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Norway is extremely wealthy though. Your benefits don't apply to citizens of Greece or other countries in the EU so it's not clear that it's a scalable solution

Norway is extremely wealthy though. Your benefits don't apply to citizens of Greece or other countries in the EU so it's not clear that it's a scalable solution. The US is very large, comparing it to a single country in Europe makes little sense. If you compare it to the EU itself you will see why there are so many disparate systems throughout the country.

dd36 8y ago
The US is more wealthy. Moreover, perhaps Norway is wealthier because of its support systems.
- cdoxsey 8y ago
  Norway is wealthy because of oil: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_N...
  - dnh44 8y ago
    Lots of countries have abundant natural resources. Most of those resources are exploited by private interests though.
  - gaius 8y ago
    Norway is wealthy because of oil Right; you wouldn't compare Norway to the entire US, you'd compare it to Alaska. People forget this about the US. You wouldn't compare "California" to "the EU" because that wouldn't make sense.
  - dd36 8y ago
    I said wealthier. And yes, as other state, the US had and has significantly more natural resources per capita.
- wutbrodo 8y ago
  I'm a fairly strong believer in the second-order positive economic effects of social programs, but in the case of Norway, it's wealth is much more directly attributable to resource wealth in a first-world region.
johnchristopher 8y ago
> [..] it's not clear that it's a scalable solution. What a big word. `s/scalable/reproducible`.
Broken_Hippo 8y ago
"Norway is extremely wealthy though. Your benefits don't apply to citizens of Greece or other countries in the EU so it's not clear that it's a scalable solution." That very much depends on your immigration status, honestly. I'm American and my spouse is Norwegian: I'm eligible for most of these benefits. The same is true for my friend who is British married to a Norwegian woman - and their child gets all benefits. And again, the same is true for the friend from Poland who is here raising her Norwegian son (father has died). Most folks that are here for work aren't as eligible for certain things. Levels depend on where they are from, but there are ways to earn similar rights as well, if you go through immigration. Of course these won't apply to folks living in other countries. "The US is very large..." Sure, but they also aren't poor overall and this is just an excuse. If it is a constitutional issue about federal government powers, well, that document was meant to be changed. The instructions on changing it are in the document itself, after all. Canada is very large and manages to have healthcare. There isn't a good reason why government agencies in different states cannot have an easy-to-navigate system for a safety net that actually works while meeting basic threshholds set up by the national government. Norway itself has municipalities administer many of the benefits, such as language courses for immigrants and adult education. This way the folks up north can meet the needs of its people, which can differ from the needs of folks down south.
tomjakubowski 8y ago
Most (all?) of GP's points also apply to Finland, which is nowhere near as wealthy as Norway. Their government is able to provide their citizens with these services because it is massively invested in the country's economy; as of 2012, total market capitalization of state holdings in Finnish companies is $115 billion, against $256.7 billion GDP. For the United States in 2012, the figures are $6 billion in SOEs against $16 trillion GDP. source: https://www.oecd.org/corporate/oecd-dataset-size-composition-soe-sectors.htm https://www.oecd.org/corporate/oecd-dataset-size-composition...

dd36 8y ago

The US is more wealthy. Moreover, perhaps Norway is wealthier because of its support systems.

cdoxsey 8y ago
Norway is wealthy because of oil: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_N...
- dnh44 8y ago
  Lots of countries have abundant natural resources. Most of those resources are exploited by private interests though.
- gaius 8y ago
  Norway is wealthy because of oil Right; you wouldn't compare Norway to the entire US, you'd compare it to Alaska. People forget this about the US. You wouldn't compare "California" to "the EU" because that wouldn't make sense.
- dd36 8y ago
  I said wealthier. And yes, as other state, the US had and has significantly more natural resources per capita.
wutbrodo 8y ago
I'm a fairly strong believer in the second-order positive economic effects of social programs, but in the case of Norway, it's wealth is much more directly attributable to resource wealth in a first-world region.

johnchristopher 8y ago

> [..] it's not clear that it's a scalable solution. What a big word. `s/scalable/reproducible`.

Broken_Hippo 8y ago

"Norway is extremely wealthy though. Your benefits don't apply to citizens of Greece or other countries in the EU so it's not clear that it's a scalable solution." That very much depends on your immigration status, honestly. I'm American and my spouse is Norwegian: I'm eligible for most of these benefits. The same is true for my friend who is British married to a Norwegian woman - and their child gets all benefits. And again, the same is true for the friend from Poland who is here raising her Norwegian son (father has died). Most folks that are here for work aren't as eligible for certain things. Levels depend on where they are from, but there are ways to earn similar rights as well, if you go through immigration. Of course these won't apply to folks living in other countries. "The US is very large..." Sure, but they also aren't poor overall and this is just an excuse. If it is a constitutional issue about federal government powers, well, that document was meant to be changed. The instructions on changing it are in the document itself, after all. Canada is very large and manages to have healthcare. There isn't a good reason why government agencies in different states cannot have an easy-to-navigate system for a safety net that actually works while meeting basic threshholds set up by the national government. Norway itself has municipalities administer many of the benefits, such as language courses for immigrants and adult education. This way the folks up north can meet the needs of its people, which can differ from the needs of folks down south.

tomjakubowski 8y ago

Most (all?) of GP's points also apply to Finland, which is nowhere near as wealthy as Norway. Their government is able to provide their citizens with these services because it is massively invested in the country's economy; as of 2012, total market capitalization of state holdings in Finnish companies is $115 billion, against $256.7 billion GDP. For the United States in 2012, the figures are $6 billion in SOEs against $16 trillion GDP. source: https://www.oecd.org/corporate/oecd-dataset-size-composition-soe-sectors.htm https://www.oecd.org/corporate/oecd-dataset-size-composition...