8 ms·

This feels like over-analysis. Norway, with 0.07% of the world's population, has the world's best chess player ever. Two of the top ten bridge players. One of

by hilux 3y ago

This feels like over-analysis. Norway, with 0.07% of the world's population, has the world's best chess player ever. Two of the top ten bridge players. One of the very best soccer players under 25. And so on. Basically, it's a very oil-rich country that uses its wealth to invest in its people. And we see the results in every field of endeavor. Many other "rich" countries, whatever the source of their wealth, do not have the same people-investment attitude. Funny: I learned recently that Norway's Ekofisk oil field almost ended up with Denmark. It came down to a negotiation that went Norway's way - against a drunk Danish minister.

hahahahahomgbro 3y ago
[flagged]
aurareturn 3y ago
Basically, it's a very oil-rich country that uses its wealth to invest in its people Agreed. It's done good for its people with its oil money - but the first thing it needed was oil. I think a more impressive country is Singapore, which has no natural resources, but projects well above its weight.
- hilux 3y ago
  My comment points out that Norway has done something amazing that other countries have not come close to doing. Look at what the US (I am American) has done with our wealth: highest healthcare expenditure per capita (50% more than #2), 47th in life expectancy, fifth-highest incarceration rate. What is served by reflexively trying to diminish Norway's accomplishments with a "BUT Singapore is more impressive"? Why not instead try to learn from Norway?
  - outside1234 3y ago
    The Norway model is not very replicable - we all can’t pump a huge amount of future CO2 out of the ground for almost nothing and sell it for a lot while destroying the climate such that we can invest in our tiny population
    - Swizec 3y ago
      > we all can’t pump a huge amount of future CO2 out of the ground for almost nothing and sell it for a lot But a lot of countries have done this while also not achieving the outcomes Norway has achieved. Lots of rich oil countries out there.
    - vidarh 3y ago
      It may not be very replicable on a global basis, but given the person you replied to mentioned the US: The US has significantly higher average salaries than Norway, and so it is very much valid to raise the issue of what the US is doing with the wealth it creates.
      - mejutoco 3y ago
        Higher average in itself does not mean that much without taking into account Purchase Power. From this https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/purchasing-power-parity-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/purchasin... it seems US has about a 10x PPP difference, so your main point stands.
        vidarh 3y ago
        The 10x there compares local currency to USD. Given the NOK to USD exchange rate, a 10x PPP difference between NOK and USD means Norway and the US are near parity in terms of purchasing power in USD. Actually, the salaries are now much closer than I thought, so depending on exactly which measures you use I might well have been wrong that US salaries are (still) much higher than Norwegian ones. The gap used to be fairly huge.
  - greenhexagon 3y ago
    Norway is projected to produce $122,421,000,000 worth of oil next year, against a population of only 5 million people. That's about $24,400 in annual oil revenue per citizen. Their sovereign wealth fund (profits from oil re-invested into the global stock market and real estate) is about $270,000 per citizen. Take the risk-free rate of putting that in US Treasuries and it's an additional $13,500 per citizen per year. Judged in the context of Petro-states with tiny populations there is still a lot to like about Norway. But it's important to realize that UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are realistically their peers, not countries like the US. Norway was a lower income country until they discovered an infinite money glitch in the North Sea. When looking at the country, it's critical to realize their oil wealth enables them to have the government programs and society they currently enjoy, rather than mistakenly thinking those programs are the source of their wealth.
    - vages 3y ago
      The most interesting thing is that Norway does not tax oil profits – it taxes the oils “inherent value”, giving the oil company the profits. Norway has implemented land value taxation for using natural resources. It’s been that way since hydropower was established more than 100 years ago. https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2022/05/17/norway-the-once-and-future-georgist-kingdom/ https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2022/05/17/norway-the-once-and...
    - hilux 3y ago
      And have UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia achieved what Norway has? (Where did anyone say that social programs are the source of Norway's wealth?!) No one is acknowledging the US data I posted. Even if the US is not as rich per capita as Norway is, can we learn something from Norway (about investment in education and healthcare) with the resources we do have? BTW, US per-capita healthcare cost is much, much higher than Norway's, and US life expectancy is much lower.
