed rebuilding. Norway had much less of that trouble.
- janvidar 11y ago
  Norway was not affected by WW1 directly, but Hitler occupied Norway during WW2. When the Soviets came to the rescue, the Germans burned down everything as they withdrew from the northern parts. The most populated areas were largely not affected though. As for infrastructue, Norway was one of the poorest contries in Europe 100 years ago, with similarly poor infrastructure - so it was not a matter of rebuilding, rather a matter of building. In this sense oil helped, and foreign oil investments were welcome in the late 60s, but at a 78% tax rate.
- anexprogrammer 11y ago
  > Crippling Pension schemes like final salary Interesting. Final Salary schemes generally only became crippling as funding regulations were progressively lightened and removed during the Thatcher years. In allowing less investment, loaning back from the fund, funding holidays etc, many pension funds were hugely underfunded for a decade or two. Tied in nicely with wanting to promote personal pensions. Little surprise we then got the pension crises and failures, most notably Maxwell. More recently we had the pension miselling scandals and compensation claims stemming from this. > Crippling strikes in '70s Hah! Doing my A level homework by candle light. The unions absolutely had too much power in the 70s. Now they probably have too little, well nearer none. I remember the 3 day week and power cuts because the electric co was on strike. Every week someone else would be going on strike. I seem to remember even grave diggers went on strike in 78/79. A pony could probably have got elected wearing a Tory badge in 79 :) With hindsight, the Thatcher "solution" was far too dogmatic, but much of the change was needed and backing away from the excessive taxation (80% top rate in 79). What's less well remembered is when Howe cut top rate in 79 from 80 to 60% he more than made up for it by doubling VAT and collection rates were far improved at 60% too, and again when they dropped to 50%. So tax take went up. Unemployment went from 1m to 3.5m (infamously they got elected in 79 with help from an election poster "Labour isn't working" [1]), and gave her the escalating welfare bill on which to squander oil revenues. Scotland and the industrial centres were hit especially hard under Thatcher which is why the Tories are unelectable there, even today. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Isn't_Working https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Isn't_Working