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> Often this card is played despite the "fundamental differences" not necessarily being all that pronounced How having a population of 60+ times higher and oil

> Often this card is played despite the "fundamental differences" not necessarily being all that pronounced How having a population of 60+ times higher and oil revenues 10 times lower as a percentage of GDP is not a relevant difference when discussing the amounts being spent per person on a a social safety net?

mfoy_ 10y ago
Sure, having a larger population makes it harder to scale, however The GDP of the U.S., Canada, and Norway are all fairly comparable. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... Norway is #11 with $68k, the U.S. is #19 with $55k, Canada is #32 with $45k. Also, oil revenue as a percentage of GDP is hardly relevant. It's not like you're only allowed to spend Oil money on social security.
enraged_camel 10y ago
Again, America may have lower oil revenues, but it's a much bigger country geographically, and has vastly more natural resources. You'll have to do a much better job explaining why oil, specifically, is relevant here.
- jedmeyers 10y ago
  Norway oil exports in 2015 even with low oil prices were still more than $5000 per person. Combined with the proceeds from the oil investment fund the revenues go even higher. United States on the other hand has to "work for a living" since it does not get 60 times more revenue from selling natural resources than Norway does. And distribution of proceeds from natural resources among the population is regarded to be fair by a much higher percentage of people than distribution of revenue from taxes on the working population.
  - mfoy_ 10y ago
    Norway isn't even really spending it's oil money, so this entire comparison is entirely invalid. Norway puts 100% of the oil revenue in a trust fund and takes out no more than 4% per year. Think again on the similar GDP Per Capita rankings, and review this: https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SOCX_AGG https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SOCX_AGG Norway only spends about 22% of it's GDP on Social Benefits. The U.S. spends 19.2%. Breaking that down into dollars does tell a different story: Norway spends about 50% more on social benefits than the U.S. does, but you can hardly argue that the U.S. cannot afford it. To throw Canada into the mix, it spends about 17%. That's a lower percentage of a lower GDP. In fact that would imply that Canada spends approximately 25% LESS on social benefits than the U.S. and has still has free healthcare. One caveat to this is that I am comparing social benefit percentages from 2014 and comparing them to GDP Per Capita data from 2015, so take the exact numbers with a grain of salt. The argument I'm trying to make is that it's political, not economic.
xor1 10y ago
>oil revenues 10 times lower Why are you so caught up on the idea that the money can only come from oil

mfoy_ 10y ago

Sure, having a larger population makes it harder to scale, however The GDP of the U.S., Canada, and Norway are all fairly comparable. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... Norway is #11 with $68k, the U.S. is #19 with $55k, Canada is #32 with $45k. Also, oil revenue as a percentage of GDP is hardly relevant. It's not like you're only allowed to spend Oil money on social security.

enraged_camel 10y ago

Again, America may have lower oil revenues, but it's a much bigger country geographically, and has vastly more natural resources. You'll have to do a much better job explaining why oil, specifically, is relevant here.

jedmeyers 10y ago
Norway oil exports in 2015 even with low oil prices were still more than $5000 per person. Combined with the proceeds from the oil investment fund the revenues go even higher. United States on the other hand has to "work for a living" since it does not get 60 times more revenue from selling natural resources than Norway does. And distribution of proceeds from natural resources among the population is regarded to be fair by a much higher percentage of people than distribution of revenue from taxes on the working population.
- mfoy_ 10y ago
  Norway isn't even really spending it's oil money, so this entire comparison is entirely invalid. Norway puts 100% of the oil revenue in a trust fund and takes out no more than 4% per year. Think again on the similar GDP Per Capita rankings, and review this: https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SOCX_AGG https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SOCX_AGG Norway only spends about 22% of it's GDP on Social Benefits. The U.S. spends 19.2%. Breaking that down into dollars does tell a different story: Norway spends about 50% more on social benefits than the U.S. does, but you can hardly argue that the U.S. cannot afford it. To throw Canada into the mix, it spends about 17%. That's a lower percentage of a lower GDP. In fact that would imply that Canada spends approximately 25% LESS on social benefits than the U.S. and has still has free healthcare. One caveat to this is that I am comparing social benefit percentages from 2014 and comparing them to GDP Per Capita data from 2015, so take the exact numbers with a grain of salt. The argument I'm trying to make is that it's political, not economic.

xor1 10y ago

>oil revenues 10 times lower Why are you so caught up on the idea that the money can only come from oil