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > BTW, US per-capita healthcare cost is much, much higher than Norway's, and US life expectancy is much lower. But that's the issue -- it's not a matter of allocating the money. The US is already spending it. The question is, how do you make it more cost efficient? "Just do what Norway does" doesn't solve anything for two reasons. The first is that it doesn't tell you if that's the right answer, only that what Norway is doing is better than the status quo in the US. But the status quo in the US is uniquely dysfunctional, so that's not a high bar. You still don't know if it's better to do what Norway does or what Singapore does (same life expectancy as Norway, much different system) or some third thing which could hypothetically be better than either of them. The second is that it doesn't solve the political issue in the US, which is that all of the people making money from the status quo don't want it to change. It doesn't matter if the proposal is a public healthcare system or a market system with actual price transparency or something else entirely, until you can overcome the political inertia of the incumbent system. And these feed into each other. Because it's obvious that the existing US system is inefficient, but it's not obvious which of the potentially more efficient systems to replace it with, so the people with different ideas fight against each other instead of fighting with each other against the status quo.
  - DeathArrow 3y ago
    >Why not instead try to learn from Norway? Singapore as opposed to Norway doesn't have a socialist dominated political system. That means more freedom.
    - 9colai 3y ago
      You really should look into Singapore freedoms before making statements like that. There are several political philosophies in the world that are more restrictive than the social-democracies of the liberal democracies in the Nordic countries. Singapore is effectively a one-party state. It is very orderly, tidy and disciplined. https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/singapore/ https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-country-reports-on-human-... In section 1.F) you'll see that citizens have weak/no privacy protections from the government. 2.A) Free speech is not really a big thing there. 2.B) Weak rights to peaceful assembly.
    - doktrin 3y ago
      > Singapore ... means more freedom This is obviously a delusional take that requires ignoring reality. They quite literally don't have freedom of speech or freedom of assembly at the constitutional level, are run by what is effectively a dictatorship of varying degrees of benevolence and consistently rank in the lower end of indices of political freedom and human rights.
- js8 3y ago
  You don't actually need oil, you can invest into your people regardless. That the oil is somehow a prereq is just an excuse for not doing it.
- PetitPrince 3y ago
  I think a more impressive country is Singapore, which has no natural resources, but projects well above its weight. I think its location is a natural resource by itself?
- DeathArrow 3y ago
  >I think a more impressive country is Singapore, which has no natural resources, but projects well above its weight. And Japan and South Korea and China. And new stars are rising, like Vietnam
tazu 3y ago
[flagged]
- tptacek 3y ago
  You'll "get hate" for it because it's garden-variety racial supremacist language.
- TulliusCicero 3y ago
  This feels like after the fact reasoning. In an alternate timeline where Norway has no oil and is poor, I can imagine someone saying, "How could you expect them to succeed? Poor farming conditions, terrible winters, hardly any natural resources beyond fish." After all, Russia also has some awful climates, and it doesn't seem to have resulted in strong social cooperation.
  - lnsru 3y ago
    Because in russia one bad word in good environment with some kgb buddy might get you a trip to gulag. So everybody was very careful choosing conversation partners and topics. That’s not the way to build strong social cooperation.
    - brigandish 3y ago
      It sounds like a form of strong social cooperation to me, just one that no one likes. And since strong social cooperation sounds so good to some people, they start to look to separate it from the strong social cooperation they like, either knowingly or unknowingly, and we end up with a similar situation to the stereotypical "ah, but that wasn't real socialism" socialist, where it just can't be admitted to be anything similar. I'm a libertarian so I'm already suspicious of such things, makes it easy to spot.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - mongol 3y ago
sira04 3y ago
It's a common myth, but he wasn't drunk, and the deal didn't happen that day. Several meetings later with several more officials and the deal went through 2 years after that negotiation. They basically placed the line in the middle, and the norwegians got lucky.
- vegardx 3y ago
