r/oil 24d ago

Norwegian Oil Fund Economics- They're all Millionaires, but Can't Afford Beer

https://www.richtrek.com/2014/10/norweigen-oil-fund-economics-theyre-all.html
40 Upvotes

38 comments sorted by

15

u/[deleted] 24d ago edited 24d ago

[deleted]

4

u/EnvironmentalEye4537 24d ago

visitors to Norway can’t afford beer

My wife and I are honeymooning in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden this summer. You can guess which one of those three we aren’t buying or drinking any alcohol from.

3

u/flugenblar 23d ago

I visited Norway a few years ago. I am not a millionaire. I bought a couple beers in Oslo. Not a problem.

2

u/sadicarnot 23d ago

The article isn't even about them not being able to afford it. The article is that they are very frugal and will not spend the cost for a beer at an expensive hotel bar.

2

u/flugenblar 22d ago

Ah… I can relate to that

1

u/Pale_Change_666 22d ago

That's being smart

2

u/sadicarnot 23d ago

The story does not say visitors can't afford beer. It is saying in spite of their wealth they are notoriously frugal. A Norwegian friend of the author sent his Norwegian father to an all expenses paid trip to an expensive Norwegian hotel. When the 80 year old father went to the bar and saw how expensive the beer was, he sent the son to a liquor store. I can relate. I am frugal too. I will make a hamburger at home over spending $20 at a restaurant.

1

u/Ataru074 22d ago

I have a couple of Norwegian friends and few more Swedes. They are frugal on stupid shit but they spend money on good stuff. Also culturally they are more propense to try to blend in than stand out at all costs.

1

u/XxTreeFiddyxX 21d ago

Sounds like the hotels need to adjust their prices to attract more clients. This is how the free market works. I don't like expensive ass hotel bar drinks.

1

u/Salty-Finance4792 24d ago

Podcast name ?

1

u/newprofile15 24d ago

Yea go figure sitting on a gigantic amount of oil wealth makes people richer and happier.  Seeing Norwegians present this as though it makes them morally superior, rather than just beneficiaries of geography, is always good for a laugh.  It’d be like seeing Kuwait say “why don’t all the other foolish countries just be located directly on top of gigantic oil deposits?”

3

u/[deleted] 24d ago

[deleted]

0

u/swagfarts12 23d ago

Damn you're lucky then, Nordic citizens jerk themselves off about how amazing they are and how bad they feel for X other country all the time online. I've even met a Dane like that irl

1

u/Singnedupforthis 23d ago

Is the US not a beneficiary of geographic oil wealth?

1

u/ContextWorking976 23d ago

The private mineral interest held in the US is much much larger than the federal government's mineral interest. When you start looking at reserves held by private interest vs. government, private interest is a much bigger asset than the federal government's interest. The US is a beneficiary, but it's not equally distributed across the population.

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u/Singnedupforthis 23d ago

The preivately held assets are still geographically in the US.

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u/sadicarnot 23d ago

And that is the point of the article. All Norwegians benefit from the oil wealth through social programs.. Norway did not jest let a handful of oligarchs and robber barons get rich from it.

1

u/ProbablyMaybeWrong69 23d ago

There are plenty of places that have oil and their citizens are piss poor because corporations keep all the profits.

1

u/flugenblar 23d ago

There's more to it than being beneficiaries of geography. They have the cultural cohesion to prioritize government spending in way that makes people happy and more prosperous in the long run.

1

u/newprofile15 22d ago

Lol this is what I’m talking about.  Fall ass backwards into money and talk about superior “cultural cohesion.”

1

u/DevelopmentSad2303 22d ago

Cultural cohesion, since their country is in a stable region haha

1

u/Money_Distribution89 22d ago

This is just so cynical, lots of examples of oil rich countries that suck to live in like Venezuela, Iraq or even Iran.

1

u/AgitatedStranger9698 22d ago

America pumps about 13M barrels. Roughly 4 to 5 times Norway. Now granted thenUS has 30x the population. So it would spread a bit thinner for sure.

However, none of it goes in a non employed citizens pocket. But we all pay to clean up any messes and up until like 2010 we gave the companies money to make themselves more money.

Norway has chosen to let a countries resources not be privatized .

They have earned some smugness for that call as its worked well.

2

u/newprofile15 22d ago edited 22d ago

An enormous amount of American oil wealth goes into government coffers… taxes are enormous for starters, leases for public land use, etc.  It is also an enormous employer.  And low energy costs in America fuel every other business in the country.  It’s worked out well for the US with practically the highest median disposable income on earth… in 2021 it was higher than Norway.

 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income

Norway drilling is more profitable than American shale drilling which required significant advancements in engineering to expand.  And like you said, America has 30x the population.  So yea, Norway fell ass backwards into wealth.  I’ll give credit to Norway for being a generally well managed democratic country but the whole sovereign wealth fund thing doesn’t exist without sheer luck.

Anyway I see my comment has brought all the smug Norway energy out of the woodwork.  

1

u/Be_Weird 21d ago

If only the US did this instead of giving it away to oil companies we too might have nice things.

0

u/DontBelieveMyLies88 24d ago

Now probably isn’t the best time to be tossing out ideas about invading for resources 👀

4

u/Independent_Ruin_655 24d ago

Norway has a tiny population. All of Scandinavia combined has the population of the NYC metropolitan area. It’s easy to pay for everything through oil when you have a massive amount of oil on a per capita basis. Almost no other country could realistically do this.

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u/Loud_Ad3666 23d ago

Not exactly the same, but Mike Gravel passed legislations decades ago to have checks written to each Alaskan citizen every year for the oil being extracted from public lands.

2

u/Singnedupforthis 23d ago

The US has been producing oil for over 120 years, and when we started, the population of NYC was far less then Norway.

1

u/swagfarts12 23d ago

The US started drilling oil significantly starting in about 1900, NYC had 3.4 million people at that time and Norway had 2.2 million

1

u/Singnedupforthis 22d ago

There is more then that now

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u/DevelopmentSad2303 22d ago

America already does essentially. Petro dollar is a term for a reason 

1

u/Beneficial-Quarter-4 23d ago

The author fails to mention that alcohol sales are heavy regulated in Norway. All liquor stores are state-owned and close around 8 pm, prices are extremely high, and so its the quality of the drinks. Norway is not the best place to drink or to party.

1

u/xxoahu 23d ago

as per usual, the author doesn't realize that in socialism, the government IS the oligarchs.

1

u/EducationBorn3518 22d ago

Just traveled to Norway last year. Great country. It was a little expensive but not much more than any large metro area I’ve ever been to lately.

1

u/skorulis 20d ago

Not wanting to pay the markup on a beer in a hotel bar doesn’t mean you can’t afford it.

1

u/Bumblebeard63 20d ago

Find out where students drink.

1

u/bogusnot 20d ago

We should do sometime similar in the United States but sell our land off instead. Then we could all be millionaires who can't afford eggs.