6 ms·

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 wi

by 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.

by hilux 3y ago

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.