  It fits so well with the Norwegian stereotyping of Danish people, which is likely the reason why so many believe in it. It's also worth noting that Denmark also have quite a large oil industry. Another myth seems to be that Norway was a very poor nation before the discovery of oil. According to Jan Eivind Myhre[0], professor emeritus in history at the University of Oslo, this isn't true. Norway has been one of the wealthiest countries in Europe for hundreds of years. We had, and to some degree still have, a huge merchant fleet. We've always been big in shipping insurance, probably a by-product of the merchant fleet. The fishing industry has always been a huge part of the economy, same with raw materials. It's an interesting read, but perhaps a bit more debatable than the myth about a drunk danish minister. [0] https://www.sciencenorway.no/economy-history/crushing-the-myth-of-poor-norway/1595755 https://www.sciencenorway.no/economy-history/crushing-the-my...
  - kaon123 3y ago
    Fascinating. Maybe a similar mental model applies as in Switzerland. I am a foreigner living in wealthy Switzerland. They also talk about themselves as being very poor a few decades ago. Maybe it is that people really were poor back then, just not as poor as the other europeans, and this for them is hard to imagine. According to the statistics that I can find, they have been one of the wealthiest european nations for 250 years now, with GDP per capita being 50% higher than the Netherlands consistently for the past 70 years.
    - DeathArrow 3y ago
      >I am a foreigner living in wealthy Switzerland. They also talk about themselves as being very poor a few decades ago. Well, every millionaire is very poor when compared to Musk, Gates or Bezos.
hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
The Logic of Political Survival predicts that any country with an already strong and healthy democracy which later discovers enormous natural resources will have a much better shot at overcoming the curse of resources than those where these trends are weaker. Selectorate theory is the real key here, and it's why Norway is probably going to knock it out of the park with its newly discovered phosphate deposits as well, which dwarf the oil profits several times over. The pre-discovery takeaway is to get that democratic process alive and healthy well ahead of time, no matter the circumstances. On a totally unrelated note, if anyone wants to help me land my first gig over in Oslo, I'm conviniently next-next door in Finland. Have EU passport, likes keeping a good thing going, willing to learn Norwegian (Fosse's plays are great) -- will travel.
- klipt 3y ago
  Even better than EU, you're part of the Nordic Passport Union. Which I believe means you can naturalize as Norwegian with just two years residency there.
  - DeathArrow 3y ago
    If you already have an EU passport, what would be the advantage?
    - tonyedgecombe 3y ago
      Rules change (see Brexit).
    - vegardx 3y ago
      You don't have to apply for a work or residence permit, which means that you can stay in the country indefinitely. If you're from the EEA you have to exit Norway every 3 months, unless you qualify for a work and residence permit, basically, you have to have a job.
      - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
max_ 3y ago
What political/economic philosophers are the Nordic economic & political systems based on? Or what interesting book may you recommend for one to read to learn more about thier social/political system.
- stareatgoats 3y ago
  Not OP but the Nordic model is social democratic: inherited from the social democrats that fenced off the communists around the turn of the last century with the promise of delivering socialism through reforms, not through revolution. Early adoption of this model from the capitalists kept class warfare in Scandinavian countries at a minimum, and a prevailing sense of the state as "for the people" has taken root. Which means that the state in Norway was expected to invest the oil revenue to benefit the people, not for the benefit of foreign oil interest in an alliance with a wealthy few as is often the case. This backdrop explains for example why Musk may find that Tesla needs to withdraw from Sweden unless they sign the deal with the trade unions. Or, as some will have it: Musk and some others will succeed in delivering a coup de grâce to the Nordic model, it has admittedly been withering for some time.
- DeathArrow 3y ago
  >What political/economic philosophers are the Nordic economic & political systems based on? They were based on socialism and progresism but things are changing since recently people started voting with the right.
OfSanguineFire 3y ago
When I saw the title, what instantly flashed in my mind was Ibsen and Hamsun. Only then, as I clicked through, did I think about Fosse or Knausgård. Long before Norway became a wealthy oil nation, it had authors known on an international level. Indeed, Ibsen is referenced enough in early and mid 20th-century anglophone culture that you can see that he was a pretty popular figure, not just a concern of a tiny literary elite.
namaria 3y ago
> This feels like over-analysis. > Many other "rich" countries, whatever the source of their wealth, do not have the same people-investment attitude. I think this suffices to wonder why Norway achieves better outcomes and how. Doesn't seem trivial at all to me.
timwaagh 3y ago
I don't think this analysis is any better and at least the article tries to tell a story. Sweden, a country next door with not that many people and no oil has someone named Ibrahimovic who is a bit more than a talent. They also produced some of the most hyped novels of the last decade and some of the worst furniture and probably a few other cherry picked examples. The point is they're just as talented as the Norwegians yet 'no oil'.

by hilux 3y ago

hahahahahomgbro 3y ago

[flagged]

aurareturn 3y ago

Basically, it's a very oil-rich country that uses its wealth to invest in its people Agreed. It's done good for its people with its oil money - but the first thing it needed was oil. I think a more impressive country is Singapore, which has no natural resources, but projects well above its weight.

hilux 3y ago
My comment points out that Norway has done something amazing that other countries have not come close to doing. Look at what the US (I am American) has done with our wealth: highest healthcare expenditure per capita (50% more than #2), 47th in life expectancy, fifth-highest incarceration rate. What is served by reflexively trying to diminish Norway's accomplishments with a "BUT Singapore is more impressive"? Why not instead try to learn from Norway?
- outside1234 3y ago
  The Norway model is not very replicable - we all can’t pump a huge amount of future CO2 out of the ground for almost nothing and sell it for a lot while destroying the climate such that we can invest in our tiny population
  - Swizec 3y ago
    > we all can’t pump a huge amount of future CO2 out of the ground for almost nothing and sell it for a lot But a lot of countries have done this while also not achieving the outcomes Norway has achieved. Lots of rich oil countries out there.
  - vidarh 3y ago
    It may not be very replicable on a global basis, but given the person you replied to mentioned the US: The US has significantly higher average salaries than Norway, and so it is very much valid to raise the issue of what the US is doing with the wealth it creates.
    - mejutoco 3y ago
      Higher average in itself does not mean that much without taking into account Purchase Power. From this https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/purchasing-power-parity-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/purchasin... it seems US has about a 10x PPP difference, so your main point stands.
      - vidarh 3y ago
        The 10x there compares local currency to USD. Given the NOK to USD exchange rate, a 10x PPP difference between NOK and USD means Norway and the US are near parity in terms of purchasing power in USD. Actually, the salaries are now much closer than I thought, so depending on exactly which measures you use I might well have been wrong that US salaries are (still) much higher than Norwegian ones. The gap used to be fairly huge.
- greenhexagon 3y ago
  Norway is projected to produce $122,421,000,000 worth of oil next year, against a population of only 5 million people. That's about $24,400 in annual oil revenue per citizen. Their sovereign wealth fund (profits from oil re-invested into the global stock market and real estate) is about $270,000 per citizen. Take the risk-free rate of putting that in US Treasuries and it's an additional $13,500 per citizen per year. Judged in the context of Petro-states with tiny populations there is still a lot to like about Norway. But it's important to realize that UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are realistically their peers, not countries like the US. Norway was a lower income country until they discovered an infinite money glitch in the North Sea. When looking at the country, it's critical to realize their oil wealth enables them to have the government programs and society they currently enjoy, rather than mistakenly thinking those programs are the source of their wealth.
  - vages 3y ago
    The most interesting thing is that Norway does not tax oil profits – it taxes the oils “inherent value”, giving the oil company the profits. Norway has implemented land value taxation for using natural resources. It’s been that way since hydropower was established more than 100 years ago. https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2022/05/17/norway-the-once-and-future-georgist-kingdom/ https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2022/05/17/norway-the-once-and...
  - hilux 3y ago
    And have UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia achieved what Norway has? (Where did anyone say that social programs are the source of Norway's wealth?!) No one is acknowledging the US data I posted. Even if the US is not as rich per capita as Norway is, can we learn something from Norway (about investment in education and healthcare) with the resources we do have? BTW, US per-capita healthcare cost is much, much higher than Norway's, and US life expectancy is much lower.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > BTW, US per-capita healthcare cost is much, much higher than Norway's, and US life expectancy is much lower. But that's the issue -- it's not a matter of allocating the money. The US is already spending it. The question is, how do you make it more cost efficient? "Just do what Norway does" doesn't solve anything for two reasons. The first is that it doesn't tell you if that's the right answer, only that what Norway is doing is better than the status quo in the US. But the status quo in the US is uniquely dysfunctional, so that's not a high bar. You still don't know if it's better to do what Norway does or what Singapore does (same life expectancy as Norway, much different system) or some third thing which could hypothetically be better than either of them. The second is that it doesn't solve the political issue in the US, which is that all of the people making money from the status quo don't want it to change. It doesn't matter if the proposal is a public healthcare system or a market system with actual price transparency or something else entirely, until you can overcome the political inertia of the incumbent system. And these feed into each other. Because it's obvious that the existing US system is inefficient, but it's not obvious which of the potentially more efficient systems to replace it with, so the people with different ideas fight against each other instead of fighting with each other against the status quo.
- DeathArrow 3y ago
  >Why not instead try to learn from Norway? Singapore as opposed to Norway doesn't have a socialist dominated political system. That means more freedom.
  - 9colai 3y ago
    You really should look into Singapore freedoms before making statements like that. There are several political philosophies in the world that are more restrictive than the social-democracies of the liberal democracies in the Nordic countries. Singapore is effectively a one-party state. It is very orderly, tidy and disciplined. https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/singapore/ https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-country-reports-on-human-... In section 1.F) you'll see that citizens have weak/no privacy protections from the government. 2.A) Free speech is not really a big thing there. 2.B) Weak rights to peaceful assembly.
  - doktrin 3y ago
    > Singapore ... means more freedom This is obviously a delusional take that requires ignoring reality. They quite literally don't have freedom of speech or freedom of assembly at the constitutional level, are run by what is effectively a dictatorship of varying degrees of benevolence and consistently rank in the lower end of indices of political freedom and human rights.
js8 3y ago
You don't actually need oil, you can invest into your people regardless. That the oil is somehow a prereq is just an excuse for not doing it.
PetitPrince 3y ago
I think a more impressive country is Singapore, which has no natural resources, but projects well above its weight. I think its location is a natural resource by itself?
DeathArrow 3y ago
>I think a more impressive country is Singapore, which has no natural resources, but projects well above its weight. And Japan and South Korea and China. And new stars are rising, like Vietnam

tazu 3y ago

[flagged]

tptacek 3y ago
You'll "get hate" for it because it's garden-variety racial supremacist language.
TulliusCicero 3y ago
This feels like after the fact reasoning. In an alternate timeline where Norway has no oil and is poor, I can imagine someone saying, "How could you expect them to succeed? Poor farming conditions, terrible winters, hardly any natural resources beyond fish." After all, Russia also has some awful climates, and it doesn't seem to have resulted in strong social cooperation.
- lnsru 3y ago
  Because in russia one bad word in good environment with some kgb buddy might get you a trip to gulag. So everybody was very careful choosing conversation partners and topics. That’s not the way to build strong social cooperation.
  - brigandish 3y ago
    It sounds like a form of strong social cooperation to me, just one that no one likes. And since strong social cooperation sounds so good to some people, they start to look to separate it from the strong social cooperation they like, either knowingly or unknowingly, and we end up with a similar situation to the stereotypical "ah, but that wasn't real socialism" socialist, where it just can't be admitted to be anything similar. I'm a libertarian so I'm already suspicious of such things, makes it easy to spot.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- mongol 3y ago

sira04 3y ago

It's a common myth, but he wasn't drunk, and the deal didn't happen that day. Several meetings later with several more officials and the deal went through 2 years after that negotiation. They basically placed the line in the middle, and the norwegians got lucky.

vegardx 3y ago
It fits so well with the Norwegian stereotyping of Danish people, which is likely the reason why so many believe in it. It's also worth noting that Denmark also have quite a large oil industry. Another myth seems to be that Norway was a very poor nation before the discovery of oil. According to Jan Eivind Myhre[0], professor emeritus in history at the University of Oslo, this isn't true. Norway has been one of the wealthiest countries in Europe for hundreds of years. We had, and to some degree still have, a huge merchant fleet. We've always been big in shipping insurance, probably a by-product of the merchant fleet. The fishing industry has always been a huge part of the economy, same with raw materials. It's an interesting read, but perhaps a bit more debatable than the myth about a drunk danish minister. [0] https://www.sciencenorway.no/economy-history/crushing-the-myth-of-poor-norway/1595755 https://www.sciencenorway.no/economy-history/crushing-the-my...
- kaon123 3y ago
  Fascinating. Maybe a similar mental model applies as in Switzerland. I am a foreigner living in wealthy Switzerland. They also talk about themselves as being very poor a few decades ago. Maybe it is that people really were poor back then, just not as poor as the other europeans, and this for them is hard to imagine. According to the statistics that I can find, they have been one of the wealthiest european nations for 250 years now, with GDP per capita being 50% higher than the Netherlands consistently for the past 70 years.
  - DeathArrow 3y ago
    >I am a foreigner living in wealthy Switzerland. They also talk about themselves as being very poor a few decades ago. Well, every millionaire is very poor when compared to Musk, Gates or Bezos.

hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago

The Logic of Political Survival predicts that any country with an already strong and healthy democracy which later discovers enormous natural resources will have a much better shot at overcoming the curse of resources than those where these trends are weaker. Selectorate theory is the real key here, and it's why Norway is probably going to knock it out of the park with its newly discovered phosphate deposits as well, which dwarf the oil profits several times over. The pre-discovery takeaway is to get that democratic process alive and healthy well ahead of time, no matter the circumstances. On a totally unrelated note, if anyone wants to help me land my first gig over in Oslo, I'm conviniently next-next door in Finland. Have EU passport, likes keeping a good thing going, willing to learn Norwegian (Fosse's plays are great) -- will travel.

klipt 3y ago
Even better than EU, you're part of the Nordic Passport Union. Which I believe means you can naturalize as Norwegian with just two years residency there.
- DeathArrow 3y ago
  If you already have an EU passport, what would be the advantage?
  - tonyedgecombe 3y ago
    Rules change (see Brexit).
  - vegardx 3y ago
    You don't have to apply for a work or residence permit, which means that you can stay in the country indefinitely. If you're from the EEA you have to exit Norway every 3 months, unless you qualify for a work and residence permit, basically, you have to have a job.
    - OfSanguineFire 3y ago

max_ 3y ago

What political/economic philosophers are the Nordic economic & political systems based on? Or what interesting book may you recommend for one to read to learn more about thier social/political system.

stareatgoats 3y ago
Not OP but the Nordic model is social democratic: inherited from the social democrats that fenced off the communists around the turn of the last century with the promise of delivering socialism through reforms, not through revolution. Early adoption of this model from the capitalists kept class warfare in Scandinavian countries at a minimum, and a prevailing sense of the state as "for the people" has taken root. Which means that the state in Norway was expected to invest the oil revenue to benefit the people, not for the benefit of foreign oil interest in an alliance with a wealthy few as is often the case. This backdrop explains for example why Musk may find that Tesla needs to withdraw from Sweden unless they sign the deal with the trade unions. Or, as some will have it: Musk and some others will succeed in delivering a coup de grâce to the Nordic model, it has admittedly been withering for some time.
DeathArrow 3y ago
>What political/economic philosophers are the Nordic economic & political systems based on? They were based on socialism and progresism but things are changing since recently people started voting with the right.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago

When I saw the title, what instantly flashed in my mind was Ibsen and Hamsun. Only then, as I clicked through, did I think about Fosse or Knausgård. Long before Norway became a wealthy oil nation, it had authors known on an international level. Indeed, Ibsen is referenced enough in early and mid 20th-century anglophone culture that you can see that he was a pretty popular figure, not just a concern of a tiny literary elite.

namaria 3y ago

> This feels like over-analysis. > Many other "rich" countries, whatever the source of their wealth, do not have the same people-investment attitude. I think this suffices to wonder why Norway achieves better outcomes and how. Doesn't seem trivial at all to me.

timwaagh 3y ago

I don't think this analysis is any better and at least the article tries to tell a story. Sweden, a country next door with not that many people and no oil has someone named Ibrahimovic who is a bit more than a talent. They also produced some of the most hyped novels of the last decade and some of the worst furniture and probably a few other cherry picked examples. The point is they're just as talented as the Norwegians yet 'no oil'.